As many of you may know I manage the USA TechGuide website. This site is dedicated to a number of things but mostly to user reviews of wheelchairs, mobility scooters, and a few other related devices. Thousands of visitors stop there every day to poke around and take in the offerings.
TechGuide’s primary mission is to give wheelchair users insights that may help them make an informed decision when ordering a wheelchair. I have for sometime realized that this single decision, selecting the right wheelchair or mobility scooter, is a critical one that can make or break you. I also know that a number of industry people monitor these reviews. That’s fine since I would hope that when they see negative comments that they would look toward improving their product. Likewise, positive comments may help in planning or engineering future models or at a minimum let them know that their product is on the mark and that end users like what they are wheeling in.
All reviews submitted are approved first. Not for anything related to the users opinion but just for language. Some users can lay some seriously “X” rated language down when it comes to a wheelchair that is busting their chops.
Over the last few days I have received a number of glowing reviews on products made by a certain manufacturer whose products have traditionally been beat up pretty badly by reviewers. All of these reviews read pretty much the same and all ended with the same sales like bravado and hype. You know, like the head of sales scripted the review for the user.
OK, I’m easy and I know that there is a real world out there with lots of wheelchair money hanging in the balance. So being a *liberal sort of person I of course approve these for posting. Let’s call it benefit of the doubt. All of the reviewers were thinking the same thing when they wrote the reviews. It’s a kindred spirit thing or a mass telepathic experience of some kind.
Then, I start to receive email requests from users who had already posted negative reviews on the same companies products asking to take the reviews down. Sure thing! I can understand it. A few months ago or a few years ago when they wrote the reviews they thought that the product was a confirmed bummer but after some thought and possibly some motivation all of that changed. Anyway, I don’t feel that I own the reviews. I just showcase them for the public to view. So down they came.
Do I think that these reviewers were solicited to do what they did? No doubt that I do. Does it bother me? It’s not the manufacturer’s end of the deal that bothers me. I expect that business will always be business no matter how it is conducted. It just rubs me raw that consumers who initially had submitted these reviews to help other wheelchair and scooter users would turn so easily.
Oh well, I hope that these reviewers at least got paid for their public relations work. I’d feel much better knowing that some wheelies out there made a dollar or two off of the manufacturer.
*Actually I’m a techno-liberal. That’s someone who thinks that everyone should get all of the assistive technology that is needed to make one productive and independent regardless of expense. It’s a small club and getting smaller all of the time. Want to join?
