When searching for a new company or brand to buy from whether it be a service or a product, what is the first thing you do? Look at the reviews, or at least that is what most people like to do. Nowadays rather than talking to your friends or mom or even your doctor about where to go for good products, most people will simply check the reviews of a company.
Reviews are crucial as they allow people to get a better understanding of your company, learn how good your products or services are, and see if your employees were nice and treat clients with respect. All sorts of stuff can be learned simply from a company’s review page.
Ensuring that you have good, easy to find reviews can improve your overall sales and draw in new customers. It is said that 90% of people will check a company’s reviews before deciding whether to go with them. We cannot overstate the importance of having customer reviews.
In this next section, we discuss how to get those reviews.
Getting Reviews
Before you can begin displaying your reviews for new customers to read, you need to start by getting reviews. But how can you do this? There are lots of ways to gather reviews of your company but here are a few of our favourites. It’s important to remember that they all require you to ensure that your customers don’t feel pressured to leave the review, most people don’t like to if they feel they are being forced to.
First, start by just asking. Either in person or on your website, it never hurts to ask people directly. When customers come into your store, office, or you go to them for a job ask them to leave you a review online. This can often make them feel like it is more personal, and less like a demand.
You should also leave a note on your website, either on your home page or on your products page if you sell online. This way people don’t have to go out of their way to leave a review because they are already on your website.
Second, if you sell products online and ship them to customers you can leave a note in the packaging. This can be added in with a thank you note for the purchase. You should also add a request for a review in all your correspondence. Put it on your invoices, add it to your receipts, statements of account, newsletters, or anything you send out to clients. You can also add notes to receipts for in-person purchases as well.
Finally, the best option is to ask in a follow-up email. This is an email you send after they have ordered, bought, or received a service or product from you. You can include a clearly marked linked and the option to review. This can often feel less pushy as they aren’t face to face with you and they have easy access to the link, so they don’t feel like it is a hassle.
Sometimes, however, simply asking for the review isn’t enough. People can be lazy or feel like they simply don’t want to leave a review because it is too much effort. Offering an incentive can help generate more reviews. If people feel like they are getting something out of it, they will be more likely to leave a review. Perhaps offer a discount on their next purchase, or only offer it seasonally, it is entirely up to you.
It’s important to note that the incentive or reward must be for leaving an unbiased review. If you pay or reward people only for positive reviews (or higher stars) then you are most likely violating the rules of the review site. Google Reviews, for example, explicitly forbids paying for positive reviews.
Where to put Them
Another big thing to consider before getting reviews, is where do you put them and how many reviews total are good enough? Well in terms of where to put them there are generally four main choices: a separate page on your website, a new website just for reviews with a link on your main website’s home page, your products page of your website, or your social media.
Having them directly on your website, such as on a separate page or your products page is probably your best bet as it is easy to find, and customers don’t have to reroute to a new website. Having them on your products page is only a good idea if you sell online, otherwise having them on their own page is a better idea and removes confusion. Social media reviews are typically only used by people who sell through social media.
When it comes to how many reviews you should be getting or displaying, there really isn’t a magic number. Most people say somewhere between 10-20 reviews is a good number for any given service or product. However, keep in mind that there should be new reviews, if people see that a review is over three months old, they are more likely to ignore it and move on.
Online Reputation
Online reputation is everything in this era of internet use. If people aren’t talking about you in person, then they better be reviewing or posting about you online. Customer reviews can really help build your online presence and reputation. If people are leaving you reviews online for others to see, it can boost your online reputation. It demonstrates to potential customers that people are not only buying from you but taking the time to leave a review.
Not only will reviews on your website help, but reposting good reviews to your social media or home page of your website can also make a big difference. Most people don’t check websites every day, but they do check social media. By reposting good reviews, you are capturing the attention of another group of people and then rerouting them back to your website.
Brand Credibility
If you are just starting out and don’t have that large of a customer base yet, online reviews can help boost your brand credibility. When you search for products on Google, they will bring up the most frequented websites, most if not all of these websites have customer reviews. The reason Google does this is because they know people have interacted with the website and like the product and so they will continue to suggest it, this is search engine optimization.
So, even if you are a small business that is starting out, having customer reviews can boost your brand credibility on Google and social media. Not to mention that it doesn’t matter how many reviews you have. If a big company has 100 3.5-star reviews and your small business only has 10 5-star reviews, you will still get more traffic because you have better reviews overall.
Customer Engagement
Customer reviews aren’t just for incoming customers. They are also for current and frequent customers. The ability to leave a review creates a sense of customer engagement, as it allows customers to have a say in their experience. If they didn’t like something they can say so, that way it can be changed in the future. If they loved everything, then they can tell everyone and continuously recommend the product through your website or social media.
If you get customer feedback and respond and make changes to fix it for the future, you can also create loyal customers. So not only will customers feel involved in your company, but they will also feel heard by it and want to continue purchasing from you in the future.
Responding
It is one thing to receive a bunch of reviews for your company and feature them on your website or social media, but if you never respond to them then people may begin to wonder why. A big part of having a review feature is that you can see what customers liked and disliked and then make improvements from there. But part of making those improvements is responding to the people that pointed them out. It’s not just the bad reviews you should be responding to, good reviews also deserve the same level of attention. When new customers see review responses, they are more likely to continue with the company as they can see that the company cares about their customers enough to respond.
On top of that current customers will be more likely to leave more reviews in the future and continue to purchase from you if they feel heard. Part of customer engagement is responding and engaging with your customers.
Aside from responding to reviews, you should take the time to privately reach out to customers that left negative reviews. If you receive a negative review and take the time to hear the customers’ concerns and then fix the problem, it can be a good idea to ask them to change or edit their previous review. Because their concerns have now been addressed, they no longer think of your company in a negative way and may be inclined to change their review if asked.
Negative Reviews
The dreaded negative review, everyone hates them, and no one wants to get them, but can they be a good thing? Research has shown that when people see a mix of reviews both good and bad for a product, with the majority being good, they are more likely to buy the product than if it only has good reviews. People see it as more authentic and like a real opinion or recommendation. If a company only has good reviews on every single product how much are you really going to believe them. Statistically it is almost impossible for a company to never receive a bad review. So, by including your negative reviews on your review page rather than hiding or deleting them, you will show that you are honest.
