Where is the first place you’ll go to if you want to reaffirm your decision to buy a product or a service? Most likely Google, or any search engine for that matter. And what are you likely to see when you type in the company name? The company’s profile and the reviews people have left for it. Among the top results will most likely be a couple of review sites where comments have been posted about the given business or product.
Consumers take online reviews seriously
But let’s first ask ourselves what motivates consumers to check product reviews in the first place? It doesn’t take much to figure that people need reassurance before they decide to part with their hard-earned money. It’s those who have already experienced the positives and the negatives of the product that are trusted to provide more information about their first-hand experience.
Various studies have been performed and although all of them present slightly different figures, they all unite around the undeniable fact that online reviews affect consumers’ purchasing behaviour to a considerable degree. Most of the research conducted, calculated that around 80 to 90% of people have been influenced by online reviews they have read about a certain product. What is more, Forbes revealed that 88% of consumers find online reviews trustworthy. Those figures are not surprising at all but they reiterate the significance of the feedback you get on the Internet.
Online reviews are cherished by potential users because they are supposed to involve a succinct summary of the pros and cons of a product. The customer is interested in feeding their expectations about something they want to buy, and want to learn the details from those who have already passed the stage of getting to know the product in question. But that’s not everything. Consumers tend to acquire their knowledge by visiting multiple sites. It’s not just Google – they could go to platforms like Yelp, Trustpilot or specialised industry-websites to do their exhaustive research. This comes to tell us that people invest quite a lot of time to learn more about their prospective purchase, and take the feedback they see seriously.
Seek reviews from your customers
What is key to understand is that companies should encourage their users to review them. It would be a positive step for them to invite their current users to leave a rating on their website or on some other platform. People are more than willing to assess anything numerically – be it a book, a movie, a plumber, or a lawnmower, they will happily express their opinion by giving 1 to 5 stars, or whatever scale different sites provide. By generating a good number of reviews, you offer your potential clients a bigger and clearer picture of your services, as they will normally trust you if they find out that many people have already commented on what you are doing, and how well you are doing it.
If you have been wondering whether you should worry about your overall score, the answer is no. People generally give positive marks and it is unlikely that you will get a destructively-low rating. The more reviews you receive, the higher your result will be, as occasional negative comments will be drowned in the sea of approvals.
A large number of reviews can help you get some easy traffic to your website, too. A study from 2015 showed that consumer reviews contributed 8.4% to what Google and other search engines use when ranking search results. This is not a figure to ignore as it gives you a respectable amount of extra visitors for the little effort you need to make to promote product reviewing.
Conclusion
All in all, any business’ reputation is built on customer satisfaction. If your product is usable and of high quality, you are certain to gain recognition. Nevertheless, it does not require much to help yourself further by asking your clients to review your business.