The “Fault” in Our Stars

Figure 1. The image features four stars and several quotes from user reviews. These read: ”It’s perfect! I love it!”, “I don’t ever give 5 stars.”, The color looks different, just like you said it would.”, “Smaller than expected, but matched description exactly.”, and “I broke it.”
Figure 1. The image features four stars and several quotes from user reviews. These read: ”It’s perfect! I love it!”, “I don’t ever give 5 stars.”, The color looks different, just like you said it would.”, “Smaller than expected, but matched description exactly.”, and “I broke it.”

Let’s take a brief aside to evaluate four star ratings. Some of my most frustrating reviews over the past decade have been four star reviews. After a brief analysis of these four star reviews, almost half of those our shop received contained the words “perfect” and “love.” When kindly questioned if there was anything we could have done to help us get a perfect score, several customers stated that they simply don’t give five star reviews to any products ever. I have stopped asking this question as some consumers retaliate and end up lowering their initial review, citing that all we cared about was a review. Other customers state that the color is different than pictured, just like it was clearly stated in the listing and/or as the customer requested a custom color or variation… and so it did, indeed, vary. Maybe the item was smaller than they expected, however it matched the description exactly, and they loved it. Or, more maddeningly, they broke it and didn’t let us know or refused to take a replacement despite our robust policies stating that if they break an item we will replace it, no questions asked. There is no policy, kindness, or gesture that can remedy these situations, and that’s just how business works sometimes.