Ciovita faking review stats

[Paulst12]

7 hours ago, JBK said:

Hi there - I picked up on this comment and want to discuss further but don't want to high-jack this thread.

 

Please have a look here and jump on board this discussion : 

 

 

 

Assos live forever... but the price takes forever to pay off 🙂 

[Quagga]

22 hours ago, karma said:

I hear you, but I think you need to go read the definition of "faking".

How do you know " Ciovita block those reviews which IMO is kinda lame and dishonest of them. " as a matter of fact? 

 

 Faking:

to pretend to be something that one is not or to have some knowledge or ability that one does not really have

 

OP said they only publish good reviews and since his bad review was not published I think he has the "how do you know that" also covered

If the only publish good reviews they are faking there "ratings"  or "average rating score.

[Iwan Kemp]

13 hours ago, Danger Dassie said:

Eeeer I did read it and believe they gave a good account of their practice. Can keep going in circles on the finer semantics, but on the whole they’re not being dishonest if we actually look at it objectively. 

Respectfully disagree. And apologies to Ciovita for having this discussion here...

Think of it this way: What is the purpose of reviews if not for a prospective buyer to get an idea of what they are buying into? Good service, good quality control, good value for money, etc., etc., etc. But in this case, as in many cases online, the company ONLY shows the reviews they've cherry-picked. How convenient. Now, as a prospective buyer, you will have no idea of some of the "known" issues that shouldn't necessarily stop the sale, but at least make you aware. Imagine there were some reviews online about the sizing issues, this may help some buyers to double-check before they buy rather than go through the hassle of buying the wrong size, having to return it, etc. 

Disclaimer: not having a go at Ciovita as I know of several companies who do this, and I 100% do not agree with or like the practice.

******

Now back to Ciovita:

Quote

over the past 90 days our 1 and 2 star reviews only made up 3.68% of our total

With a a figure that low they should have no issue including them on their site and rather work internally to bring that down rather than hiding them away from the buying public.

 

Looking at this, no one ever has an issue with Ciovita. 

Now call that whatever the hell you want, but that is not an honest portrayal of the actual situation. But at the same time, according to their own stats adding the negative reviews will have little no no real impact on those stats so why exclude them?

******
@Danger Dassie think about this the next time you book into that 4.8-star B&B only to find out that it is nothing like their online profile. Or when you eat out and don't understand why all of a sudden a spot with good reviews serves you a sub-par meal. Call it gaming, call it massaging the truth, call it acceptable practice, call it what you want, but it sure as hell ain't the truth.

******
Come on @CIOVITA, do what's RIGHT, whether the alternative is accepted or not. That's not too much to ask. 
 

Edited June 11 by Iwan Kemp

[Quagga]

15 hours ago, Iwan Kemp said:

I hear ya, also I feel ya. BUT! Here is the problem:
 

A review is a review, you can't decide which ones suit your marketing message. If resolved, add functionality where the reviewer can post an update. Doing that is being transparent, and more truthful and will help build trust that when things go wrong, Ciovita's CS team will assist. 

 

Why not reply to good reviews with a "Thank You" and then mark those as resolved as well? The answer is pretty simple, innit? Do what's right and play both sides of the album. YOU who is typing here as Ciovita is also a consumer and would love for all companies, brands and people you deal with to be honest and truthful. 

So they just admitted that any bad review is removed as they deemed it "problem solved so the the review does not need to there"

HMM what nonsense, they made a product that had a flaw and resolved it for that customer, However the customer still had a bad one star experience.

I was about to get some baggies from them, however NOPE!

[Danger Dassie]

17 minutes ago, Iwan Kemp said:

Respectfully disagree. And apologies to Ciovita for having this discussion here...

Think of it this way: What is the purpose of reviews if not for a prospective buyer to get an idea of what they are buying into? Good service, good quality control, good value for money, etc., etc., etc. But in this case, as in many cases online, the company ONLY shows the reviews they've cherry-picked. How convenient. Now, as a prospective buyer, you will have no idea of some of the "known" issues that shouldn't necessarily stop the sale, but at least make you aware. Imagine there were some reviews online about the sizing issues, this may help some buyers to double-check before they buy rather than go through the hassle of buying the wrong size, having to return it, etc. 

Disclaimer: not having a go at Ciovita as I know of several companies who do this, and I 100% do not agree with or like the practice.

******

Now back to Ciovita:

With a a figure that low they should have no issue including them on their site and rather work internally to bring that down rather than hiding them away from the buying public.

 

Looking at this, no one ever has an issue with Ciovita. 

Now call that whatever the hell you want, but that is not an honest portrayal of the actual situation. But at the same time, according to their own stats adding the negative reviews will have little no no real impact on those stats so why exclude them?

******
@Danger Dassie think about this the next time you book into that 4.8-star B&B only to find out that it is nothing like their online profile. Or when you eat out and don't understand why all of a sudden a spot with good reviews serves you a sub-par meal. Call it gaming, call it massaging the truth, call it acceptable practice, call it what you want, but it sure as hell ain't the truth.

******
Come on @CIOVITA, do what's RIGHT, whether the alternative is accepted or not. That's not too much to ask. 
 

Those aren't from the website but are Google/FB online reviews no? Which can't be removed/edited by Ciovita.
All of which I notice also have some review posts that aren't entirely positive, as Karma pointed out earlier.

I never rely on website reviews, I absolutely don't lean on Google/FB review ratings, unless I go through a few review posts beforehand. So don't worry about I need to think about, I'm just fine chum. 
I also don't have any skin in the game. 

[Barry]

31 minutes ago, Quagga said:

I was about to get some baggies from them, however NOPE!

And this is how the Essential kit bag looks after been used several times yes over a period of one year but still expected longer for the pricetag. Waterproofing just disintegrate. 

Edited June 11 by Barry

[DieselnDust]

7 minutes ago, Barry said:

And this is how the Essential kit bag looks after been used several times yes over a period of one year but still excited longer for the pricetag. Waterproofing just disintegrate. 

Same happened to my bag. 
bought it at the CTCT expo 2019. By the end of 2019 the lining was crumbling badly. My wife’s bag was still fine. 

[Barry]

3 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Same happened to my bag. 
bought it at the CTCT expo 2019. By the end of 2019 the lining was crumbling badly. My wife’s bag was still fine. 

Got my bag from Cycle Lab took it back  and they phoned Ciovita. Sorry end of line discontinued suck it up.

[Kom]

6 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Same happened to my bag. 
bought it at the CTCT expo 2019. By the end of 2019 the lining was crumbling badly. My wife’s bag was still fine. 

Ive got KWAY bags that do this too. Might be the local canvas suppliers problem.

[SSCC]

17 hours ago, CIOVITA said:

Customer Service team to get in touch with the reviewer directly to resolve the issue they reported. While some of these reviews are not relevant to the specific product, completed incorrectly or completely incoherent we do get responses relating to unique issues from sizing to manufacturing faults, historically we have been able to assist the overwhelming majority of these outliers though, hence rendering these reviews as resolved.

@Iwan Kemp on the topic of calculating averages, over the past 90 days our 1 and 2 star reviews only made up 3.68% of our total, while our 5 star reviews made up 78.16% a trend that has been consistent for more than 18 months. These stats are generated by an external review platform that's built onto our website and can't be altered manually. We don't make these numbers up.

If anyone has submitted feedback without a response, please feel free to contact us on info@ciovita.com and the team would be happy to assist. 
 

To me it's a question on honesty and respecting your customers @CIOVITA  

You do not publish one and two star reviews even if it's a well thought out review from a verified customer. In fact your team ignores questions about why those reviews are not posted.

Even if the review app is a plugin (or external platform as you put it) you control what that App displays by screening reviews. By excluding the 1 and 2 star reviews you are "gaming" or faking the overall review percentages the plugin produces. So the overall rating ends up being as fake as your <3% "merino" jersey. It's a slippery slope. 

BTW - I actually really like some of the other Ciovita products I have.

[karma]

Quote

  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Men's Etape Sport Fit Jersey (Flame)",
  "url": "https:\/\/ciovita.co.za\/products\/mens-flame-etape-sport-fit-jersey",
    .....
  "description": "snipped......"
  "sku": "6009553515652",
  "category": "Cycling Jersey","aggregateRating": {
      "@type": "AggregateRating",
      "ratingValue": "5.0",
      "ratingCount": "3",
      "bestRating": "5.0",
      "worstRating": "1.0"
    },"brand": {
    "@type": "Brand",
    "name": "CIOVITA"
  }

Above you can see the ratings, might just not be shown on the page, but the aggregation seems to exclude the worstRating, 

 

Similar below:

Quote

<option value="rating asc">Lowest Rating</option><option value="unhelpful desc">

Reviews are clearly not deleted, but as example, the reason for the low rating is not because of the product.

My conclusion is the data is there, but their external party widget can/could hide it while being reviewed. 

Edited June 11 by karma

[Iwan Kemp]

7 minutes ago, karma said:

Above you can see the ratings, might just not be shown on the page, but the aggregation seems to exclude the worstRating, 

 

Similar below:

Reviews are clearly not deleted, but as example, the reason for the low rating is not because of the product.

My conclusion is the data is there, but their external party widget can/could hide it while being reviewed. 

All website platforms offer a plugin where reviews can be addressed/viewed/replied to on a page away from the product page, or at least your live to the public website. You can either set this plugin to auto-publish any reviews above a certain star rating or hold all reviews for review before selecting which ones to be published to your site. Some also offer functionality to exclude unpublished reviews from the overall product rating tally. That's called cooking the books. 

[Quagga]

30 minutes ago, karma said:

Above you can see the ratings, might just not be shown on the page, but the aggregation seems to exclude the worstRating, 

 

Similar below:

Reviews are clearly not deleted, but as example, the reason for the low rating is not because of the product.

My conclusion is the data is there, but their external party widget can/could hide it while being reviewed. 

So that is what the OP said. It is not published. Hidden etc.

[SSCC]

On 6/10/2024 at 8:26 PM, Danger Dassie said:

Eeeer I did read it and believe they gave a good account of their practice. Can keep going in circles on the finer semantics, but on the whole they’re not being dishonest if we actually look at it objectively. 

By their own admission they do not post the 1 and 2 star product reviews. Ever. Those reviews never make it onto the website or into the overall product review averages. You may call that “finer semantics” I call it gaming / faking / manipulation the stats in a dishonest way. 

[Shebeen]

40 minutes ago, SSCC said:

By their own admission they do not post the 1 and 2 star product reviews. Ever. Those reviews never make it onto the website or into the overall product review averages. You may call that “finer semantics” I call it gaming / faking / manipulation the stats in a dishonest way. 

wow, they admitted to flagging and then presumably not publishing low reviews.

Skimming this thread, clearly the Corsa 2.0 have had issues. Go here and it's 4.9 stars.

https://ciovita.co.za/products/mens-corsa-bib-shorts-2-0?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=8a74ee27e&pr_rec_pid=4445165846603&pr_ref_pid=7656696905912&pr_seq=uniform

there's a 3* with a response, but the rest not. So much for "sorting out the issue directly".

 

your move Ciovita, you can always ignore the bikehub, but this thread has just made me ignore your entire review ratings and would only buy something in person.

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Corsa 2.0's have just been removed from my Fathers Day wish list 🙄