Why reviews are important for your business?
Quite simply, online reviews are the life blood of successful businesses, both for customers and businesses.
Every online business needs reviews. There are a lot of reasons for that. People may be new to your product or service or they may be unaware they need you or your offer until they stumble across it.
Online Customer Reviews are often the only chance a business will ever have of determining what you think and feel about your customers.
When we think of customer reviews, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a restaurant or hotel chain asking customers to leave positive feedback so they can raise their business visibility and popularity. But there’s more to it than that.
Bad customer experience won’t just affect your business in as much as you cannot get them back.
A single bad review can pretty much destroy any business online reputation if left unchecked for long enough, with very few exceptions.
Online reviews provide you, the business owner, with crucial information about what they liked or disliked about your service. What was excellent your product or service. They may also hint as to possibly why they didn’t rate you higher if you missed the 5 star mark.
This article will explain why reviews are not only important but also essential to running your business online and a core way to help you build customer trust in your products or service.
Who Is Reading Online Reviews?
Short answer, EVERYONE!
One of the main reasons why reviews are important is that they provide you with priceless customer feedback. The good, bad and occasionally the ugly!
A good review will help you know if your services or products are appealing to a certain type of customer, what kind of experience they had at your business, and how frequently they visit your establishment or purchase your products.
Reviews will help you get new customers and increase their retention rate. It will give prospective customers an idea of what to expect from their visits or purchases.
You can even use this information to see if there have been any complaints filed against your business and take necessary actions if needed.
1. They Make You More Visible
When you have a high volume of reviews, your business is more likely to be seen by a wider audience and will be much easier to find.
It’s been statistically proven that people trust reviews more than they do other forms of marketing such as advertising or SEO.
More than three-quarters of UK consumers (77%) regard customer reviews as ‘very important’ or ‘important’, while 74% attach the same level of importance to consumer ratings (i.e. scores or stars). Consumers are most likely to regard ratings and reviews as ‘very important’ in the context of buying holidays / vacations (43%), followed by financial services products and retail products (both 41%), and lastly property (35%).
Trustpilot 2020
This is because it shows the credibility of the business in question and is a living proof of what customers are saying about them.
A good option for getting reviews for your business would be through social media platforms with active communities, like Instagram or Facebook. This would allow you to reach out to potential customers and ask them to leave a review after they receive their product or service.
2. They Make You Look Trustworthy
By accumulating reviews on your business, you are able to establish credibility and trustworthiness.
Brand trust is a fundamental aspect of online business. Reviews build your online visibility. The more you establish yourself as an authority in your niche, the higher value and trust your brand has.
Reviews are one way to build this trust. The more people who leave reviews for your business, the more trustworthy you become.
The easiest way to get reviews is by setting up a review page on your website. This will allow customers to leave feedback about what they liked and disliked about their experience at your business, as well as their overall opinion of it, which helps build trust.
As a business owner, reviews play a crucial role in your marketing strategy. One great review can do wonders for you if it is from the right person at the right time.
In fact, it can put you on a whole new level when it comes to competing with other brands or companies.
Good reviews not only build brand trust but also improve conversion rates, which means they will ultimately increase your profits.
But what’s even better is that reviews help you take control of your customer experience and give you valuable insights about what customers like or dislike about your business so that you can improve things in the future.
This is something that any online business should certainly strive for.
3. Influence purchasing decisions
Getting the buying process right for your business is very difficult. There may be 100 competitors or more in your niche, what makes you different and better? This is where product and company reviews play a huge part.
Reviews are a significant factor in influencing purchasing decisions. They provide the customer with a sense of trust for you and your business, which makes it easier to make a buying decision.
Alongside reviews, people also look at other factors like social proof and testimonials to help make their decision on whether they want to buy from you or someone else.
Make sure you take the time to not only ask for reviews and testimonials but to also ensure you take the time to read any that are posted and respond to them.
Consumer reviews help your business grow as it gives potential customers concrete reasons as to why they should or shouldn’t buy from you. This is because reviews are not just about finding out what customers think of your products and services, but also about what they think of your customer service and how long they have been using your products or services for.
4. They can highlight common themes with your products or service, good and bad!
We all like to think what we do is perfect, but the reality is often very different to our perception of the business. Even the most loyal customers will lose faith in a long term supplier if that supplier starts failing to meet expectations.
As business owners it can be hard to take a high level, objective view of your own business. Yes, you may be aware there will always be the odd unhappy customer however, even if you are firm in your belief that the majority of consumers are happy.
Just a few negative experiences can be enough to highlight trends for improvement in your business. Perhaps you have a staff member upsetting your customers, or your delivery company is not meeting deadlines.
Keeping a close eye on your reviews enable you to quickly and effectively deal with these situations and nip them in the bud before they cause further damage.
Whilst we would all love nothing but a steady stream of positive customer testimonials, the reality is we cannot please all the people all of the time. When running a business for long enough, you will eventually meet a disgruntled customer. How you handle those reviews are equally as important as all of your 4 and 5 star feedback.
5. Expand reach
The ability to share your product or services with the world is one of the most important things about running an online business.
Businesses need to establish a platform for their target customers, which can be done through social media, blogs and websites.
They also need to reach out to new audiences who are not in the market for their product or service. One way you can accomplish this is by engaging with your customers and asking them to write a review on a website like Amazon. The more reviews they have on Amazon, the more opportunities they will have to reach new audiences.
Reviews truly are one of the most powerful pieces of feedback because they allow people to give you their honest opinion – no matter how good or bad it sounds.
6. Online reviews are digital word-of-mouth marketing and referrals
For your business to succeed and grow, word-of-mouth marketing was once the the best way to go. Social proof is the new word-of-mouth marketing. Let your customers expand the conversation about you!
Buying decisions are made based on your business reviews. Excellent reviews can increase turnover, negative reviews will not only concern prospective customers, it will also concern Google and effect your rankings.
Whether we like it or not, people are going to find a way to review your products or service. If you have a platform for this, Yell, Facebook, Google Business Profile etc, you have the ability to control the narrative.
These platforms let YOUR customers do YOUR marketing for you! Anyone can say their own business is wonderful and you meet all client expectations but, let’s be honest here, when a new business tells you how amazing their business is how many of you instantly believe them?
Social proof is the idea that others will base their decisions on what others are doing, especially in areas where there isn’t a leader or a dominant brand (i.e., social media). In this sense, reviews provide social proof for your business because they give people the confidence to choose you, when many other businesses could be providing similar services as well but with less-reputed reputations.
There are so many social platforms out there that having a presence is vital. The key is to pick the right platform for your business.
If you need help with your social media strategy and would like more followers, engagement and to increase your sales, book a call today.
7. Reviews will help your Search Engine rankings
Getting and staying ahead of competitors is vital for your business success. Google Business Profile, formally Google My Business, star ratings show review count and review scores. These are built into local search rankings.
Essentially this means the more reviews and positive ratings you as a business owner can get from your customers and clients, the better you will improve your business’ local ranking.
Google place a high emphasis on their Google Reviews platform on Google Maps that, when used correctly, can be an extremely powerful tool for your marketing campaigns.
For clarity, this doesn’t replace search engine optimisation (SEO), it merely compliments it so you should be on top of your SEO strategy as well.
Need help with your search engine optimisation or would like to learn more about why SEO is important?
If you would like help with your SEO. Book a call today to discuss how to reach new clients online!
Bonus tip, things to avoid!
The biggest thing to avoid is fake reviews. While it can be easy, and tempting, to set up a series of fake reviews, review platforms such as Google Business Profile, Trustpilot, Yell and Facebook have started to put checks in place to prevent fake reviews.
Nurturing your reputation management is difficult, but why sully your marketing efforts with fake reviews that, if found out, will destroy any good will from prospective customers.
Conclusion
All businesses need reviews. Whether they are reviews of your business itself or third-party reviews of your products, it’s imperative that you have reviews and that they are positive reviews.
Reviews lead to new customers. Customers want to know what other people think about your company and its products or services before they decide to purchase them.
Customer reviews help you increase the number of customers you receive, which in turn, helps you grow your business faster and more effectively than ever before. This is because testimonials from happy customers often make potential customers feel more confident about purchasing your product or service.
Reviews have a higher conversion rate than traditional marketing methods. Reviews can help you increase conversion rates by as much as 8%. When people see positive reviews, they are more likely to take action and purchase from you than when they don’t see reviews at all.
In fact, according to Neil Patel’s “Customer Service Marketing,” companies who use customer reviews typically see 30% higher conversion rates than those who do not use them at all!
Reviews show social proof. The reality is your business needs your customers to market for you! So start getting more reviews, both positive and negative! This will result in increased traffic and sales for your business.
Do not fake reviews! Just don’t! Only one fake review can destroy consumer trust in your brand.