Your client’s company provides a service to their customers, and those customers communicate their experience to the world through an online medium, often online reviews.
These reviews contribute to the digital portfolio of every business. Your local business clients need reviews. Aside from building customer trust and helping with SEO, Google’s markup of a company or product in search can now include reviews and ratings.
More than 88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchase decision. Online reviews are no joke, and there are many situations businesses need to avoid.
But generally speaking, online reviews are essential for the reputation of local businesses.
"A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well." - Jeff Bezos
Positive vs Negative Reviews
When a company provides a service, the customer is either satisfied or dissatisfied. In the digital world today, customers often take their experience straight to the web. If the customer expresses a positive experience, the review can be amplified on the web and social media to encourage others. But when the experience is negative, companies need to respond quickly.
This needs to be done for the customer who left the review, but perhaps more importantly, for everyone else reading the reviews after. It is always a great feeling to read and hear positive reviews of your company, but negative reviews should be considered an opportunity for the business to do better.
50 stats that show the importance of online reviews
1. 92% of consumers now read online reviews.
2. 40% of consumers form an opinion by reading just one to three reviews.
3. Star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to judge a business
4. 44% say a review must be written within one month to be relevant. This highlights the importance of recency in reviews!
5. 68% say positive reviews make them trust a local business.
6. 43% of consumers search for a business by reviews at least one time per month.
7. 60% of consumers have searched a business at least six times per year.
8. There has been a considerable decrease in those that “never” search for a local business online, down from 22% to 9%, and an increase in those who search for a local business every day, up from 7% to 14%.
9. 73% have read online reviews on a desktop.
10. 38% have read online reviews on mobile internet vs 24% on a mobile app.
11. 29% have read reviews on a tablet.
12. 33% believe all local businesses should have websites designed for mobile.
13. 61% are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile optimized site.
14. 40% of consumers form an opinion by reading one to three reviews.
15. 73% of consumers form an opinion by reading up to six reviews.
16. 88% of consumers form an opinion by reading up to ten reviews. This means it’s important to have a large body of reviews, as customers are reading more reviews now than in all years past.
17. Only 12% are prepared to read more than 10 reviews.
18. 26% of consumers say it’s important that a local business responds to its reviews.
19. Only 14% of consumers would consider using a business with a one or two-star rating.
20. 57% of consumers would use a business with a three-star rating.
21. 94% of consumers would use a business with a four-star rating.
22. 51% of consumers will select a local business if it has positive reviews.
23. 88% trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.
24. 48% will visit a company’s website after reading positive reviews.
25. 23% will visit the business premises directly after reading positive reviews.
26. 9% of consumers will phone a business after reading positive reviews.
27. 95% of consumers suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see bad scores.
28. Reliability (27%), expertise (21%), and professionalism (18%) remain the most important attributes to consumers.
29. More consumers are interested in “good value” than before, while less are concerned about the “expertise” of a business.
30. Word of mouth is still the most popular method of recommendation for consumers despite a 2% drop year over year.
31. On average, a consumer will look at over 10 information sources before making a purchase.
32. Over half of the young people aged 18 to 34 say they trust online reviews more than the opinions of friends and family.
33. 88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchase decision.
34. Consumers who read reviews on a smartphone are 127% more likely to buy than those who read reviews on desktops.
35. Reviews are especially important for local searches as they influence up to 10% of the ranking.
36. Only reviews from friends and family are trusted more than online reviews. Reviews from experts and celebrity endorsements are less trusted than online reviews.
37. 30% of consumers assume online reviews are fake if there are no negative reviews.
38. The three online platforms dedicated to reviews with the most global traffic are: yelp, tripadvisor, foursquare.
39. 58% of consumers said they have recently (within the past five years) begun leaving more and more online reviews based on customer service.
40. 100% of customers who make over $150,000 annually claim to leave reviews when it comes to a poor customer service experience
41. Reviews of 50 or more, per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
42. 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has user reviews.
43. 105% of customers are more likely to purchase while visiting, when site visitors interact with both reviews and customer questions and answers, and spend 11% more than visitors who don’t interact.
44. Reviews produce an average of 18% uplift in sales.
45. 64% of consumers would read online reviews when purchasing technology items.
46. 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores.
47. Between one and three bad online reviews would be enough to deter the majority (67%) of shoppers from purchasing a product or service.
48. 86% of people will hesitate to purchase from a business that has negative online reviews.
49. Number of reviews posted every minute by Yelp users is 26,380.
50. If a business resolves its issue quickly and efficiently, 95% of unhappy customers return back to your business.
Summary
Online reviews are increasingly important, both to consumers and businesses. Help your clients manage their online reputation and generate reviews to stay ahead of the competition. More and more consumers are adapting to consulting online reviews before making any purchasing decisions.
In the olden days, personal recommendations were the key to influencing a buyer’s decisions, but because we now live in a digital world, today these decisions are influenced by online reviews. People trust online reviews as closely as personal recommendations, and as the stats have revealed, sometimes more. Online reviews play a huge role in getting customers to research a product or service, and research is the first step toward a buying decision.
***Remember, business is built on value, not on price. If you build it on price, you may not be in business very long. You must be able to define value if you’re going to deliver it.***
(Source – www.vendasta.com)
