Online product reviews, written by consumers for consumers, are one of the Internet’s greatest influences on consumer electronics.

They help people understand how their peers use the products they’re considering. They allow consumers to tell their stories. They create a flow of communication from peer to peer. Here’s what’s great. This product is a ripoff. Here’s how I fixed this nagging issue with this device.

But while consumer reviews are extensively utilized by consumers, they are wildly underused by manufacturers. Consumer experiences, cataloged and organized and searchable on major retail sites, are a goldmine of information for manufacturers.

It should be mandatory for your engineers to read these reviews so they can get a sense of how their creations affect real people. How are their products used? What features are most beneficial? There are countless points of enlightenment there for them.

Your sales, marketing and public relations departments should be required to spend 10 minutes reading reviews daily. It’ll give them an invaluable sense of how consumer think about, talk about, and use the products they’re pushing into the market.

And if you’re a bricks-and-mortar retailer (and your people possibly wear Blue Shirts), consumer reviews should be required reading for obvious reasons.

These reviews are free, and easily accessible and will dramatically improve your performance. There’s no excuse to not leverage them.