The Impact of online reviews on customer behavior and usage patterns

Abstract

Online review forums and websites are highly popular these days. They enable customers to post online reviews and rate businesses based on their personal experience. These online reviews affect future customer decisions and demands on business. The Influence of the review might be high or low according to its user profile, overall image of the business and the context of the review itself. A well reputed or related user can add more weight to future customer decisions. A business with a popular brand name might not get rejected due to some negative comments. Also these reviews might start a trend on customers visiting that business or leaving that business. The main objective of this research is to predict customer behaviour for a given time period after a certain date using features of previous online reviews. Further to identify trends in customer behaviour and derive trending review topics that persist those trends.