If you have an online business, online reviews can make or break you. A series of bad reviews on a shopping website can lead to reduced sales. Positive reviews will push new customers your way and increase your revenue.
People want to talk about their experiences with your business. Our social media world is one in which people share everything, including what they think about something they bought. Use that desire to your advantage as a business.
Build brand visibility and loyalty. Talk to your customers. Give them a space to talk to others about your business.
There are so many ways in which online reviews can affect what your business does, so here are all the reasons we think they are so crucial.
Customers Want to Know What Other Customers Think
Customers appreciate knowing what other customers think about a business and its products or services. They want to know if other people are also buying a product. They want to know if other people think the business and products are worth their time and money.
Online reviews are, essentially, a form of proof in a social media format that people rate your products highly. This is an important metric when making purchasing decisions.
The more good reviews a business has, the more proof there is for potential customers that they should also use that business. Checking out online reviews has become a crucial step for online customers in their decision-making process.
Online Reviews Help with Brand Visibility
Brand visibility is crucial to online businesses. Being seen online through reviews means that a brand gains visibility to potential customers.
Online reviews will improve search engine results. So, the more online reviews a business has, the more likely a customer will find that business when they perform a search for services or products.
Reviews are content. Search engines look for new and original content as part of their search-results algorithms.
Increasing brand visibility is one of the best ways to find new customers. So, make sure you get and post online reviews on your own site. Make sure that you have an option for customers to post their reviews.
Customers Trust Online Reviews
Consumer trust is key for businesses. One way to increase consumer trust is through online reviews. The more positive these reviews are the more people trust your business.
Low scores in reviews or poor comments about your business drive down trust in what you do and sell. The less someone trusts your services the less likely they are to use them.
This trust is especially important for businesses like law firms. People need to trust their lawyers implicitly. A good law firm will get law firm client reviews and share them widely in order to build that crucial trust factor.
Engage with Customers
Nowadays, consumers expect their preferred brands to be open and honest with them. They expect high levels of engagement from the brands they trust. Encouraging online reviews and responding to them is one of the best ways to engage with your customers.
Whether you get good or bad reviews, you should engage with the people that post them. This is even more important for bad reviews. Be honest and transparent with the people posting reviews.
If someone isn’t happy with the service they received you have the chance to help fix the problem. Not engaging with this kind of review will reduce the level of trust people have in your business. Conversely, if you show a willingness to engage and troubleshoot, people will appreciate the effort.
Improve Sales
If you receive lots of good reviews, there is a good correlation with improved sales. In the end, this is the most important metric for a business when it comes to online reviews.
The combination of people rating your business highly and writing positive comments leads to more people spending their money with you. Low ratings and poor comments do exactly the opposite, stifling sales because people don’t trust they will receive a good product or service.
Generate Conversations
Generating conversation about your business is part of the efforts in improving brand visibility. But it also creates a situation in which people are talking about your business without your direct involvement. Online reviews are part of that process.
The more people are talking about you (positively, hopefully) the more people will find out about your business. This is especially important for new or growing businesses. You need customers to talk to each other about your brand so that the news of the good work you are doing spreads.
Online reviews aren’t going viral on their own, but it is a way to help push your visibility on social and online platforms. When people post in your comments section or in the comments section of online shopping platforms they are creating a conversation that will be picked up by search engines and social media platforms.
Increase Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is something all businesses should strive for. The more loyal your customers are the more likely they are to return to purchase from you. Repeat customers are even more valuable than new customers.
Online reviews are an indication of brand loyalty. This is most true for positive reviews, of course. But if a person is willing to take the time to write about your product online they are showing an element of loyalty to what you do.
The people who leave positive reviews are more likely to come back and use your business again. Make sure you engage with the positive reviews. Thank people for the nice things they say and you’ll generate more brand loyalty.
Don’t leave good reviews hanging out there without your engagement. That makes customers think you care less about them and so they will be less loyal to you in the future. Your engagement with positive reviews also shows other potential customers that you truly value their business.
Take Advantage of Online Reviews
Online reviews can make a big difference to your business. As you can see, you should engage with both positive and negative online reviews.
These reviews are one of the best ways you get to actually “talk” to your customers. Online businesses you don’t get to see their customers in the way brick-and-mortar ones do. So, take advantage of the opportunity to chat.
Be open and honest. Provide people a chance to comment and rate you. Don’t hide behind online anonymity.
Online reviews can be game-changers for your business. If you want to change the game more often, check out our website for ideas about business, finance, and more.