Why online reviews are important
Imagine this: you are in a city you have never been before and you are starving. There are 3 restaurants in front of you.
How do you choose one of them?
If your answer is that you would check out their online reviews, welcome to the team.
If your answer is literally anything else, let me tell you why you should reconsider.
People are social creatures, which means that most of the time we rely on the community around us for our needs. It might sound like this statement would be more fitting if we referred to people living in the Stone Age, but an interpretation of it is still relevant nowadays.
If you don’t trust me (yet), then you should trust statistics.
A study conducted by Spiegel Research Center in partnership with PowerReviews revealed that 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase.
That shows us that people trust what others have to say about their experiences with a certain product or service even when they do not know the person that shared the said experience.
The same research tells us that products with 5 reviews generate 270% more sales than products without. But do they all have to be 5-star reviews?
Despite our guesses, the answer is actually no.
Researchers found out that products with an average star rating in the 4.2 to 4.7 range are more likely to be purchased than those in the 4.7 to 5 star range. Why is that?
Well, it’s all about balance and realistic expectations. An imperfect overall score is more likely to be perceived as authentic by shoppers, while a straight line of 5-star reviews and ratings might look fake. The credibility of the online reviews is their most important characteristic, because customers would not count on them otherwise.
How to manage online reviews
Now that we established that online reviews are detrimental to your success, let’s dig in a little bit deeper and talk about online review management.
Review tracking is one of the main things you should do for your business to protect its brand reputation. Not only do you see your company from the customers’ point of view, but you also have the opportunity to interact with them in an organic way by responding to their feedback.
Did you know that people spend up to 49% more money at businesses that respond to online reviews?
“Alright, that sounds good. But I receive online reviews on multiple platforms”, you might say. “Is there any online review tool or review aggregator that can help me with this?”
I am glad you asked (and if you did not, you might still be interested in what I am about to say).
There are a few tools that can make your life easier when it comes to customer review management, one of them being FeedCheck.
FeedCheck is a review monitoring software that gathers all reviews in one place and provides lots of features and filters that make review management not only simple, but also very efficient. You can get a preview for the Histogram, Trending tools and Topic explorer features from our article about Stanley cups.
If you want a personalized experience on the FeedCheck platform, you can always contact us and schedule a demo meeting.
How to make the most out of online reviews
Online review management is one of the best things you can do for your brand reputation.
It is crucial to be up to date with how your products or services perform and what your customers have to say about it. For example, while researching for the Stanley cup article, I used the Topic explorer tool on FeedCheck and found out that many 1-star reviews included the words “lid” and “handle”, meaning that there were issues with those parts of the cup.
If you want to make sure that your brand becomes and remains a household name in your industry, it is important to use a review monitoring software and make sure that you are always informed about what might be going wrong for your customers while interacting with your business.
Moreover, as we mentioned before, shoppers appreciate when a business responds to their feedback, whether it is positive or negative. Keep an eye on your online reviews and show your customers that you actually care about their interaction with your brand.
Conclusions
Online reviews have a huge impact on the customer journey and they should never be neglected. Depending on how you deal with review management, the customer feedback can turn a potential client into either your number one fan or into someone that will forever avoid your business.
If you did not bother with review tracking until now, you should know that it is never too late to start.
And if the beginning seems difficult and confusing to you, know that FeedCheck is always there to help with your review management journey.