Online Review Software – Guide to Finding your Match

What Is Online Review Software?

An online review management software allows you to manage your reviews, regardless of where on the internet they are.

A good online review management software lets you monitor all the reviews and manage all other functionalities from a single dashboard.

Review software helps you build your online presence and aid customer engagement.

Let’s take a deeper look at the features, average price and examples of softwares.

Typical Features

Here are some typical features of good online review management systems. 

The functionalities vary between different platforms, so no software will have all the features listed below.

1. Review monitoring
2. Importing existing reviews
3. Elegant and dynamic widgets to display customer reviews
4. Review generation forms for requesting reviews
5. Review response management
6. Feedback surveys and customer satisfaction management
7. Easy-to-use interface
8. Customization options
9. Automations
10. Integrations to other systems (like CRM)
11. Analytics and reporting
12. Customer support
13. A/B and multivariate testing
14. Social media management

Examples of Review Management Softwares

There are numerous online review software solutions in the market. Here are some examples that are worth checking out:

• Endorsal
• Trustpilot
• Podium
• Yotpo
• Trustmary

All of them have different focuses and different angles. For example, Trustmary stands out from the crowd as offering remote video testimonials and offering unlimited number of reviews.

See more ideas here.

Average Cost of Using Review Software

There are free plans for online review softwares, but if you want to get the best benefits, you have to pay some.

Oftentimes the price is tied to the number of users, locations, customers, or customer reviews.

For example, multi location businesses might have to pay extra, whereas a small business can get the service for a bit cheaper.

The average cost of using online review software can be anywhere from 20$ to 200$ a month and up.

When choosing the suitable software for you, define your goals and the budget you are planning to spare for it. Many softwares offer different plans for different budgets.

You can always modify the plan to fit your most urgent needs, and upgrade to a more advanced plan when you are convinced about the benefits.

Benefits of Using Review Management Software

Overall, review management software can make your review game

• Cost-efficient
• Quick and effortless
• Authentic
• Boost the volume of reviews
• Integrated with other systems

Let’s see what other benefits there are.

1. Time = Saved

When you have all your reviews in the same place, you don’t have to spend time browsing various websites searching for your customers’ reviews.

A good review management system can be integrated into various other systems. This means less programs you have to juggle between.

You can also collect reviews from your customers with the help of automations – which means you don’t have to lift a finger!

2. Add Credibility for Your Brand

Reviews are one of the most important aspects of building trust between potential customers and your brand.

People generally trust other people rather than advertisements or company spokesperson.

Word of mouth is a real dealbreaker for most customers, in B2C as well as B2B sector. 

Lack of reviews tells its own story: Are you really actively in business? Are you accepting customers’ opinions or censoring them?

Answering to reviews, positive or negative, helps to build and manage your online reputation.

In addition to an external review site, you should showcase reviews and testimonials on your own website.

3. Rank Better in Search Engines

Positive online reviews and presence can aid your SEO efforts.

When people like your brand, they will spend more time on your website, which equals that search engines also love your website.

And what is more important, you improve your local SEO and local reputation.

Good local SEO ranking means that your nearby customers can find you better, as the search engines consider you a valuable resource for the local community. 

Because of online customer reviews from local customers, you appear higher in the search results.

This of course applies mostly to companies that have physical locations, such as restaurants, spas, shops, doctor’s offices and so on.

4. Use Reviews in Marketing Campaigns

Many businesses have missed the opportunity to utilize reviews in their marketing campaigns.

With a good review management system you can take reviews and embed them e.g. into websites, social media platforms and emails.

Authentic reviews from customers help you raise your conversion rates and increase sales!

New Trends in the Field

Let’s take a brief look at what kind of trends the field of online review management is experiencing.

AI

Artificial intelligence is big right now, and there is no doubt that it will become even bigger in review management in the future.

For now, AI is used for example to generate more helpful reviews and to create a review score that helps you identify which reviews work best.

Who knows what AI means for the business in the next two years?

Social Proof

Social proof is on everyone’s lips, and it is no coincidence.

It is a psychological phenomenon that makes people act like other people.

When potential customers see that you have reviews from existing satisfied customers, they instantly trust you more.

This means more conversions and more sales.

6 Questions to Ask Yourself when Choosing the Right Platform

Now that you know the basics of online review software, let’s look at some aspects that you should consider when choosing the right software for your business.

1. Where are my online customer reviews and how to get them all into one place?

You might have customer reviews on multiple review platforms, such as

• Google reviews
• Yelp reviews
• Facebook reviews
• G2 reviews
• Capterra reviews
• Tripadvisor reviews

All of these reviews are importable to your website with the help of Trustmary. Adding a Google review widget to WordPress has never been this easy. The best part is that the same easy process applies to 99% of other platforms as well.

See for yourself ⬇️

In addition to the existing reviews, you can collect more reviews with easy-to-build and fully personalizable surveys and forms.

Just send your happy customers review invitations via email or SMS, or give constant access to the feedback form on your website.

2. How to utilize the best reviews from customers?

All businesses receive negative reviews from time to time. 

While you can still turn the situation to your advantage by responding to them, negative reviews are not the kinds of reviews that you want to especially highlight.

Also, some reviews are just not… Well, well written.

Not everyone has Shakespeare-level writing skills, and it’s fine. But you still want to have reviews that are a pleasure to read.

With Trustmary, you can pick and choose the most glowing reviews and display them on your website with incredible-looking widgets.

The widgets, such as testimonial wall, review popups, inpage forms, CTA bars and testimonial carousel, are all customizable and fit perfectly to your brand’s look.

With the A/B and multivariate testing tool you can figure out which reviews convert the best.

Turn consumer feedback into testimonials and reviews today: Sign up for a free trial!

3. What if I get more reviews than the plan allows me to have?

As we learned earlier, the software plans can be limited by number of customers or number of reviews you get.

If you get more customers and reviews, you have to update to a more expensive plan.

With Trustmary, you don’t have to worry about such things. The price is based on the software’s features, not the number of reviews.

Trustmary lets you always collect unlimited reviews (and testimonials and video testimonials) in all paid plans.

In addition, you can get cool features such as more widgets, integrations, automations and additional surveys like Net Promoter Score and CSAT.

Don’t throw your money away by paying for nothing.

4. Who is gonna help me if I encounter problems with the software?

This is a valid point to consider when choosing the suitable software for your business.

Some platforms only offer help documentation, or perhaps email or chat support.

Trustmary has all of the above, and also phone support where you can directly call the software experts and have them help you.

Rumor has it that our chat support is so fast you barely get to finish your sentence before the issue is taken care of!

5. How can the online review software help me improve my business?

A good quality software has more features than just mere reviews collection and display functions.

While good reviews are nice, negative feedback and reviews from unhappy customers can teach you some valuable lessons.

Trustmary lets you collect and track customer feedback, which in the long run helps you improve your customer experience and results in more positive reviews.

6. What are other users saying about the software?

See what I did there?

But seriously – existing customers know best how the software works and what kind of benefits it can produce.

Go and read some reviews.

Next Steps

If you want to start managing your reviews immediately, sign up for a free trial at Trustmary.

Trustmary offers you

• Unlimited reviews (and testimonials and video testimonials)
• Feedback survey templates for review requests
• Various elegant widgets for review display
• Integrations (e.g. to CRM where you can manage all customer interactions)
• Automations
• A/B testing
• And much more!

Start improving your online reputation and review monitoring today!

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