About a year ago ago we conducted the first U.S. study on product reviewers to understand who they are and what motivates them to write reviews. In that study we found that 90% of customers write reviews to ‘help others’.

This year we conducted similar research with Keller Fay in the UK. We found – believe it or not – similar results! We conducted a post-review intercept survey across several Bazaarvoice retail clients and found that Brits are driven by altruism when they write product reviews. We surveyed almost 3,800 Brits who wrote reviews on online e-commerce sites, and 94% of them said it was important to write reviews to help other consumers make good purchase decisions.

And their altruism doesn’t end with consumers; 82% of those surveyed said they wrote reviews to help companies make better decisions about the products they offer.

Also, most UK reviews are positive – 86% of UK reviewers said they left positive feedback online, and 11% said their comments were equally split between positive and negative. This reflects what we continue to find in the ratings J-Curve, which we discovered in 2006.

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