Rapid development of the web and online shopping has turned, due to unlimited ways of communication, the users of the web into active consumers, who critically assess the information on the web and whose source of information is no longer only the company. In this paper, I highlighted some key changes and developments, brought about to consumers and companies by the increase in the web use, and then I focused on customer reviews. I was interested in the characteristics that, according to Slovene web users, nowadays increase a company's credibility and the reliability of a read customer review. By providing an overview of literature, I prepared a framework to conduct in-depth interviews with the selected participants who regularly shop online and read customer reviews before purchasing a new product or service for the first time. Based on the assessment of certain customer reviews and direct questions, I can claim that some characteristics, determined as essential to assess credibility by other authors, proved to be important to Slovene readers of customer reviews as well. The most important factor of credibility proved to be argumentation quality, and the strongest aspects within it were the comprehensiveness of the review and opposing viewpoints. According to Slovene customers, providing concrete argumentation and description of a product's characteristics upon its use as well as stating both positive and negative aspects are some of the key indicators of reliability and credibility of the review. Another important aspect was also negative information framing, as readers believe it is less likely that a company would give its products or services a negative review. In contrast to the information of sources provided by other authors, two negligible factors of the increased credibility of reviews proved to be source credibility and review rating.
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