It is probably the same mechanism by which people still tip generously even when they are not completely satisfied with the service.
People don't want to be seen as rude and they are afraid of spoiling a probably long-term relationship.
Others maybe are afraid that not giving a 5-star rating will have a disproportionate effect on the seller's reputation, and while they are not 100% satisfied, they don't want to feel guilty about bringing some stranger to potential bankruptcy and potentially making other strangers unemployed.
More tech-savvy and thus more affluent people tend not to feel so strongly about this kind of thing, and at the beginning of online commercial services, they made up the bulk of the customers. Rich people can get away with being hyper-critical in their commercial relations and yet continue to be welcomed by shops. Also, as they don't get so much of this treatment, it is usual for them not to develop this kind of empathy. Someone who has never been laid off or had to wonder how they would pay the rent if they lost their job is not triggered on an emotional level wondering what would happen to other people if the business they work in floundered as a result of bad reviews.
Frequently you are told that anything less than 5 stars will have negative consequences for the vendor whether it is a Ebay seller, Uber driver, making a credit card payment, or the service department at your car dealer. In that case you have no way to call out the truly exceptional from adequate. Adequate does make the world go ‘round.
Frequently I leave no rating because of this and sometimes, if your mobile app is pushing me to leave a rating, I will leave a 1 star rating and say I left that rating because I as trying to complete a task and they distracted me at the wrong time asking for a rating.
I gave a Lyft driver 4 stars because they got honked at by a car in their blind spot as the Lyft driver was about to change lanes into them. NBD could have, and probably has, happened to anyone. So 4 stars, "drive safety" or "drive quality" or something and "check your blind spots more carefully next time" as the note. 10 minutes later I get an email from Lyft telling me they'll reprimand the driver and possibly remove him and he's banned from ever matching with me again. So now I just give 5 stars unless something actually noteworthy happens.
Because business analyst treats anything below 5 as a failure, and often with consequences for the workers. So it's not my job to do HR's, and I don't want to pull the trigger of their gun on their employees.
If I give a waiter/seller/worker.... 3/5 stars, it means that service was OK, a bit above average, nothing to worry about. But the poor guy will be dragged through the mud at his quarterly review, so why would I inflict that unto him?
And finally, selfishly, I have other things to think about outside of where in the scale of every similar workers I interacted with this guys falls. So just take your 5 stars and let me be.
I very nearly changed banks over this particular quirk of "Anything below the maximum rating is a failure that must be addressed."
I'm one of those people who likes going into the bank lobby often enough to get cash (though the ATMs have started handing out $100s now so I do that somewhat less), and for a while, I was getting a survey phone call about every single visit. The people at the other end would ask how various aspects of the transaction were, and would not accept anything less than 10 without long explanations of how the bank teller didn't make my day the most amazing ever. They would not accept "I'm entirely happy with the transaction, it was utterly non-exceptional, the money was counted properly, and this is what I expect" as a reason for not deploying fireworks of celebration in my rating of bank encounters.
I mentioned this to the branch manager at one point when I was getting a wire transfer set up (at the time, at least, wire transfers to other countries had to go through a few hoops to make sure you weren't getting scammed), and that I was very seriously considering switching banks over this annoyance, and he very rapidly put me on a "Do not pester, no, seriously, don't..." list that solved the problem.
I just generally don't rate stuff anymore, because I don't consider "5 stars" a "meets expectations" grade rating.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and you see it in so many different places whether it’s restaurants, wine, hotels, etc.
basically, all ratings do for me now are truncate outcomes, stuff that’s rated really badly is probably best to be avoided, and stuff that’s rated really highly is unlikely to be horrible. but that’s about it, more often than not, I’d classify things rated quite highly as average/mediocre, and far far short of “excellent”
Yes, personally I find that most (with a very few exceptions) transactions are "honest", I expect to pay x for x services, or y for y services, if this happens there is nothing to be said on the matter.
In an appropriate scale these, let's say 95% of total experiences, would get a 3 or 4 stars rating, the 5 stars would be for the - still say - 2 or 3 percent actually exceptional, and the 1 star for those 2 or 3 percent that are really a total disaster.
Japan has a reasonable standard for reviews. 3 stars means the place met 100% of expectations, it was totally average. Nothing bad but nothing extraordinary, a reasonable place to spend your money that you will enjoy. 2 or 4 stars is like 90% or 110% expectations met, and 1 or 5 stars is like 50% or 150% expectations met. It’s much easier to scan a map for new places, and Japanese standards are already a bit higher than Western ones in terms of orderliness and service. I’ve been to restaurants with 3 stars (an abysmal rating in America indicative of impending doom) that were clean, delicious and friendly.
This is how it should be! That would turn ratings into something roughly useful.
As it is, I even had an argument with an Uber driver here, where he was saying that anything less than a 5 star rating is a bad rating. To me, a 3 star rating is "acceptable, not extraordinary". You don't get into "bad" territory until you're lower than 3.
I just can't go there, because if the Uber driver is correct, then what's the point of ratings at all?
The problem is that we have decided above average is not longer sufficient. Everything has to be exceptional, and if it is not, someone needs to get fired.
I have a similar anecdote from my Amazon days. Amazon started a daily survey for all employees (known as connections). It started out as a survey and very soon morphed into a tool to evaluate managers. Managers would often get comments about how their team is rating the work culture poorly and it is their responsibility to improve things (even if it is beyond their control). Everyone was/is gaming the system.
My advice to my teams was to treat it like a Uber rating -
* Everything is going well, it is a 5.
* Something minor is bad, but you can talk to your manager to close it, it is a 4.
* You are moving out of the team due to your manager, it is a 3.
* The entire team hates the manager, it is a 2.
* The entire team hates the manager and everyone else hates the manager, it is a 1
> Everything has to be exceptional, and if it is not, someone needs to get fired.
Every company with 100+ employees I worked for had a 'stack rating', so yes, people were/are getting fired constantly. Perhaps not a good analogy, perhaps it is, but yes, I genuinely think 'someone needs to get fired'.
One reason people give 5 star ratings is because they are asked to explain why if they rate lower. If companies made '3' the normal rating and asked for an explanation for higher OR lower ratings, that might normalize the ratings better.
Most people know that if a car share driver gets enough bad reviews they get kicked off the platform. Maybe part of that trend is not wanting to be responsible for "taking away" someone's source of income, even if the service was just average. Really egregious things can be reported in other ways.
There's also the cognitive burden of having to compare "this" ride to "every other ride you've ever had". That, plus the fact that you rarely see an impact of giving reviews... it's easier to just hit 5 stars or ignore.
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People don't want to be seen as rude and they are afraid of spoiling a probably long-term relationship.
Others maybe are afraid that not giving a 5-star rating will have a disproportionate effect on the seller's reputation, and while they are not 100% satisfied, they don't want to feel guilty about bringing some stranger to potential bankruptcy and potentially making other strangers unemployed.
More tech-savvy and thus more affluent people tend not to feel so strongly about this kind of thing, and at the beginning of online commercial services, they made up the bulk of the customers. Rich people can get away with being hyper-critical in their commercial relations and yet continue to be welcomed by shops. Also, as they don't get so much of this treatment, it is usual for them not to develop this kind of empathy. Someone who has never been laid off or had to wonder how they would pay the rent if they lost their job is not triggered on an emotional level wondering what would happen to other people if the business they work in floundered as a result of bad reviews.
Frequently I leave no rating because of this and sometimes, if your mobile app is pushing me to leave a rating, I will leave a 1 star rating and say I left that rating because I as trying to complete a task and they distracted me at the wrong time asking for a rating.
Usually just end up not giving any rating at all.
If I give a waiter/seller/worker.... 3/5 stars, it means that service was OK, a bit above average, nothing to worry about. But the poor guy will be dragged through the mud at his quarterly review, so why would I inflict that unto him?
And finally, selfishly, I have other things to think about outside of where in the scale of every similar workers I interacted with this guys falls. So just take your 5 stars and let me be.
I very nearly changed banks over this particular quirk of "Anything below the maximum rating is a failure that must be addressed."
I'm one of those people who likes going into the bank lobby often enough to get cash (though the ATMs have started handing out $100s now so I do that somewhat less), and for a while, I was getting a survey phone call about every single visit. The people at the other end would ask how various aspects of the transaction were, and would not accept anything less than 10 without long explanations of how the bank teller didn't make my day the most amazing ever. They would not accept "I'm entirely happy with the transaction, it was utterly non-exceptional, the money was counted properly, and this is what I expect" as a reason for not deploying fireworks of celebration in my rating of bank encounters.
I mentioned this to the branch manager at one point when I was getting a wire transfer set up (at the time, at least, wire transfers to other countries had to go through a few hoops to make sure you weren't getting scammed), and that I was very seriously considering switching banks over this annoyance, and he very rapidly put me on a "Do not pester, no, seriously, don't..." list that solved the problem.
I just generally don't rate stuff anymore, because I don't consider "5 stars" a "meets expectations" grade rating.
basically, all ratings do for me now are truncate outcomes, stuff that’s rated really badly is probably best to be avoided, and stuff that’s rated really highly is unlikely to be horrible. but that’s about it, more often than not, I’d classify things rated quite highly as average/mediocre, and far far short of “excellent”
In an appropriate scale these, let's say 95% of total experiences, would get a 3 or 4 stars rating, the 5 stars would be for the - still say - 2 or 3 percent actually exceptional, and the 1 star for those 2 or 3 percent that are really a total disaster.
As it is, I even had an argument with an Uber driver here, where he was saying that anything less than a 5 star rating is a bad rating. To me, a 3 star rating is "acceptable, not extraordinary". You don't get into "bad" territory until you're lower than 3.
I just can't go there, because if the Uber driver is correct, then what's the point of ratings at all?
I have a similar anecdote from my Amazon days. Amazon started a daily survey for all employees (known as connections). It started out as a survey and very soon morphed into a tool to evaluate managers. Managers would often get comments about how their team is rating the work culture poorly and it is their responsibility to improve things (even if it is beyond their control). Everyone was/is gaming the system.
My advice to my teams was to treat it like a Uber rating - * Everything is going well, it is a 5. * Something minor is bad, but you can talk to your manager to close it, it is a 4. * You are moving out of the team due to your manager, it is a 3. * The entire team hates the manager, it is a 2. * The entire team hates the manager and everyone else hates the manager, it is a 1
Every company with 100+ employees I worked for had a 'stack rating', so yes, people were/are getting fired constantly. Perhaps not a good analogy, perhaps it is, but yes, I genuinely think 'someone needs to get fired'.
There's also the cognitive burden of having to compare "this" ride to "every other ride you've ever had". That, plus the fact that you rarely see an impact of giving reviews... it's easier to just hit 5 stars or ignore.