Why Your Business Needs To Gain More Positive Reviews
Increased adoption of social media and digital marketing platforms has made online reviews a necessity. Currently, online reviews can either make or break your small business. As online shoppers search for products and services online, more than 70% of them make purchase decisions based on what other online shoppers have to say.
While some businesses ignore, scoff, or are overwhelmed with the online world; smart business owners should take maximum advantage of online reviews. Outlined below are some reasons why you should focus on gaining more positive reviews for your business.
1. It Drives Purchases
You will most likely purchase an item if someone next to you, including strangers, agrees with you that buying it is a good decision. Currently, online reviews are among the best sources of social proof for businesses and significantly impact product and services sales. A good example is Seriously Silly Socks, which gained more than a 60% increase in order value from the company’s website compared to other channels.
This is attributed to the brand’s 3000 five-star ratings on the company’s eCommerce site. According to the company, they encourage customer reviews by sending customers follow-up emails, offering discounts and coupons in return for positive reviews. That aside, a Harvard Business School study found that improving even by one-star on Yelp boosts sales by 5 to 9%.
2. Positive Reviews Increase Brand Visibility
Operating a successful business requires visibility. Current shoppers start searching for products on search engines, such as Google and social media platforms, before making a decision. While all these platforms have unique ways of indexing content, they value and surface fresh and original content. As such, customer reviews feeds the online content machine, making search algorithms favor your brand.
Customer reviews provide a steady stream of positive and original content that is highly valued by search engines. Ranking higher in search results will establish your brand as an industry leader, further improving your brand exposure.
3. Builds Customer Confidence in Your Brand
Unlike established businesses, customers aren’t sure of what they should expect from your new business. As such, they may be doubtful about handing their hard-earned money to you. Fortunately, having positive reviews can ease this. Positive reviews make your business legitimate and enable potential customers to understand your business and why purchasing from your business is better than working with competitors.
4. It Expands Conversations About Your Business
Both positive and negative reviews spread quickly in the online world. Therefore, encouraging your customers to give positive reviews about your business is the easiest way to widen conversations. If people have something positive to say about your products or services, they will also likely share their comments on other sites, such as Yelp and TripAdvisor.
Comments on these hubs not only expand online conversations but also helps in building your brands’ online presence. As mentioned above, Google gathers data from multiple sources as it establishes its search engine rankings. Therefore, this information will also come in handy in improving your search engine ranking position.
5. Boosts Relationships With Your Customers
Businesses should make an effort to respond to all customer reviews and ratings. Ideally, customers expect brands to respond to their comments and provide clarification where necessary. Apart from providing a platform to communicate with your customers, reviews also allow you to rectify comments from dissatisfied customers. You can also reinforce customer reviews with promotions. More importantly, giving personalized responses improves your brand image.
6. It Gives Customers a Voice and Builds Loyalty
Customers who take their time to leave positive reviews are more likely to feel loyal to your brand, promoting repeated purchases. Also, by leaving reviews and developing a relationship with your brand, customers also feel they have a voice in your business, even behind keyboards or miles away. These are important elements that promote business growth.
7. Helps Improve Customer Service
Analyzing customer reviews enables you to understand and gauge the levels of customer satisfaction. Even if customers have written positive reviews, it is natural to highlight areas where they faced some difficulties or were dissatisfied. You can use this free yet insightful information to improve customer service, product packaging, or any other challenge mentioned by customers.
The Bottom Line
Evidently, positive reviews are overly important to your small business. However, most business owners don’t know how to ask for positive reviews for their growing business. Simple acts, such as engaging and interacting with customers, offering quality products and excellent services, good customer service, and inviting customers to leave reviews on your site can help your business gain positive reviews.
That aside, try to respond to all customer reviews positively, even if someone left a negative review. Having positive conversations about your brand also boosts your marketing efforts.
