How I Leveraged Online Reviews to Boost my Business
Having easy access to product reviews has radically changed the way consumers shop today. It’s quite rare to encounter a consumer who doesn’t check reviews before purchasing, especially now that more people are accustomed to online shopping.
In fact, BrightLocal reported that in 2020, 87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. Whatever you’re selling or offering, having a positive reputation gives you several key advantages — and this is exactly what drove me to leverage online reviews to boost my own business.
How Online Reviews Play a Role in Consumer Decision Making
I discovered several ways how online reviews influence the decision-making process of consumers and how they relate with my business.
Social proof encourages purchases
People are more likely to purchase if others, even total strangers, agree that it’s a good decision. Online reviews and customer testimonials are sources of social proof, and they’re valuable both for consumers and the business. People refer to these for validation and justification, and businesses are able to earn new customers with good reviews.
Reviews prompt customers to trust a brand or business
When you consistently receive positive reviews, more people are inclined to trust you. Your credibility is also established and strengthened among new and loyal customers.
Reviews hold a lot of power over your company’s reputation and ability to sell. The Local Consumer Review Survey found that only 48% of consumers would consider transacting with a business that has fewer than 4 stars.
The way customers are talking about you is just as important as the fact that they’re mentioning you. Having a highly positive footprint will do its job in encouraging more people to patronize your business.
Reviews encourage customer trials
Online reviews are not meant to be a one-sided communication. In fact, you should use them as a way to connect with your customers. When a customer posts a positive review about my business, I reinforce it by thanking them. Then if there’s an opportunity to cross-sell or upsell, I grab it.
Having a friendly and open-to-feedback reputation can work wonders for your business. It encourages people to try your offers, because they know that you’re approachable and trustworthy.
Negative reviews should also be paid close attention to by acknowledging your customer’s concern and providing a solution. It’s essential to respond promptly, especially to poor reviews. It’s also good practice to personalize your responses so you can make your customer feel more valued.
Reviews generate brand conversations
Encouraging customers to provide reviews and feedback about your brand or business is a great way to expand your reach. Keep in mind though that both good and bad reviews can quickly spread, especially now that more people are quick to jump on the bandwagon or seek attention online. Positive reviews can get you lots of new customers, but negative reviews can drive people away fast.
If your business is on different review sites, you can encourage customers to post their feedback on multiple platforms. This is vital to your online presence, as Google collects data from different sites when building their search results ranking. The more you get reviews on multiple platforms, the more you can up your ranking in search results.
Online reviews can also encourage your other customers to leave their own feedback. All these can snowball and make your brand more recognizable among consumers. Again, the power of social proof on people’s purchase decisions comes into play when more customers express their satisfaction with their transaction with you.
The Importance of Online Reviews
These days, you don’t just compete for consumer attention via traditional and out-of-home media. The most efficient way to gain your target market’s attention is to have a healthy online presence. A great way to achieve this is by encouraging people to talk about you.
Social media is a great tool of course, but there are also other channels worth pursuing to increase visibility, like online reviews. A previous BrightLocal study revealed that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
When you focus on earning a steady stream of reviews, your brand is more likely to show up when customers are making their next purchase decision.
The Impact of Online Reviews
I also found that online reviews are a reliable basis of whether or not my marketing messages are resonating with my audience, or if my offers are satisfying the needs of my customers. Learning their first-hand experiences allows me to discover the gaps I need to fill for my business to deliver the best service.
Online reviews also have an impact on sales. In one study, Revoo found that reviews produce an average of 18% sales uplift and improve conversion rates, order sizes, and repeat order rates.
While there are many pros to receiving online reviews, there are also some cons. One of them is negative reviews, which unfortunately, can sometimes speak louder than the positive ones. 86% of people hesitate to do business with a company that has negative online reviews. This is why it’s extremely important that you handle negative reviews in the right manner.
No business owner likes reading bad reviews, but we should still do it anyway. All customer feedback is valuable. If you receive a lot of poor reviews, it may be an indication that you need to improve your customers’ experience and satisfaction with your business.
Regardless of how critical the review is, leave a polite response. Genuinely apologize for the customer’s negative experience and probe further if needed. Reassure your customer, work on resolving their concern, and improve their experience moving forward.
Another thing you should watch out for are false reviews. When you come across one, promptly address it in a logical and factual way. It’s important to respond to the claim publicly so that everyone who comes across the exaggerated or false review will know the truth.
One important tip I have for you is to never purchase reviews. Overly positive, fake reviews can only harm your reputation in the long run so it’s best to not risk it.
How Online Reviews Help SEO
Most shoppers visit search engines and social media when deciding what to buy. These platforms have their own ways of indexing and surfacing content, but they all love original and fresh content like customer reviews.
These give you a steady stream of content that search engines greatly value when choosing which results to fetch. When you’re ranked higher, algorithms and customers tend to regard you as an authority, and this leads to more exposure.
I personally like using reviews to increase brand exposure. They’re basically the new word of mouth, and having more positive reviews helps customers find my business. For instance, my business can appear higher up even on filtered search results if it has a lot of good reviews.
A more proactive way of increasing your brand exposure is by optimizing your keyword targeting based on how customers describe your product or service in their reviews. This also gives you a clearer picture of how customers perceive and search for your offers.
By monitoring common keywords used in reviews, you get a better idea of how to improve your product positioning, long-tail keyword targeting, tags, or content creation. In turn, this will help you rank better in search results.
How to Get More Good Reviews
My experience as an entrepreneur taught me effective ways to get more good reviews. Here are my tried and proven tips that you can also apply.
- Create business profiles on eCommerce and online review sites
It’s a given that your website should be updated and optimized. However, don’t forget the eCommerce and online review sites you’re listed on. Create or claim an official business profile, fill it with the right details, and keep updating it.
- Follow review sites’ guidelines
Familiarizing yourself with these sites’ policies will minimize the risk of getting your customers’ reviews removed or your profile being blacklisted.
- Actively ask for customer reviews
After a successful transaction, ask your customer to take a moment to provide you with feedback. If you’re a service provider, you may also ask existing customers what they think of their experience with your company. B2B companies on the other hand can leverage their customer relationship to encourage client testimonial.
- Make it easy for customers to leave reviews
Customers are doing us a huge service by leaving a review, so it’s only right that we make the process easier for them. Tell customers exactly where to go and enable reviews on all available channels.
If you can, it’s also good to incentivize reviews (for example, by giving reviews corresponding points that customers can use to purchase from your store). If customers are rewarded when they share their opinions, they’ll be encouraged to do it more often. And other customers will follow suit.
- Monitor and engage with online reviews
The most efficient way to go about this is to have a single platform where you can connect all your online channels. This way, you won’t have to jump from one platform to another, you can filter inbound messages, and make use of the valuable customer data captured by your tool.
Use this interaction opportunity to build rapport and create a user-generated FAQ list to aid customers who prefer a self-service system.
When you respond, make sure to prioritize bad reviews. Most customers understand that their concern cannot be solved immediately, but they need to know you’re listening and working on a resolution. Responding to bad reviews is crucial to establishing a great brand image.
- Follow through with your promise
The best way to get good reviews is to take in all customer criticisms and suggestions, then make tangible improvements to make their experience better. When customers see that we really care, they’ll be more willing to share and help us serve them better.
Customer reviews are also a great place to collect product feedback. Your target audience is telling you exactly what they like, what they hate, and what you should change about your product. Use these to make your product better — and let them know you listen!
There are so many ways online reviews can help boost your marketing, sales, product development, and customer experience. Don’t let the opportunities slip away. Start leveraging online reviews today!
How are you maximizing customer reviews to boost your business? Let’s discuss.
About Jeev
A serial entrepreneur with a rich history of launching disruptive online businesses and taking them to the top, Jeev owns dozens of “go-to” reviews and rankings websites. Jeev has invested more than 20 years researching human behavior and how to leverage different sales methodologies to effectively influence decision-makers.To find out how Jeev can help you, visit jeevtrika.com.