Why online reviews matter
Long gone are the days when online reviews only mattered to restaurants and hotels, recent studies show. Yet most businesses feel that managing online reviews can be time consuming and extremely risky as any negative review can potentially taint the brand in ways that could take too long to recover from.
While this may be true, there are several reasons that business owners should welcome — and actively encourage — online reviews.
The most valid of them being that the majority of customers today are increasingly reading online reviews before making a purchasing decision.
Over 90 per cent of consumers say they check online reviews when evaluating local businesses, according to a recent research by BrightLocal, a UK based search agency. About three-fourth of those say these reviews are an important deciding factor whether they can trust the business.
The study also showed that nearly 60 per cent of them take into consideration the overall star rating and nearly 50 per cent pay close attention to the sentiment of the reviews.
“Of course it is also important to note that the importance of these reviews varies greatly on what you sell,” writes Rieva Lesonsk, founder of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company.
For example, customers have a significantly higher likeliness to check reviews of technology-based products than they do of clothing or accessories.
This is why experts recommend it best that a business carries out its own analysis that reflects their business, its customers, their purchasing habits and where online surveys fall on the spectrum.
Over 60 per cent of the surveyed that check online reviews also said that they typically find reviews through search engines while almost 40 per cent go directly to review websites.
Generally Google, Amazon, and Facebook tend to be the most popular sites for customers looking for online reviews but some customers
A small percentage of consumers are making an outsized impact on the rest
Rieva Lesonsk, founder of GrowBiz Media
also read reviews on local sites specific to the region or industry.
It is also interesting to note that even though the majority of consumers read reviews, most don’t write them. Just six per cent of respondents in the survey say they always write online reviews after making a purchase.
“A small percentage of consumers are making an outsized impact on the rest,” writes Lesonsk. “If you’re not encouraging your customers to write reviews of your business online, you’re missing out on a great way to gain perspective customers’ trust.”
In addition, the few customers who do write reviews then tend to have a disproportionate effect on what everyone else thinks of a business. If hardly anyone writes reviews, one bad review has a much bigger effect than it otherwise would.
The good news, according to studies, is that it is very easy to get customers to make a habit out of writing regular reviews. All a business has to do, in fact, is just ask.
Emarketer, a data and research specialist on digital for business professionals, reported that, when left to their own devices, people are more likely to comment on a social network than to actually post an online review, but if they are asked outright, over half of social network users will post a review or give a testimonial.
To further impose a culture of written reviews, businesses can also add prominent links on their websites or include a note on receipts and invoices.
“Online reviews also serve another important purpose — they’re an opportunity for your clients to speak to you,” says Suman Jangir, digital media consultant. The writer is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. Views expressed are her own and do not reflect the newspaper’s policy.