What your customers have got to say about your brand, really matters. Customer reviews stand as a testament to the new prospects and flaunt your brand’s authenticity to the people in general. On that note, companies are doing whatever it takes to rev up their score on positive client reviews and get more people to buy from them. In fact, 90% of the customers read online business before visiting a business and 88% of them trust customer reviews as much as personal recommendations. Today in this blog, we will walk you through some of the reasons that go behind making online client reviews so important. Also, we will tell you more about some of the best ways of getting them. Without any further ado, let us get started.
Why Customer Reviews are Important?
- Social Proof for Credibility and Authenticity: These days, customers put their purchasing decisions solely on the business reviews given by other customers. They blindly believe a 5-star rating over a personal interaction with a brand’s agent. In fact, reviews help sell a product better than a salesman can! This stands as social proof of credibility and authenticity as well and makes your customers trust your products more.
- Gives a Voice to the Customer: In most cases, customers who take the time to drop a review for your company have a fairer chance to feel more loyal and stick around with your business over the ones who don’t. Through the act of adding a review, customers feel like they have a voice and a say for your business. It furthers their relationship with your brand and gives a stern back seat to the bulging churn rates too.
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- Enhances the Rankings too: One of the most prominent ranking factors is played by the client reviews. It aids in letting businesses rank well, even when they have low-quality link profiles. As per a report by SEJ, pages that have reviews mentioned with a keyword or the name of a city have higher rankings than the pages that don’t. The algorithm of Google has been designed in a manner that catches hold of such elements and favors such sites organically.
- Reviews trigger more Reviews: It is a given that when a business receives many online reviews, it triggers the other customers to drop their own reviews as well. Just the presence of several reviews is enough to trigger a new customer to share their opinion about the same product as well. Look at this informative stats that reveals how to deal with negative reviews.
Ways to get Customer Reviews
- Optimize your Content: It is possible that the reviews could be resulting on third-party sites. But once they are on your site, you must ensure that it is easier for them to drop in their reviews there. That is when optimizing your website, blogs, emails, and social media profile will aid in proffering a quick avenue for your clients to leave their reviews. And for the customers who are browsing via mobile devices, see that you prioritize your site for being browsed by phones too.
- Start incentivizing their Reviews: Time is precious for you as well as your customers. Therefore, make sure you are giving your customers a reason to leave a review. You can do so by incentivizing customers who wish to drop in reviews. This can be in form of a gift card for online shopping, coupon codes, discounts, entrance into a contest for an even bigger prize, or even cold hard cash will do too. The point is that your customers should feel appraised and valued for adding their precious reviews for you on your site. The good news is that customers are happy to leave reviews, you just need to ask them to do it and make it easy for them to do it.
- Give the Customer a Positive Review first: In order to get the ball rolling, it is wiser to get them a positive review first. This way, you put the ball in their court and this acts as a good trigger for them to review you too. Although, this might not be always possible and can differ from industry to industry. But in most of the general cases, you can actually get your customers to reciprocate your positive words. If you wish to garner more positive reviews, perhaps taking the first step could prompt them to drop in a positive review back into your account as well. Both, company and the customer get benefited here.
- Host Trade shows or Events: When you host a great conference or event, there is a good chance that you create conditions where your beloved customers are more likely to drop in a positive note. By creating an engaging customer experience, they too get a chance to network with like-minded people. This increases their positive sentiments towards your business and gives rise to an affirmative likelihood of getting more positive reviews. This calls for a win-win for both parties. Make this process as easy and seamless as it can get. Your plan is not to overwhelm the customer no matter what. All you want from them is a positive customer review that is genuine and not forced.
Parting Thoughts
You can gain more reviews in a variety of ways, If you really want to implement customer review circulation at its best, you will then need to incorporate it into your business as a set process. All you will need is an active strategy that should work for the customer service and online testimonials. Note that when you deliver stellar services and products, you do not need to worry about positive client reviews at all, as they will flow in automatically. Above all, you can practice these tips mentioned here and they will definitely help you in fetching your desired cust reviews in no time. Remember, in the end of the day, customer is the king!
Highly accomplished, motivated, and adaptable sales and operations professional with a track record of successful leadership. Known for an empathetic and consultative approach that consistently exceeds growth and revenue goals.
Published June 29, 2021, Updated June 07, 2023