Online shopping has become a staple of the modern consumer experience. People want to be able to buy products with ease and speed, and the Internet has made this possible in ways that were not conceivable in the past. What was once a novelty is now just another part of daily life. Whether you sell your products online or only have a storefront, it’s important to take steps to protect yourself from negative reviews. These can damage your brand and cost you, and your customers.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about online store reviews, including why they matter so much, how various platforms encourage them, what kind of things will trigger someone to leave a negative review on your site and more.
What Are Online Store Reviews?
Reviews are written feedback from customers about their experience with a brand. Each consumer’s review is a subjective account of their thoughts and feelings about a given product or service. It can be positive or negative, and it can be posted on a variety of sites, including review websites and social media platforms.
Online store reviews are reviews that are posted on a product page. It can be either good or bad depending on the experience of the reviewer. They are usually triggered by a purchase that the customer made on the website.
Why Do Online Store Reviews Matter?
Online reviews are a crucial part of your customer acquisition and retention strategy. When a new customer is considering purchasing from you, the first thing they’ll do is check out your online reviews. This is their primary source of information about your product and brand.
If your reviews are overwhelmingly positive, it’s likely that you will win this customer. Conversely, if your reviews are overwhelmingly negative, you’ll likely lose this customer. The end result is that reviews are a very real part of your business. This means that you need to be aware of how to respond to reviews, and how to encourage customers to leave them.
How do Review Platforms Encourage Reviews?
While there are several review sites you can use to collect reviews, the ones that will have the most impact are the ones that are linked to your product page. This means that, if a customer leaves a review on one of these sites, it will also appear on your product page.
However, if a customer leaves a review on your own site, it will not show up on your product page. This is why it’s important to encourage customers to leave reviews on these sites as well as directly on your page.
Strategies to Avoid Bad Reviews
There are several strategies that you should employ to avoid negative reviews. The best way to do this is to make sure that you are responding to every review, good or bad. This shows the customer that you care about their opinion and that you’re taking steps to improve your business.
Respond to All Reviews
Make sure that you respond to all reviews, even the good ones. This is a great way to show other potential customers that you take the process seriously and care about your customers’ experiences. This also helps you get a feel for what types of reviews you can expect and how they will affect your overall rating.
If you have a high number of 5-star reviews and a few low-star reviews, the overall average will be higher, which is something you definitely want to keep in mind.
Take Ownership
If a customer has a complaint, be sure that you take ownership of it and apologize for any inconvenience. This will help you avoid low ratings and show your customers that you genuinely care about their experiences. Make sure that you learn from any mistakes and try to avoid them in the future.
If you receive a review, whether it’s positive or negative, make sure that you thank the customer for taking the time to leave feedback. You can do this by writing a short response or by sending them a short email thanking them.
Address Bad Reviews
Bad reviews are inevitable, but you should do your best to respond to them. Address their concerns, apologize if you can, and explain how you are working to improve the experience for future customers.
If you receive a bad review, it’s important to address it. Doing so shows your customers that you care about their experiences and want to improve. If the review is mean-spirited or otherwise unreasonable, it’s a good idea to ignore it. Doing so will likely prevent you from responding to the wrong person later on.
If the review is legitimate and helpful, thank the customer for taking the time to leave feedback. If the review is legitimate but unhelpful, make a note of it and try to improve in the future.
Avoid Negative Feedback
One of the most important things you can do is to avoid negative feedback, especially on social media sites. This means making sure that you don’t make mistakes with your customers, and that you correct them if you do.
Negative feedback could result in a lower rating for your store, and it could also cause potential customers to shop elsewhere.
- Avoid shipping late or having a bad return policy. You don’t want to give people a reason to leave negative feedback.
- Be sure that you are answering customer questions in a timely manner.
- Be sure to address legitimate complaints with apologies and promises to improve in the future.
- Make sure that you are shipping the items as described and in a timely fashion.
- Make sure that you are handling customer service as quickly as possible and courteously.
How to Encourage Reviews From Happy Customers?
Happy customers are the best source of future reviews. However, not all customers will spontaneously leave you a review. You will need to prompt them to do so.
It is important to encourage your customers to leave reviews, whether they are good or bad. This way, you can get more feedback and also improve your overall rating.
Send Out Email Reminders
If you have a customer who has purchased from you, and they have a happy experience, you should prompt them to leave a review. Send an email to this customer after their purchase, letting them know that they can leave a review.
If your reviews have slowed down, you can send out email reminders asking happy customers to leave reviews. This is a simple and effective way to get reviews back up on your site. It can also work to get reviews from people who have purchased in the past but have yet to leave feedback.
You can also try sending out a general email asking customers to leave feedback of any kind. This could be a simple survey that asks customers how likely they are to recommend your store to a friend, how satisfied they are with the purchase, and any other relevant questions.
Reward Customers For Reviews
One of the best ways to encourage reviews is to reward customers for leaving them. You can offer free shipping on future purchases or discounts on their next order. You can also offer a free product or service as thanks for leaving feedback. You can do this for both positive and negative reviews.
You can also offer gift cards for reviews over a certain rating, like a $5 gift card for every review over a 4-star review. Be sure to let customers know that you are doing so, though, or they may be confused as to why they are receiving a gift card they didn’t earn.
Offer Social Media Discounts
You can also offer discounts on social media for reviews. Let customers know that they need to leave reviews on your site in order to receive the discount.
You can also choose to feature customers on social media who have left reviews on your site. Let everyone know that these customers have left reviews and encourage others to do the same.
Profit From Bad Reviews
While you don’t want bad reviews, you can profit from them. Turn negative reviews into positive PR by responding to them and fixing the customer’s issue. This will show potential customers that you are actively working to improve.
Conclusion
Online store reviews are a very important part of eCommerce. Customers are likely to visit review websites and social media platforms to read what other people think about your products.
Having a lot of positive reviews will help you attract more customers while bad reviews can cost you sales. To keep your reviews positive, it is important to monitor review sites, respond to all reviews, avoid negative feedback, and encourage reviews from happy customers.
Read:
How to Effectively Use Online Reviews to Grow Your Business
