Want a Review You Can Trust? Ask Someone Who Did It Alone.

The most trusted reviewers of a leisure experience—like a visit to an art gallery, museum, movie theater or zoo—are people who do the activity alone, according to new research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

That’s because people assume someone who does an activity alone is more focused on it, said Rebecca Ratner, Dean’s Professor of Marketing, who conducted the research with Yuechen Wu Ph.D. ’19, now at Oklahoma State. It was published in July in the Journal of Marketing Research.

“People think that someone who does stuff alone must really be interested in or knowledgeable about that activity,” Ratner said, whereas if they went with a friend, it could be just because they wanted to do something outside on a nice day.

They also assume a solo consumer is paying attention to the details of their experience and will be a more reliable source about it, she added.

Ratner for the past decade has studied people’s reluctance to do activities alone, finding that they often enjoy solo experiences more than they thought they would. For this latest research, she and Wu examined actual reviews from Tripadvisor, which included details from each reviewer about whether they were with anyone else.

They compared solo reviews with reviews from people accompanied by friends or family. They found that other Tripadvisor users gave more “likes” (by clicking a thumbs-up button) to reviews and recommendations from people who did something alone. The researchers confirmed the results with several lab experiments, where they asked participants a series of questions about people engaged in activities, either solo or accompanied, and how much they thought that person was focused on the activity.

They measured the extent to which participants thought a person’s review was based on the quality of the activity or any socializing they did during the experience.

Ratner said when people learned that someone participated in an activity with others, they were more likely to discount that person’s review, whether it was positive or negative.

“We got our same pattern where people were more likely to say they would heed the advice of the solo person,” she said. “It's just the fact that they are alone that makes others perceive them as more credible.”

Ratner hopes more people take a cue from other solo consumers that they can do these kinds of activities without a companion: “Don't let it stop you if you don't happen to have a friend or a partner or a child to go with you that day. Live your life and do the things that you think would be fun.”

And if you do get out there, tell people about your experience, she said, since you’ll be a better word-of-mouth source about your experience.

Marketers should take note, Ratner added. If they want influential reviews about their experiences, they should encourage people to come solo and write reviews.

“Don't neglect your solo patrons and customers. Treat them well. What they say actually is going to carry a lot of weight,” she said.