Online reviews are essential in getting new customers, and they play an important part in keeping your current customers as well. While it might not be possible to completely avoid negative reviews because a business can’t please everybody, you still want to make sure you get more positive reviews to outweigh the bad ones. Good online reviews help a business to build trust with the customer base while also providing effective marketing through word-of-mouth advertising from satisfied clients.
Your customers will typically have one of two feelings after receiving your product or service, and that’s either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. In today’s digital-driven world, customers are quick to share their experiences on the internet, and their online reviews can make or break a business. If the customer writes about a positive experience with your company, it can encourage many of his (or her) online contacts to try and purchase your product, too. However, if a negative review is written about your business, it can be easily amplified to discourage people from coming anywhere near your items.
Negative reviews aren’t entirely bad, however. These reviews give your business an opportunity to reach out to the dissatisfied customers and find out more information on how to improve the parts of your service that they didn’t like. It’s a free strategy to gain important customer insight on how you can do better business for your customers.
If you’re new to the online facet of running a business, here are some important facts you may not know yet about the importance of online customer reviews:
1. Customers prefer newer reviews to base their judgment on. In recent studies, 44% of online customers claim that a review must be written within one month to be relevant.
2. Positive reviews help customers to trust a local business better. Additionally, 61% of customers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-optimized site, stressing the need for mobile-friendly company websites.
3. People care about the star ratings that businesses get on their online reviews. Only 14% of customers would consider dealing with a business that owns one or two-star ratings, 57% would consider a business with a three-star rating, and a strong 94% would feel much more comfortable contacting a business with a four-star rating or higher.
4. Positive reviews can help drive customer traffic into the physical store. After reading a positive online review, 23% of consumers say that they might visit the business premises personally to check out the products. This is important because customers are 105% more likely to buy while physically visiting a store.
5. According to the Pew Research Center, a significant number of Americans don’t leave customer reviews after purchasing a product. A whopping 38 percent of American consumers claimed they’ve never left online reviews for the services and products they buy, and only 10 percent make sure that they provide appropriate feedback for their purchases. This serves as an important reminder that businesses need to take the time and effort to encourage customers to leave reviews on their websites by making their review sections more enticing and user-friendly.
6. Online users are skilled at detecting fake reviews. Some businesses hire professional reviewers to ensure a 100% positive feedback for their products, but 95% of online customers suspect censorship or faked reviews once they don’t see any bad scores or negative feedback on a product’s review board. 68% of these consumers trust reviews more when they see both positive and negative write-ups about a product.
7. The more reviews you can find online for a business, the better. An online user looks into at least ten different sources of information before completing a purchase, so having multiple positive reviews on your website can help persuade a customer into believing that your product successfully satisfied your clients’ needs.
8. Your business can utilize negative reviews to increase your conversion rates. Online users spend five times longer on a site with bad reviews because negative reviews tend to get more attention. However, negative reviews also make the feedback section look more authentic, and therefore customers trust businesses with imperfect review records more than websites that only show good customer reviews.
9. According to a study by BrightLocal, star ratings in the search engine results page can help improve click-through rates by up to 25 percent. High click-through rates mean your search engine rankings have a better chance of getting boosted to the top, which also bodes well for your SEO content.
10. More online users prefer to go through customer reviews than look for discounts and promos on products. Over 50 percent of online customers prioritize reading reviews to decide if a product is worth their time and money, while only 34 percent would rather find low-cost options to pay less for an item.
11. A study published in Psychological Science claims that online users are more likely to purchase products based on a high number of reviewers than on the average rating of the customer reviews. This statistic backs the idea that it is more important to prioritize getting authentic reviews from several customers than to focus on earning positive reviews from your few happiest clients only.
12. Whenever a business provides a service or product to a customer, the customer is highly likely to share his (or her) experience to the online world, either through social media, your company website, or a third-party review page. These reviews have a high impact on the consumer market, as studies show that more than 88% of customers who do their shopping online place a significant value on online reviews before making a purchase.
13. Customers feel better about a business that consistently responds to their feedback. A survey by TripAdvisor showed that seventy-eight percent of online users believe that a business that responds to online reviews cares more about its customers, and customers are more likely to support your business if they also feel that you are valuing them.
14. According to Spiegel Research Center and PowerReviews, adding a review section for your business website can increase your conversion rates by an average of 270 percent, with higher-priced items going up to 380 percent. The study also showed that early reviews can strengthen the direction of product sales, as the first five reviews were revealed to have the strongest influence on consumer behaviors.
A Final Word About Online Reviews
Online reviews are powerful tools of influence, but since they’re authentic experiences of your customers, you won’t be able to control exactly what kind of feedback your business can get. After all, different people have different tastes and preferences, so what you do right for one customer might not yield the same positive experience for another.
However, negative reviews are just as important as positive reviews. If you handle a negative review properly by immediately reaching out to the customer, it can turn into a good customer service experience because you made the customer feel that you valued his (or her) input. Bad reviews are also a good opportunity to find new ways to improve your business so that you can please more customers.
As people are growing increasingly dependent on the internet for their everyday purchases, online reviews are also becoming more important for businesses and consumers alike. In this digital world, people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, if not more. It’s essential to get positive reviews to boost your brand’s credibility and popularity, and Review Llama can help your business achieve that.
Review Llama can provide your business with a client-friendly landing page that will encourage your customers to write good reviews. If you have customers that aren’t thrilled with the services they received, Review Llama can also help you by reaching out to recover them as customers, avoiding potential negative reviews. Contact Review Llama now to start improving your review system and, consequently, your online reputation.
(Additional References: Search Engine Journal and XSellco.)