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Blog Preface

We have stood by quietly as Bazaarvoice’s review solution has “evolved” from the long time, commonly used sub-category structure they originally took to market to look more and more like our innovative tag-based approach over the past months. No more. They have crossed the line with their recent Mighty Leaf Tea implementation and I am pushing back. Notice given.

The Blog

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I have a message to Bazaarvoice: stop “flattering” us by mimicking our innovative approach to customer reviews.

Let me explain:

One of our customers, Mighty Leaf Tea, wanted to switch vendors – and of course we ensured that they were able to take the thousands of reviews that they had created with our review system with them. As we have always said, it’s their content. We expected their new vendor – Bazaarvoice – to import the reviews that we helped Mighty Leaf Tea created into their solution which they have today.

What we did not expect was to have our innovative, patent-pending technology imported as well.

Bazaarvoice’s blog announcement today about their implementation on Might Tea Leaf sparked my interest so I visited the Mighty Leaf Tea site to see what it looked like. And that is when I saw it – the review template that they implemented was nearly an EXACT copy of our review template for tea. And they’ve branded it TagShare by Bazaarvoice, and to call it a rip-off is too kind.

There is a fine line between “research” and “plagiarism” (as Tom Lehrer reminded us!), but this is pretty clearly on the other side of that line, and I’m concerned that this inferior copy of our tag-based approach technology and vision that we have presented to the online community since our very first day of business is actually quite detrimental in their hands, as Bazaarvoice has no idea how to even implement it and integrate it into a client’s site.

Want proof? How’s this: have you ever owned a “Weak” or “Bitter” teapot? Me neither, but thanks to Bazaarvoice, you can actually describe a teapot (or any other tea-related accessory) as “bitter,” “flat” or “great aroma.” Why? Because our tag-based approach to reviews was copied BADLY!!!

You see, unlike Bazaarvoice, we have a separate review template for every product category, subcategory and down to the most detailed subcategory product offering a client may have so that the right voice and the right conversation is captured during the review process. For instance, we have a separate template for books, cookbooks, Italian cookbooks, etc. each with pros and cons specifically associated with that subcategory/product.

Bazaarvoice does not use this approach. In fact, they use same review form per client across that client’s entire product offering no matter how varied the products are or the selection is. So whether the customer is being asked to review a toaster, a vacuum, a digital camera or even a power surge protector, it is the same form, with the same questions.

It is obvious that they can copy and paste, quite well in fact, what’s not obvious is why this self ascribed word-of-mouth expert does see the need for or value in category specific templates or perhaps intentionally choose not to deploy them to limit implementation efforts. To us, all products are not the same, so why would you apply the same review form to each? Why would you advertise a new feature – Tagshare – that actually forces a reviewer to evaluate a teapot or teakettle in terms of it being “bitter?” Can someone, please answer me that?

So with this being the case, you can image my surprise – and disgust – when I see that Bazaarvoice implemented reviews on Mighty Leaf Tea’s site using a tag-based format for selecting pros and cons that is nearly an exact copy of ours. In fact, four of the five “Pro” tags are exactly the same as ours, as are the four “con” tags, except that they slightly modified one to read “Prefers Tea Pouches” instead of “Prefers Loose Tea.” And while I publicly thanks and acknowledge Mighty Leaf Tea for helping drive the choice of tags on our tea template, the presentation of tags in a pre-populated form with functionality to collect additional user-generated alternative tags is our brainchild. And if duplicating the actual review approach isn’t revealing enough, they used the exact same example for location – San Jose. What did San Jose ever do to them?

But don’t take my word on it, see for yourself and decide after reviewing the following screenshots. (don’t forget to try to review a teapot and see if something looks familiar to you there, too. http://www.mightyleaf.com/product.aspx?ID=336&CategoryID=76

Bazaarvoice review template – Mighty Leaf Tea pros and cons

PowerReviews review template – Mighty Leaf Tea pros and cons

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