News Article Published:
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Category:
Financial Services
Customers are more likely to listen to other customers when it comes to making decisions, but increasingly influential consumers are beginning to doubt the consumer-generated reviews and opinions they find online, according to a new study.
Influential consumers, who are likely to recommend products or services both on and off line are less trusting of online reviews than they were five years ago, a survey by Burson-Marsteller revealed.
The survey of 1,000 influential consumers found that 30 per cent consider false opinions and positive comments left by corporations to be a problem compared with 20 per cent in 2001.
And, while consumer-generated content has been found to influence decision making, if consumers sense that the opinion they are reading is not genuine, they could reject the product.
The survey showed that 57 per cent would be less likely to buy a product if they thought a positive review had been written by somebody the company had paid.
E-fluentials, the group of consumers who influence their social groups' purchase decisions, speak to 50 per cent more people and share their opinions more than others, are hard to convince to take pay to promote products or services.
Instead they are more guided by noble ideals.
Some 52 per cent are motivated by wanting to bring about change compared with 34 per cent for non-influentials and half feel good about passing on information compared to the 30 per cent of non-influentials who feel the same.
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