Only genuine and helpful review content can retain the trust of users."
In the past six months, Dianping has significantly accelerated the pace of ecological governance of the platform, and adjusted and optimized the rules to various degrees for merchants and users from all levels of the platform.
From February 3rd, Dianping has adjusted the star rating calculation rules of the platform. It is stipulated that the star rating will only be calculated after the number of reviews reaches 10. This adjustment covers bathing, massage and pedicure, beauty and body beauty, hairdressing, manicure and eyelashes, and parent-child amusement. , parent-child photography and other seven categories.
"Single-digit merchants are directly rated as five-star or one-star. There will be no more. However, there is no catering category for the time being. We will continue to optimize in the future. This is just the beginning." people told the author.
On the surface, this adjustment is a response to the recent outside world's doubts about "Dianping has begun to change its taste", but behind it is more of an adjustment based on the strategic direction of the platform.
As a content platform with nearly 30 million comments on LV and Notepad, Dianping has been operating in a low-key way outside the spotlight since the merger with Meituan; according to the team, the above adjustments are just a microcosm of the daily adjustment and optimization of Dianping, similar to this one. This kind of "small step iteration" operation has been started at least half a year ago.
01 The logic behind platform governance
Since the second half of 2020, Dianping has successively started to revise the rules of the "star rating system", "LV membership system", and "Overlord Meal", covering merchants, users and operation levels, directly referring to the evaluation system.
Each section of the revision is an important part of the Dianping operation system.
1. Star rating system
"You're welcome, star ratings are like the face of offline merchants," said a merchant.
The star rating system, similar to the "five-star praise" of e-commerce platforms, is calculated based on user evaluations and reflects the comprehensive service level provided by merchants to consumers; it is used to help users filter, compare merchants, and find a comprehensive score. The importance of merchants that meet the requirements of consumers is self-evident.
On February 1 this year, Dianping announced to adjust the star rating calculation rules: first, the star rating is calculated after the selected reviews reach 10; the second is to pay more attention to the authenticity of user reviews and help other users; Only 10 or more selected reviews that have passed the review will be counted and displayed.
"It is completely understandable for the platform to make such a decision." Many merchants said that when the sample size of the review is too small, the reference value of the review content will be greatly reduced; for example, a store has just opened, and may be given a 1-star negative review by customers because it is not ready during the trial operation period. , the premature appearance of negative reviews is very likely to directly cause the traffic flow of this new store to decrease or even no one cares since then.
The same is true for five-star praise. When a customer enters the store for five-star consumption, it turns out that the food service does not meet expectations, and then blames the evaluation system for being unreliable; star evaluations with too few samples not only cannot represent the taste of the public, but also cannot be objective and true. Reflecting the level of store management, it will interfere with user decision-making.
Therefore, the adjustment of this rule is not so much to raise the threshold of store star rating, but to protect the merchants who are still in the novice or adaptation period, and avoid the "accidental injury" caused by the evaluation system to the merchants and misleading the decision-making of users. Interfere with the platform ecology.
At the same time, the new calculation rules will also emphasize the authenticity of user evaluations and help other users.
Under the new rules, factors such as the integrity, time, users, quality and quantity of user reviews will be comprehensively calculated through big data, which is directly related to the star rating of merchants; if false or unhelpful reviews are published, it will lead to merchants. The star rating dropped.
The person in charge of Dianping's star evaluation department said: "Evaluation is the cornerstone of Dianping. We insist on providing users with 'authentic and helpful' evaluations, and resolutely resist and crack down on illegal behaviors country email list such as brushing evaluations."
In addition, the Dianping team told the author that this revision of the platform will treat all merchants equally, and will not treat them differently because they are cooperative merchants, and due to the wide range of merchants involved, the PV traffic and conversion rate of Dianping will be affected in a short period of time. , The pressure of short-term business growth brings a lot of challenges; but the platform believes that these sacrifices are worthwhile for the user's evaluation experience.