Think about your local butcher 30 years ago. Or the baker down the street. Did they have star ratings? Customer reviews on the door?
No. They had something better: relationships.
You went there because your mum went there. Because they knew what cut of meat you liked. Because when you walked in, they remembered your name. If the quality dropped, you stopped going. If they treated you badly, you told your friends.
That was it. Simple. Honest. Real.
Now? We’ve replaced all of that with stars and reviews. And honestly, it’s a mess.
The review problem nobody talks about
Here’s something that should worry you: 6.4 million people in the UK have lost money to scams after clicking on fake online ads. And reviews? They’re being faked on a massive scale.
Criminals use bots and AI to write thousands of fake five-star reviews. Entire websites are being created that look real but aren’t. Sometimes random generic products from unknown companies are praised as better than big brands, all through fake reviews.
About 54% of online shoppers use reviews to decide what to buy. Almost two thirds will buy something if it has five stars. We trust reviews. And scammers know it.
So what does this mean for honest small business owners? You’re competing against fake businesses with fake reviews. Your real five-star service is sitting next to someone’s made-up five-star scam.
It’s degrading to hardworking people
Here’s what really bothers us: imagine telling that butcher or baker from 30 years ago that strangers on the internet would rate their life’s work out of five stars.
“Your roast beef? Three stars. Your bread? Four stars because I didn’t like the crust.”
It’s degrading. These are skilled people who’ve spent years learning their craft. And now they’re being judged like products on a shelf by people they’ve never met.
You’re a brilliant hairdresser. A reliable cleaner. A skilled decorator. You’ve worked hard to get good at what you do. And some platform wants customers to rate you like you’re a washing machine?
No thanks.
Reviews don’t show the real picture
Reviews also don’t tell the whole story.
Someone gives you one star because they booked the wrong day and blame you. Someone gives you five stars because you went above and beyond. Most of your happy customers? They don’t leave reviews at all because they’re busy getting on with life.
So your rating ends up being based on the extremes. The very happy and the very angry. Not the 90% of customers who think you’re great and would recommend you to their friends.
And let’s be honest: one bad review can sit there forever, even if it’s unfair or completely made up. That’s not right.
Bringing back trust in a world of fake five stars
We built appt in around relationships instead of reviews. Here’s what that means:
When someone uses your services through appt in, you build a direct relationship with them. They book with you. You message them. They pay you. You get to know them. They get to know you.
If they’re happy, they keep booking. They tell their friends. They become regulars. That’s a real relationship.
If they’re not happy? They can stop booking. They can disconnect from you on the app. They can even complain about you if something went wrong. But we’re not encouraging random people to write public reviews about your work.
You can disconnect too
Here’s something important: relationships work both ways.
If a customer is difficult or unreasonable, you can disconnect from them too. You don’t have to keep working with someone who doesn’t respect you or your time.
On review platforms, even if you stop working with someone, they can still leave you a review. They can damage your reputation even though you chose not to work together anymore.
That’s not fair. In a real relationship, both people have power. That’s what we’ve built.
How trust actually works
Think about how you find services in real life. Someone recommends their cleaner. Your friend tells you about a great tutor. Your neighbour mentions a reliable builder.
That’s trust. Real recommendations from real people you actually know. And it happens locally, in your community.
This is why we’re growing appt in community by community. Trust doesn’t come from reading reviews from strangers across the country. It comes from people you know, in places you live.
Your customers can share your details with people they know locally. New customers can find you through the app’s directory in their area. But we’re not creating a public review system where strangers rate your life’s work.
We’re building it the way trust actually works: locally, through real connections, one community at a time.
What happens when things go wrong
We’re not saying everything will always be perfect. Sometimes customers will be unhappy. Sometimes there’ll be genuine problems.
When that happens on appt in, customers can complain. They can tell us something went wrong. We take that seriously and we’ll look into it.
But that’s different from a public review system where one angry person can damage your reputation forever, even if they’re being unfair.
Complaints can be resolved. Conversations can happen. Real issues can be fixed. That’s how relationships work.
The scam problem affects everyone
Fake reviews are estimated to influence about £23 billion of UK consumer spending every year. That’s £23 billion going to scammers instead of honest businesses.
When customers can’t tell what’s real anymore, everyone loses. You lose business to fake competitors. Customers lose money to scams. Trust disappears.
We think it’s time to do things differently. To stop pretending that star ratings tell you anything meaningful. To stop treating skilled tradespeople like products to be rated.
Back to basics
Your grandparents didn’t need reviews to find a good butcher. They knew the butcher. The butcher knew them. That relationship told them everything they needed to know.
We can’t go back in time. But we can build something that brings back that feeling. Where your reputation is based on the relationships you build, not on stars that can be faked or reviews that can be gamed.
Where customers stick with you because you do good work and treat them well. Where you can choose who you work with. Where trust is built through real connections, not public ratings.
What we’re building
appt in focuses on helping you build real relationships with your customers. Direct connections. Direct communication. Direct bookings.
No public reviews. No star ratings. No strangers judging your work. Just you and your customers, working together.
If they’re happy, they keep coming back. They tell their friends. They build a relationship with you. That’s how it should be.
We’re launching early 2026. Built for small business owners who want to focus on doing good work, not chasing five-star reviews. Sign up at https://apptin.app/.