BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Hello, welcome to the podcast.

You'd think it was empowering for consumers to be invited to offer an opinion on the products they buy.

And it is up to a point, but sometimes it goes too far.

Pointless requests for an assessment of a minor transaction about which you feel complete indifference.

Or amusingly, you can read reviews of one consumer rating service on arrival, consumer rating service.

And yet, while we can laugh at the feedback frenzy, we have to concede we do find ourselves reading reviews and we find them very useful.

And they radically change the competitive landscape in which businesses operate.

Who needs the quality certification bestowed by a reputable brand name if we know the quality of the unbranded items thanks to consumer reviews?

So today, we're going to try and make sense of ratings and the way they're used and how they alter the relationship between businesses and consumers.

Great deal to talk about with my three guests.

Let's meet them.

First up is Matt West, who's the chief executive of FIFA, which is a customer insight technology company.

It's one of the biggest ratings sites. For those

that don't know FIFO Matt, just explain from a consumer point of view how it works. Sure. So we're

a ratings, reviews and customer insight platform company. We work with many brands, Next Expedia,

those you see on the high street, 2E, really on working with them to build their reputation with consumers, their customers.

So how does it work? I'm a customer, I buy something from Next, what happens?

You would get a review request from us. So the way that we work is that we're an invite-only platform.

So what that really means from a consumer

perspective is that you will have had to have some form of interaction with that brand,

product or service. So Matt, if you write to me, I'm a customer next, you write to me to get

...