For customers, it's never been easier to interact with brands. If you love the shirt you just ordered, you can leave a glowing review on the company's website. If the service at a new restaurant was awful, you can tell the world on a customer review site. If you can't figure out why your package hasn't arrived yet, you can ask the brand on social media.
Your voice as a customer is loud and clear.
Even as customers like being heard and having a say, businesses also benefit from consumer feedback. Online reviews and other feedback mechanisms can be used to improve nearly all parts of a business, from the quantitative (like higher ROI, profit, and click-through rates) to the qualitative (like the building of trust with customers, better brand reputation, and customer satisfaction).
If your business isn't yet using online reviews, here are five ways to start making them work for you.
1. Stop fearing the negative review
Many brands are reluctant to implement online review systems because they're afraid of airing their dirty laundry, but that's actually a misguided concern.
First of all, most online reviews are positive, believe it or not. Second, studies have shown that almost 85% of customers think user reviews are valuable, so your brand will please shoppers by having reviews. But don't think that means you need universally positive reviews; customers trust reviews' legitimacy more when some are positive and some are negative.
2. Choose wisely where to put your review form
Putting your review section in an easily accessible part of the site—at checkout, for example—makes your brand appear more trustworthy and customer-focused, which promotes customer loyalty and retention. And if customers can easily see and read others' feedback, your word-of-mouth marketing will improve substantially.
A/B (or split) testing shows that brands using online reviews can increase sales by as much as 58%, likely because 71% of customers are more confident in their purchases after reading reviews.
The homepage and the About page, the shopping cart screen, search results page, and social media business pages can also be effective places to ask for customer opinions.
3. Address bad reviews and incorporate them into operations
Never let a customer complaint, whether in an internal review section or on social media, sit. Make the best of a bad situation by reaching out to the customer and genuinely trying to solve the problem. Your brand will seem human and caring, and customers will feel valued.
