Reviews help people make purchasing decisions and are generally trusted despite some companies' attempts to post fake reviews. In a world flooded by choice, the fair and balanced opinions of peers are the best chance consumers have to cut through the noise.

Still, reviews have great value for businesses, too. An individual review contains language that could possess common words and concepts within the corpus, meaning that multiple consumers could write similar things about different products or services. Does that mean reviews adhere to some set of standards?

In this session, HomeAway Director of Engineering and Data Science, Brent Schneeman, will explore the nuances of rating inflation and how the words of a review tell more of the story than the ratings. Attendees will learn how to analyze various words with natural language processing tools to better listen to and serve customers. If done correctly, it could unlock insights that take a company or product to the next level.