Blemishing Effect
When everyone ONLY wants the BEST for their products why do they choose to leave those negative ratings / reviews lying there on social channels?
Imagine you are looking up a cozy apartment in your vicinity in the process of planning to accommodate friends & family who are visiting you.
What would be your goto?
Run a Google search for “service apartments near me”, look at the suggestions, narrow in on the area and individually pick and choose listings whilst spending time browsing through reviews!
When doing so, how often have you stumbled on a listing looking like this?
Wow! That’s all hunky-dory, isn’t it?
It certainly has a star-studded 4.9 / 5 rating & some rave reviews.
But, give this some serious thought. How would you have responded if you found a negative review with a really low rating amidst those positive ones with the verbatim that read of something totally tangential like, “not too much greenery around”...!?
What would your perception of the place be when you came across this 1-star rating after going through all those 5-stars? Would it stop you from shortlisting it as a potential location or would your opinion remain unchanged owing to how the positive reviews already seemed to influenced you well enough?
Well! Brace yourself for this.
Statistics suggest that users tend to get more influenced & their positive perception gets more stronger after they see a weakly poised negative review interspersed with those positive ones.
That may be the “blemishing effect” kicking in & taking effect.
The Principle
Based on repeated patches of research conducted by Jones & Goethals in 1971, Lord, Ross & Lepper in 1979, surprising as it seemed back then they found how the initial positive reaction of people & their attitude could end up getting more pronounced as they seem to encounter a bout of negativity induced by contradictory & yet tangential / vaguely related arguments that only bolsters the positivity given how people subconsciously write-off those small negatives.
Definition:
The blemishing effect describes the customers' tendency to perceive positive information more strongly when some negative information is presented. Inclusion of a few negatives so as to make those positives look super-positive, but under some preconditions.
Blemishing Effect works on the core logic that the weak negatives would play a big part in upholding when they get strategically interspersed with the strong positives ones especially after most users have encountered the positives and it has sunk it pretty well.
But just like everything under the sun, this also has a catch which brings us to “primacy and its effects”
Primacy effects (coined by Asch 1946) which also has a correlation to Hick’s Law does suggest that users would form their impressions on what’s fed to them first as opposed to what they encounter later on. The minimal time they take towards processing all the positives the better the chances of conversion.
Just take a look at the underlying image. Although they come from different eras, for a second just imagine they co-existed today as 2 prime options.
Which of these would you pick if you had to get online and run a search?
(A rhetorical question, yes, I know)
In addition to that, if the positives are super strong and make a compelling case, the blemishing effect in theory proposes that mild negatives if fed right after the positive ones sans major contradictions, is sure to favor the product well.
So, as it is pretty evident there are 2 major preconditions the Blemishing effect ought to meet:
The processing effort for those strong positives ought to be pretty LOW, meaning primacy ought to take over
The so-called “blemish” should occur ONLY after the positive stimulus has been fed & well digested
NOTE: Beware of the strategic position of the blemish (weak negatives). If they are deliberately pushed to the end they may fail to make any impact & could also attack the credibility of your brand.
You ought to just remember two phrases to understand & implement the “Blemishing Effect” successfully so as to optimize your conversion rates:
1. “STRONG POSITIVES” &
2. “WEAK NEGATIVES”
specifically in that order
Case Study – discovering the aftermath of the blemishing effect:
Consider a case of a manufacturer / online seller who is registered as a merchant on one of the D2C (eCommerce) channels. Supposing “Sweatshirts” is the ONLY product that they focus on, their core area of focus & also the concept of the store. Not surprisingly they brand themselves as “Only Sweatshirts”.
Let’s say the org. has been operative for 3 years and started with a storefront expanding to 5 of them in such time with decent revenues. They then decide to take the D2C route as a strategic move to improve awareness, visibility & ultimately sales revenues.
It could only be but natural for one to perceive the list of products housed on the channel to be a major classification of Hoodies and Sweatshirts further hosting an exhaustive categories / classes of hoodies like, Regular Hoody, Raglan Hoody, Baja Hoody, Cropped Hoody, Asymmetrical Hoody and sweatshirts like Zipper Sweatshirt, Crewneck Sweatshirt, Sleeveless Sweatshirt, Mock Neck Sweatshirt & Pullovers.
The products get listed online and they see some traction in terms of views and impressions, a select few of them making it to the user’s carts as well.
But, the conversion across the funnel from there on wasn’t something they could boast of, blame it on lack of marketing. Now, the organization allots a budget and spends a restricted amount on marketing so as to build more awareness in the market and begins to see some revenues shore up, the sturdy build quality of the garment / fabric contributing to it in a large way alright which quite naturally begins to reflect in their ratings & reviews.
Like so…
Over their quest of providing a great UX “Only Sweatshirts” drafted some strong policies to lay negative ratings to rest, offering to solve ANY kind of user disputes / problems which often meant obliging to unusual requests.
But their analytics had a different story to tell. Revenues showed a gradual dip when the traction was intact (if not showing a slight improvement).
The major finding was (and as is evident) the users not moving beyond the impressions, not adding the products to the cart. What was happening? It was unclear. And then out of the blue this happened.
Post that event, Only Sweatshirts somehow saw a magical increase in their revenues, although the percentage didn’t indicate a runaway success, at least not in the beginning.
Turns out the low 1* - rating (weak negative) did work in their favor. With such a wide range of sweatshirts and hoodies on offer with classes / subclasses unknown to a large section of the audience, the comment “not too much variety” was obviously looked upon as laughable (although that may have been subjective to the maturity of a market / geography though).
There’s no doubt, “Only Sweatshirts” in our case study here may have discovered how the blemishing effect could work in their favor all by chance. But YOU needn’t, as you already know how it works now.
Conclusion
Get the Blemishing Effect to work to your advantage. Wherever you have a review and rating system in place for any of your products which perhaps goes without saying given how every business has some kind of an online presence, make sure you understand the importance of identifying those small negatives and use it wisely giving enough room for that blemish to kick in and take effect amidst the other positives / super-positives.
But ensure you showcase positives to make a great impression at first.