With businesses progressively adopting the e-commerce model and making use of the World Wide Web to track down candidates and prospects, customer reviews have reached an unimaginable hype. There is no doubt that word of mouth marketing still holds a huge potential to divert audiences to this day. This is why customer reviews have incredible potency to sway the masses.
According to a recent study published by Hosting Tribunal, 72% of customers wouldn’t take action unless they go through reviews, 15% do not trust businesses without reviews, and 91% Millennials trust online reviews.
This shows just how important reviews have become for organizations when it comes to reputation management.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the ways customer reviews can empower and reshape your business in 2020.
Why Customer Reviews Matter?
Check out the seven reasons that perfectly explains why customer reviews are important for any business.
1. Amended Brand Visibility
Whether it’s a personal recommendation or an online review, online consumers are looking for a just reason to do a transaction with you. Even bad reviews are important these days since many customers believe that only positive reviews are probably fake or screened.
Regardless of their nature, reviews generate a lot of attention, and this adds a whole new meaning to your brand’s visibility. Single feedback online can travel a long way, and since the internet offers an incredible ability to share information on various platforms instantly, the spread of review can be like wildfire.
Plus, on top of that, your responses to reviews add the icing on the cake and further promulgate your business image.
2. Build Credibility + Social Proof
The trust factor is extremely important for customers to rely on your products and services in order to resolve their troubles and manage their pain points. These interactions show the human side of things for business, making it less steely and formal in nature.
Then there is the saying that “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” which shows that customer reviews make your business feel real and larger than life at times. Technology has revolutionized how information is being shared, and this has impacted the current ecosystem considerably.
Companies nowadays simply cannot protect themselves against bad customer reviews if they ever falter even for a bit.
3. Contribution to Local Rankings
Search engines prioritize to offer local results that are nearer to a user’s geographical location as per their IP addresses. This allows them to shortlist viable options that a user can utilize to find products and services that can help them in answering their queries.
Your business’ reviews play a huge role in your local rankings as only the best of the best are chosen amongst numerous businesses to offer results to user queries. Therefore if you amass positive reviews and that too in high quantity, your local rankings will receive a tremendous boost.
All of this allows your business to make incredible impressions for whoever is searching online and looking for similar products or services.
4. Gain More Reviews
The thing about reviews is that with them come even more reviews. The reason behind this is quite simple. A review online can either alert the audience to take precautions or encourage them to acquire products or services.
In both cases, we find that there are people who would like to have their say on the subject, while others consider it their prime duty to inform others and share their experiences.
At times, this interaction becomes heated while you can simply sit back and watch the show, choosing to interfere only when it is absolutely necessary.
5. Influence Buyer’s Decision
It goes without saying that customer reviews can influence people’s decision to buy a product or hire a service. Many people nowadays often consider going through the reviews first and then making their decision. Customer reviews build a user’s trust in your service even before they have personally tried it for themselves.
They are eager to know whether the sum of money they spend on your products and services can yield the result which they are looking for in the first place. Customer reviews allow them to learn about your services and understand how they impacted people’s lives that came before them.
6. Make Relevant Changes
Customer reviews hold a huge potential to make positive changes regarding their offered products and services for businesses. There are times when customers can point out potential shortcomings regarding our product, and by studying their cases, it can open a new pathway to perform further research and develop your products and services.
Users come from various backgrounds and walk of life, which is why they might use your products and services in unusual and non-conventional ways. When they share these stories, it can spark further interests and new doors of opportunities that businesses can cash-in on by making appropriate changes or developing an entirely new product or service to address their concerns.
7. Receive Insights
This also closely ties in with the previously mentioned point. Customers can offer a wide range of insights to businesses, which can bring in new concepts and processes that might be beneficial for you.
We are limited through our own perception, which is why customer feedback can be considered extremely important since it offers a different angle and approach towards your products and services.
They might share with you the strengths and weaknesses of your services as well as show you the pros and cons of buying your products.
As such, they can also provide you with comparative analysis with a close competitor or rival. All of this becomes a remarkable source of information that can increase your own pool of knowledge.
Conclusion
The corporate world around us has gradually come to understand the power of customer reviews. While businesses may market themselves as the current big thing available to consumers, their customer reviews can draw out a more realistic picture that leaves an indefinite mark on candidates and prospects.
This however adds the pressure on businesses to exceed client expectations and always deliver to the best of their abilities. Hence the customers win this battle especially in highly competitive environments where closely related product manufacturers battle against each other to retain their client base and continue to make efforts to grow with time.
About the Guest Author
Samantha Kaylee currently works as an Assistant Editor at Dissertation Assistance, a trusted platform for buying research proposal writing service from experts 24/7 at genuinely low rates. During her free time, she likes to try out her musical skills and play the banjo for her loved ones.
