Understanding The Value Of (And Increasing The Volume Of) Customer Reviews – Ellie Coverdale
So much of contemporary business is conducted on the internet. It’s a reality of the 21st century that the internet is a key resource for businesses and it’s where people go shopping, a large majority of the time, for goods and services.
Most of the time, it presents wonderful, practically limitless, opportunities for making sales and improving your business overall through connections and ease of access. This is not to say that it is a flawless marketplace, by any means. One of the biggest issues with the internet is that it is often impossible to tell who you’re dealing with.
Companies can pop up basically overnight and suddenly have a believable looking website. What they lack, is credibility. The Customers being used to the strange and difficult world of online business, are more than ever before interested in trust.
They don’t want you to appear like a good business, they want proof that you are. That’s where customer reviews and testimonials come in.
Credibility And Security
Customers feel more reassured by the opinions of other customers than by anything you could possibly tell them. The mob mentality is a terrible thing to be on the wrong side of and an amazing thing to be on the right side of.
Once your company starts getting reviews and testimonials, being able to advertise them to your future customers is so powerful.
“People can relate to other customers as people who were, at one stage, in the same situation as they are who have come out the other side and now understand everything. They buy into testimonials as a view of the future”, explains Tina Williams, content manager at Dissertation writing.
Learning About Your Customers
Reviews aren’t as simple as good or bad a lot of the time. It’s more detailed than that and, when paid attention to with the proper level of care, you start to see that a lot is revealed about the people who are writing the reviews.
This is valuable data, that you really ought to be recording and using as a tool to better optimize your company. You may not believe it, but the majority of online testimonials are actually quite balanced, the negative ones usually mentioning what they did like and vice versa.
Take all of it into account and build a landscape image of your user/customer base.
Helping With SEO
Getting reviews, through whatever service, will always give your search engine optimization a boost. “SEO experts will always point out that Google and other search engines are extremely eager to adapt to their userbase which, as it happens, your userbase is a part of.
If they see ‘real’ people talking about you, they will elevate your ranking as a result, something which can only help you”, explains Jeremy Bowman, tech writer at Write my paper. SEO is such a big factor that, with all the other benefits, it’s kind of a miracle that testimonials help with this too.
The Tricky Part – Getting Reviews
The real challenge is getting reviews. Instinctively, unless you’ve gone way above and beyond in your attempts to help a customer, it’s more likely for a customer who was really unhappy to write a review than one who was just pleased.
In order to address this you have to be doing everything you can to be getting as many reviews as possible. There are multiple ways that you can go about this. Try emailing customers directly with a polite, personalized text or email asking if they would consider it.
Another way is to get them to leave a star rating on a review kiosk, which is really quick and easy and appealing to the eyes. Furthermore, you can offer things in return, like a small discount on a second purchase if they leave a review, or a free manual or guide or whatever it is you can afford to give.
Conclusion
Reviews are vital. Aside from huge companies that have transcended the question of doubt and have infinitely complex market analysis instruments, you’ll see that all companies value their testimonials. Respond to as many as you can and find ways to reassure people that your company can be trusted and is worth their business.
