Why Do Customer Reviews Matter?
When used as a marketing tool, customer reviews have the power to influence a buyer’s opinion and, ultimately, decision. Positive comments will help expand your customer base while negative ones can hurt your company’s reputation. Good reviews will also strengthen your organization’s credibility. The more positive feedback your prospects see the more confident they’ll feel in purchasing your product or service.
Another reason you want to use customer feedback as part of your marketing strategy is that it creates an opportunity to interact with potential and current customers. If someone leaves a positive comment, you want to thank them. On the other hand, you can reach out to someone who left a negative review to identify the problem and can follow up to offer a relevant, targeted remedy. This is a great way to salvage a new customer relationship.
Obviously, the more positive reviews you receive, the more customers you acquire. With that, you end up making more sales, which equates to increased revenue.
The worst thing you could do is ignore the comments that people make, not just on your website but also other platforms. The popularity of review sites has grown tremendously in response to the number of consumers that depend on customer feedback. As a business owner, it’s imperative that you know which sources your prospects use; that way, you can stay on top of what people say, good or bad.
The top five platforms include:
1. Amazon
For online marketing, Amazon is by far the largest and most prominent of all review platforms. First presented in 1995, this site has helped millions of people make more informed buying decisions.
2. Google My Business
With over 158 million users each month, this site serves as an excellent platform for business reviews. Regardless of what companies sell, a significant number of consumers rely on the information they find on this site.
3. Angie’s List
Many people refer to Angie’s List as a “high-end” review platform. Every month, members leave over 60,000 reviews on more than 720 household-related services.
4. Facebook
This social media site is more than just an online forum where family and friends can connect. With all types of businesses using it, Facebook has become one of the top review platforms. What makes Facebook unique is that, because most people think of it as a personal site, the business reviews come across as highly legitimate.
5. Quora
This user-generated platform is popular for product reviews, in particular. Using question and answer forums, potential buyers can find valuable information on just about anything. Quora is a great option for monitoring and distributing reviews.
The Value of Monitoring Reviews
Monitoring your customer reviews, both positive and negative, allows you to stay informed and connected. As a result, you can improve relationships with both your prospects and existing customers. Regardless of whether someone posts something good or bad, monitoring makes it possible to build and maintain your customer base, which translates into more sales.
Monitoring reviews also helps to collaborate and manage your brand reputation. Especially if you have different teams responsible for responding to posted feedback, that control is critical. Remember, seeing what people write is the only way you can make necessary improvements.
With hundreds of sites where people leave reviews, managing everything might seem like an impossible task. However, by using the right marketing tool, you can stay on top of feedback, communicate with consumers, distribute reviews, and ultimately end up with a much larger loyal customer base.
Reviews Lead to Success
Study after study shows that consumers are more likely to buy a product or service if they read reviews that support it. Even feedback coming from complete strangers has a huge impact on the decisions that people make. Having proof on the right sites will drive purchases. One survey conducted by
BrightLocal showed that 88 percent of consumers trust reviews they find online as much as they do referrals coming from people they know and trust.
Positive customer reviews also help boost on-site rankings. For Google and other search engines, the higher your website ranks, the more traffic it gets. Even one new review on your site about a product or service is enough to increase the level of unique content. As far as search engines go, that makes your business more authoritative and relevant; as a result, it will rank higher in search results.
For you to get the most out of your customer reviews, it’s imperative that you utilize the best marketing tools available. Now that you know where to look for customer reviews, you need a way to manage them. You also need a solution for distributing feedback so that more prospects can see what your satisfied customers wrote.
There is a broad range of marketing tools specifically for this purpose. Take Revleap as an example. With this data management tool, you can use feedback from your happy customers to increase your number of reviews, referrals, and repeat orders. By gathering online reviews, you can turn data into sales and streamline communications. This allows you to target both your best and worst customers.
Instant Survey is another option. This tool performs one simple task quite well: gathering customer feedback. For both novice and seasoned marketers, the combination of real-time results and random assignments makes it possible to respond to reviews quickly and efficiently. While still in beta, experts agree this marketing tool gives businesses of varying sizes necessary leverage against competitors.
Digital Gator is another tool that uses reviews to help market your business. As an all-in-one platform, it turns your satisfied customers into loyal brand advocates working on your behalf. Instead of gimmicky advertisements or annoying taglines, this tool works by targeting the customer’s experience.
Whether searching for a specific type of business, product, or service, buyers use other consumers’ experiences to help them make sound decisions. They care the most about the caliber of customer service a company provides, as well as a product or service’s quality and affordability.
The following are some of Digital Gator’s key functions:
- Real-time Monitoring – This reaches across review sites, as well as social media platforms and through customer surveys
- Real-time Fixes – By correcting customer issues in real-time, it turns negative experiences into positive ones
- Root Causes – Uncover the root of negative feedback, which allows you to make improvements on a large scale
- Insight and Analysis –You will benefit from the natural language processing for all feedback related to business insights and competitor analyses
- SEO – This tool works by enhancing relevant rich snippets and review content
- Google Seller Rate – Digital Gator uses Google seller ratings to accelerate SEM conversion rates
- Customer Experience – Reviews and referrals propel the customer’s experience
Conclusion
If you want an advantage over your competitors, you can’t overlook the value of customer reviews. When used as part of your overall marketing strategy, feedback helps to increase the number of viable customers interested in what you offer.
