1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to systems and methods for obtaining information regarding consumer experiences, and more specifically, to methods and systems for obtaining consumer reviews of products or services.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet allows consumers to access a wealth of information concerning products or services they are considering purchasing. However, obtaining information from one of the most useful sources of information, that is, other consumers, has proven very difficult. For example, while many Internet commerce sites allow consumers to provide their reviews of a given product or service, few consumers actually do so. Consumers may intend to provide a review once they have used the product or service, but then forget to do so.
Similarly, merchants and manufacturers typically lack sufficient information about consumer experiences with items correspondingly sold by the merchants or made by the manufacturers. Thus, merchants and manufacturers are deprived of information that would allow them to provide better service and/or products. Furthermore, because merchants are deprived of sufficient consumer opinions about previously purchased items, they are inhibited in their ability to generate an accurate consumer profile that would allow the merchants to recommend future items for purchase by the consumer.
Thus, consumers, merchants, and manufacturers are currently deprived from adequately benefiting from the experiences of large numbers of prior consumers. The present invention seeks to encourage consumers to provide reviews and/or ratings, so that other consumers may take these experiences into account when deciding what goods or services to purchase and so that merchants and manufactures can provide consumers with better service and products.