Positive or Neutral Reviews Increase Profits
Reviews drive more traffic to your business, especially if your business is strictly online. According to Forbes, 93% of consumers rely on reviews to inform their online shopping experience. Younger shoppers especially prefer to research products before buying and value product reviews from other buyers. These same shoppers do much of their purchasing on Amazon, where the products they search for have hundreds or thousands of reviews. That experience makes these potential customers even more wary of buying products without good reviews.
For instance, if Sally is in the market for a new sweater and your company sells cashmere sweaters, like other consumers, sheโs likely to check the reviews before purchasing.
When she sees loads of positive reviews describing how soft the sweaters are and how great the quality is, she will be more likely to purchase one from you as opposed to another store with no online feedback. Sally may not have bought your sweater if there were no reviews or lots of negative responses. Now that you’re keeping your products updated and you’ve captured appealing photos of them, encourage your customers to give your products their secret weapon: positive reviews.
Negative Reviews Help Solve Problems
Negative responses can affect your business whether you like it or not. Not all reviews will be glowing; product reviews can be good or bad. People write reviews when theyโre passionate about the product or service they receivedโwhether itโs a positive or negative passion.
Forbes also showed that 94% of consumers said that theyโre less likely to shop at a business because of bad reviews. But this doesnโt mean itโs the end of the world. In fact, this could motivate you to fix the problems customers are having and in turn improve your business.
Show your customers you care by responding to their negative feedback. Itโs an opportunity for you to demonstrate your superior customer serviceโsomething most customers will appreciate. It helps you build trust. Customers may start by having a negative experienceโand then be won over when you take care of the issue. When this sort of service is obvious in online reviews, it can win over other customers perusing reviews as well!
For example, if you run a baking company and you notice youโre receiving multiple reviews about the BLT cupcake, you may want to check to make certain your staff is executing the recipe correctly, revise the recipe, or just remove a menu item that didnโt resonate with your customers.
Reviews Build Customer Trust
85% of consumers say they trust reviews as much as they do word of mouth.
Speaking from personal experience, I often rely on product reviews to make buying choices. This is especially true for me on websites like Amazon where I donโt always know which product will work best. Itโs helpful to see what others are saying; then, I can make a more informed decision when buying.
You can feature positive reviews and testimonials on your site to help build more trust. You can also ask your customers to review your products (or business) on Yelp or on your website. Leveraging user-generated content (UGC) like product reviews is a crucial marketing strategy in the social media age.
By encouraging customers to leave reviews, you can potentially increase the number of positive reviews you receive, growing your profits and making your business more successful.
To add review functionality or for help on how to integrate product reviews on your site, contact us today!
