Merchants who only publish positive reviews...

It would be helpful to list the merchants that have this policy.  I am not looking for trouble but would appreciate this factual information.

Not going to do that.

That italic font man. I'd delete your review too if it was in that heavy italic font...

Just kidding...

I want to read the reviews. Good and bad. I would rather see the truth than a curated love fest. I still buy stuff that doesn't have strictly good reviews if I can read a well reasoned negative review. Scent is subjective and if you felt strongly about it enough to explain the luke warm rating along with a weighted outline of how you got there, I would like to know if I was considering the purchase.

That's my font, and I am sticking to it.

Barrister_N_Mann that sounds like you went above and beyond to ensure broken bottle guy was happy. What more could you do. He may have actually received a broken bottle or even two broken bottles (having seen how you pack those it would be surprising but it can happen) but its also possible he was just trying to see how many bottles of EdP you would send him for the price of just one. Some people will do things like this, sure they're crooks but you get all kinds. One of my brothers was partners in a wine shop and in addition to the normal stock they had some premium bottles on hand, big bucks. They've had people who come in on a friday talking about a special occasion they want a really special bottle of wine for and after much back and forth talking the wine talk they leave with a big ticket bottle. Guess what? Monday they're back with the opened bottle full of wine complaining that the wine was corked or otherwise not what it should be and their big occasion was ruined and they're upset and demand a refund. Which they will get after the contents have been tested at a lab to ensure its the same wine that was in the bottle when it left the store on friday. Customer says fine, he'll check back in a week and leaves never to be heard from again. Right, he drank the wine and refilled the bottle with plonk and tried to get his money back, aka steal the wine. Some of those broken bottles might have turned up on ebay. I've got to stop reading the news, it gives me a bleak view of human nature.

I think if I were a retailer, I probly wouldnt have a feedback option at all. I wouldnt want people trashing my product without discussing it with me, and all positive reviews get annoying and seem fake as time goes on.


And that my friends is why DFS is here for us. Post your thoughts on a product, discuss it with others to see if they have the same inclination, and move on. Shave sites that cherry pick their users also cherry pick the topics that are discussed. I think some dont recognize the value afforded to us in a forum like DFS. I know it might seem like I am kicking this thread sideways, but its all inter-connected.

As a merchant, negative reviews are tough. It's always hard to hear when someone is dissatisfied with one (or more) of our products. There are, on occasion, reviews that I don't publish because they're absurd. One example that sticks out in my mind is a man who ordered a bottle of Fougère Gothique EdP. We shipped him a bottle, which arrived broken, so we shipped him a second bottle. It too arrived broken. He sent me an email requesting a refund, which I gave him promptly. Made sense, rather than just throwing good perfume out into the ether. Sometimes, you just cannot protect the product enough, but, thankfully, broken bottles are extremely unusual.

Anyway, he then proceeded to write a one-star review saying that I didn't stand behind my product. This, to me, was so petty and ill-mannered that I simply didn't publish it. It's not a review of the product or of my customer service; it's a load of griping written by someone who just was determined to be displeased.

That said, such occurrences are rare. A far better methodology, and one that I practice and see practiced by most of my colleagues, is to allow negative reviews to be published, but to answer them with some way to prevent the customer from having a negative experience in the future. Sometimes, it's simply a matter of someone not liking something. I had a two-star review for Gothique EdP show up the other day from someone who had gotten a sample and found it too strong for his taste. I've no way to answer that, really, so I simply let it post as-is.

The point is that you're absolutely right and that it's a bad practice to cherry pick positive reviews. Far better to allow as many reviews as possible, both good and bad, to be published, but to attempt to help the dissatisfied party avoid the issue in the future. But, in unusual cases, it's simply not appropriate to allow a review to be published, and publishing every single one without restraint can open a retailer up to slander, so it's occasionally a matter of discretion.

I like the way reviews and reviewers are handled on the Barrister and Mann website. You folks almost always reply to negative reviews and show excellent effort in trying to remedy the problem. That's customer service and a great way to keep people coming back! I was just reading examples of these interactions in the past couple of weeks.

primotenore, this is a great thread and I'm with you, I don't care for sites that only publish positive reviews. I think that vendors should give us enough credit to weed through the negative reviews. It is usually fairly obvious when people post things just to be negative or are bashing. Sometimes people just don't have a clue. Reading strictly "fan mail" doesn't help me decide where I want to spend my money.

Barrister_N_Mann that sounds like you went above and beyond to ensure broken bottle guy was happy.  What more could you do.  He may have actually received a broken bottle or even two broken bottles (having seen how you pack those it would be surprising but it can happen) but its also possible he was just trying to see how many bottles of EdP you would send him for the price of just one.  Some people will do things like this, sure they're crooks but you get all kinds.  One of my brothers was partners in a wine shop and in addition to the normal stock they had some premium bottles on hand, big bucks.  They've had people who come in on a friday talking about a special occasion they want a really special bottle of wine for and after much back and forth talking the wine talk they leave with a big ticket bottle.  Guess what?  Monday they're back with the opened bottle full of wine complaining that the wine was corked or otherwise not what it should be and their big occasion was ruined and they're upset and demand a refund.  Which they will get after the contents have been tested at a lab to ensure its the same wine that was in the bottle when it left the store on friday.  Customer says fine, he'll check back in a week and leaves never to be heard from again.  Right, he drank the wine and refilled the bottle with plonk and tried to get his money back, aka steal the wine. Some of those broken bottles might have turned up on ebay.   I've got to stop reading the news, it gives me a bleak view of human nature.

I had had a similar thought, Marko, though he sent me pictures of the broken bottles. So at least one was destroyed, if not the second one. Ah well.

As a merchant, negative reviews are tough. It's always hard to hear when someone is dissatisfied with one (or more) of our products. There are, on occasion, reviews that I don't publish because they're absurd. One example that sticks out in my mind is a man who ordered a bottle of Fougère Gothique EdP. We shipped him a bottle, which arrived broken, so we shipped him a second bottle. It too arrived broken. He sent me an email requesting a refund, which I gave him promptly. Made sense, rather than just throwing good perfume out into the ether. Sometimes, you just cannot protect the product enough, but, thankfully, broken bottles are extremely unusual.

Anyway, he then proceeded to write a one-star review saying that I didn't stand behind my product. This, to me, was so petty and ill-mannered that I simply didn't publish it. It's not a review of the product or of my customer service; it's a load of griping written by someone who just was determined to be displeased.

That said, such occurrences are rare. A far better methodology, and one that I practice and see practiced by most of my colleagues, is to allow negative reviews to be published, but to answer them with some way to prevent the customer from having a negative experience in the future. Sometimes, it's simply a matter of someone not liking something. I had a two-star review for Gothique EdP show up the other day from someone who had gotten a sample and found it too strong for his taste. I've no way to answer that, really, so I simply let it post as-is.

The point is that you're absolutely right and that it's a bad practice to cherry pick positive reviews. Far better to allow as many reviews as possible, both good and bad, to be published, but to attempt to help the dissatisfied party avoid the issue in the future. But, in unusual cases, it's simply not appropriate to allow a review to be published, and publishing every single one without restraint can open a retailer up to slander, so it's occasionally a matter of discretion.

I like the way reviews and reviewers are handled on the Barrister and Mann website.  You folks almost always reply to negative reviews and show excellent effort in trying to remedy the problem.  That's customer service and a great way to keep people coming back!  I was just reading examples of these interactions in the past couple of weeks.  

primotenore, this is a great thread and I'm with you, I don't care for sites that only publish positive reviews.  I think that vendors should give us enough credit to weed through the negative reviews.  It is usually fairly obvious when people post things just to be negative or are bashing.  Sometimes people just don't have a clue.  Reading strictly "fan mail" doesn't help me decide where I want to spend my money.

That's very kind of you to say!

First thing I learned in management is that, no matter how hard I tried, there are just some people who don't want to be happy. As soon as I shifted my focus to doing what was right both by my moral code and in line with the company mission while providing the quality of service I would want, my job has been made that much easier and enjoyable. I deal exclusively with the vendors and artisans that follow this same model and even my negative experiences are quickly remedied. There are plenty of such vendors in this little hobby of ours and my "reviews" are my return visits and strongly recommending their products and services to anyone who is interested in wet shaving.

I think there is a small difference between artisan websites and reviews and merchants websites and reviews. The artisans are just regular people and sometimes not experienced in the business and customer relations side of things and they may sometimes take comments personally which is totally understandable and they react accordingly. With time the skills develop and the skin thickens and it becomes easier - I think. This online social media thing is weird in that there seems to be people who cruise around like sharks looking for blood in the water and then they pounce in the nastiest ways. Very unpleasant and it spoils it for the 99% of people who just want to either discuss or get issues dealt with.

As far as negative reviews, I generally read them if they seem well reasoned because I can tell what they're either liking or disliking and then view it through my own filter and determine if its the sort of problem I might have. When I look at sites like amazon I'm happier if there are a lot of reviews than if there are very few. And its hilarious when people give a great 5 star review but then say in the review that they haven't actually used the product yet. WTF? There is a website, I can't recall the name, that rates the reviews of specific online websites and tells you the likelihood that they're BS or not based on some kind of algorithm that compares the reviews - how many are from different people but in reality written by the same person and so forth. Indeed, what I like about forums like DFS is that we can be reasonably confident that reviews and feedback are sincere.

 There is a website, I can't recall the name, that rates the reviews of specific online websites and tells you the likelihood that they're BS or not based on some kind of algorithm that compares the reviews - how many are from different people but in reality written by the same person and so forth.

https://www.fakespot.com/

Worse things can happen beyond not publishing a negative review!

Boss travels 500 miles to 'BEAT UP a customer who left bad review for late delivery'