When social media evangelists advocate brands’ responsiveness on social media platforms as the #1-factor prompting consumers to purchase goods, they tend to forget something crucial:
all roads, regardless of where they are starting from, take to the online shelf where consumers inevitably meet hundreds and thousands of their peers’ product reviews and to the point shared experiences after having purchased and utilizing the products.
A positive social media impression formed based on:
- unverified users’ feedback (social media posts’ commentators are coming from nowhere and there’s no sign that they had actually purchased the product),
- devoted influencers who, no matter how sincere they are in their promotional campaigns, they’re still a minority; plus that we never know how biased their opinions are due to untransparent commercial terms behind,
- nice product settings intensively edited to create a nice perception on the screen,
can easily and rapidly get consumers’ attention detracted from the real consumer experience in a real-life environment and move it into an idealistic world.
But once consumers get to the online shelf, the reality pokes and product reviews and ratings take the lead in their decision to purchase. And with that, a handful of alternative options, including competitor products, open up for them.
Information provided by product reviews is power for consumers but still little explored by brands. For brands, getting insights from any other environment, other than online stores and real consumers, sounds still tempting and more comfortable to get – maybe because it is driven and guided by interviewers through clear questions asked instead of organic real feedback from the daily life that offers nuanced and sometimes surprising answers.
If you’re a brand and want to discover how your product reviews influence consumers on their way to their shopping cart before the checkout, spending time in the online stores where ‘consumer talk’ takes place will help you save the momentum and:
#1 – Refresh what you know about your products by hearing what consumers say
Bring yourself up to date with the freshest feedback from your consumers and don’t rely on now already dusted reviews from last year, quarter or month.
New consumers are visiting your online shelf and look for reading about the most recent shoppers’ experiences. The first thing consumers do when they check out on your product is reading its negative reviews. That comes naturally as a way to prevent themselves from unpleasant experiences. They want to know what is the worst thing possible they should expect if they purchase your product. Only after that they either read your positive reviews or decide to check your competitor’s options.
#2 – Gain a realistic perspective on your product performance within your category
Just looking at your product reviews and ratings alone will only give you partial information about where your products stand in the marketplace and consumers’ perception today.
Expanding your view towards competitor products will inform you which products are in the spotlight, benefiting of a dynamic activity of the reviewers, and which ones raise only poor to no interest from the consumers. Having the data easily available at any given moment in time helps you inform many functions within your organization from sales & marketing to R&D or project management and procurement.
#3 – Get to the route of your recurrent problems
You might know which are your product flaws but when that information gets confirmed and multiplied by consumer reviews, every day’s results will only get worse. New consumers find out, get discouraged to consider your product and switch their attention towards competitor similar products.
#4 – Be responsive to your reviewers
Same as on social media platforms, in online stores responding to your consumers’ feedback, shows good signs that:
- you’re present and active instead of being dormant when consumers get in and out, leaving you feedback about their experiences after utilizing your product. With an alert system in place, you’ll never miss a new review nor replying wherever you feel it’s necessary.
- you care and are curious about your consumer feedback and also supportive. At FeedCheck we work with manufacturers who, although they have no direct involvement in the sales or delivery process, they feel the need of gathering the end-consumer feedback and also guide them to reach out to the Seller or Retailer.
#5 – Gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace
We live in times when data lies at the base of our decisions. From all the data around us, product reviews are a powerful, authentic and growing source. Not knowing what it hides can create discrepancies and not hearing it can create frustrations that will yield their results over time.
But all this can become transparent and easily accessible by aggregating and monitoring your and competitor product reviews.
If you want to see how this can take you closer to what is happening in the online marketplace, request for your personalized demo.