Online reviews are everything for every business. They affect the way potential customers see your brand and can even have an impact on your sales figures. This is because online store visitors are much more informed than they used to be, and they have many alternatives available to them on websites like Google, Facebook, and other networks. When you add all of this together, it means that any business that wants to succeed in the e-commerce industry needs to take its customer service to another level.
So what exactly are online store reviews? They’re a way for potential customers to leave feedback about your shop after purchasing a product or service from you or another vendor selling goods on your site. In other words, these aren’t just general user reviews about how much they like an apple or if purple is their favorite color; these are comments directly related to whether visitors think your store is trustworthy or not and whether or not they want to buy from you again in the future. Considering the importance of this data, here we’ll discuss why you need online store reviews, how you can get them and what you can expect when you do so.
What are Online Reviews?
The most basic explanation of online reviews is that they’re comments left by customers on your website after they’ve made a purchase. These comments will then show up on your store page and stay there indefinitely, meaning that new visitors can see them too. This means that the potential impact of customer reviews for your store is even greater than it would be for a regular brick-and-mortar business.
Online reviews are different from customer feedback in that they are not as general. Instead of giving feedback on a particular product or service, customers will instead write a review about the entire experience they had with your business. This is a much more important metric for an online store than customer feedback since it’s something that can be left on your site even years after a purchase was made.
Why Do You Need Online Reviews?
If you’re still not sure why you need online reviews, then it’s worth noting that 81% of customers have said they would not buy from a business if they did not find any customer reviews online. This is a staggering number that shows us just how important online reviews are to our society today. The numbers don’t lie, and they show that online reviews are a huge part of any successful business strategy.
If you don’t have them, it’s going to be a lot harder to drive sales and get new clients. If you want to avoid that, then you need to focus on getting reviews as soon as possible.
Important for SEO
Reviews are very important for SEO. This means that if you have more positive reviews on your site, you’ll likely rank higher on search engine results pages. This, in turn, means that you’re more likely to get more sales. The more positive reviews you have, the lower your negative reviews will be and the higher you’ll rank.
Many online stores have a section where customers can leave reviews. If they don’t, they can leave a review on a third-party site like Facebook or Google. This is important because you can use it to your advantage. When customers leave a review on an external site, it can help drive traffic to your online store. And when they leave a positive review, it can also increase your conversion rate.
Builds Trust
Apart from all the other benefits, online reviews can build trust among potential customers. When you have authentic reviews from real people who have left their comments about their experience with your product, it makes the entire transaction feel more personal.
It makes the customer feel like they are not alone in the experience and that others have tried the product and found success with it. This can go a long way toward making your customers feel like you are a trustworthy business. It also helps build trust among your existing customers that you are a reliable brand.
Higher Conversion Rates
When you get online reviews, they can help boost your conversion rates, which means that more people will be clicking “buy” on your site. To understand why this happens, you need to look at your customers’ psychology.
When they see that other people have bought from you and enjoyed the experience, they feel more confident about buying from you too. If they see that you have thousands of reviews and a majority of them are positive, they know that you are a trusted brand. They feel like they can trust you and that purchasing from you is worth the risk.
Brand Awareness
Finally, you can use these reviews to increase brand awareness for your store. When you get reviews and respond to them, you are putting your name out there. This is a great way to start a conversation with your customers and to show them that you care about their feedback.
How to Increase Customer Reviews for Your Store
After you’ve asked for a few reviews, you might be wondering what else you can do to increase them. Here are a few simple things you can do to increase your reviews:
Ask for Reviews
Before you even think about offering promotions or other incentives for leaving a review, you should probably just ask for them. Now, you don’t want to be pushy about this, but you do want to let your customers know that you value their opinions and that you want them to leave feedback.
You can do this by adding a short disclaimer asking customers to leave reviews at the end of your purchase process or on the receipt you send their way after they’ve made their purchase. This way, you aren’t asking them to leave feedback on your site while they’re browsing it.
Offer Incentives or Discounts
If customers are leaving reviews anyway, you can try offering incentives or discounts to make sure you have as many positive reviews on your site as possible. There are a few things worth noting here. First of all, you don’t need to offer a discount or incentive for every single review.
A general incentive for all positive reviews is a good bet, but if you promise something for every one of them, you might end up overpaying for reviews. Additionally, you should be aware of the fact that offering incentives for reviews might get you into some trouble with the law in the future. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that you shouldn’t offer anything of value for a review, whether it’s cash, a discount, or a product. They say that it’s against the law to do so.
Respond to Negative Reviews
One of the first things you should do when you get a negative review is to breathe. Manage your emotions, and then think about the best way to respond to them. You can’t simply ignore the review; it will only look worse if you do. Instead, you want to respond to it promptly, professionally, and with an open mind.
If you think it would be best to respond personally, feel free to do so, but if you are worried about how you will be perceived, you can always use a response service like Reviewdialog.
Be Consistent
Once you start getting reviews, you need to be consistent in responding to them. Make sure that you respond to every review you receive, whether it’s positive or negative.
This will prove that you are professional and that you care about every customer. And even if a review is positive, you still should respond to it. Doing so will make the customer feel appreciated and can increase their loyalty to your brand.
What to Expect When You Ask for Reviews
Before you start actively asking customers for reviews, you should know what to expect when you do so. Generally, you can expect to get about half of the reviews that you ask for. This is because many customers will be too shy or too busy to leave feedback even if they love the product or service you’ve given them.
For this reason, you must ask for reviews as often as possible and in many different ways. If you are still struggling to get reviews even after asking several times, you may need to reconsider your product strategy and figure out what needs to be changed to get better reviews.
Conclusion
Reviews are a great way to get customer feedback about your product or service and a way for potential customers to get an inside look at the experience of using your product. Getting reviews can be tricky, but the more you ask for them, the more you are likely to get. And while it’s true that online reviews are a great way to promote your business and improve your sales, they can also be an excellent way to find out what you need to improve upon. If you want to make your online store a success, you’ll need to put in the work to get reviews.
Articles You Might Want To Read:
How to Maximize Online Reviews for Your Advantage
5 Reasons Why People Love Online Reviews
7 Important Facts About Online Reviews
