Reviews and customer feedback in sales and marketing – why and how?

How do customer reviews affect sales?

Whether you are booking a hotel room, looking for a suitable restaurant, or making a choice between a suitable washing machine, your attention will be drawn to the reviews of the customers who have already purchased the product in question. You will take a look at the star ratings and take even the badly written comments and anonymous horror stories very seriously. 

Although the quality of the reviews varies, one thing is for sure: they will affect your purchase decision.

Why the leading e-commerce companies, such as Amazon and eBay have built their websites around reviews? Why have reviews become a standard thing to have on all international comparison websites? What makes websites such as TripAdvisor so successful? 

Statistics on how reviews affect sales

• 88 % of consumers rely on online reviews as much as on personal recommendations – despite the fact that the review has been given by a stranger. 
• Consumers read an average of 10 online reviews before feeling able to trust a local business.
• Only 12 % don’t read reviews at all. 
• If you don’t provide reviews, 88 % of your potential customers don’t get the information they require to trust your business. 

Looking at these statistics, seems quite difficult to sell anything unless you have proof of other people’s good experience.

A quick remedy is to showcase reviews on your website, sales materials, and other sales and marketing channels.

In the long run, you also need an effective strategy to collect more of the great customer insights.

The more reviews, the better the conversion rate

The more reviews you offer, the more credible they are and the more positively will they affect your sales. 

Remember to respond to both negative reviews as well as the positive!

Ratings also have a positive impact on search engines. Each review increases the amount of unique content to your website, which in turn increases the relevance and likelihood of your content getting noted on the search engines. The number of positive reviews about your business on other sites will also improve your site’s search engine visibility.

Even bad reviews count

You may be surprised that bad reviews can also have a positive impact on your online purchasing behavior. According to some studies, poor ratings improve conversion by up to 67 percent. People looking for negative reviews often spend more time searching for information about your company – and more time on your website as well.  

Few companies succeed perfectly in every way and every time. Constructive customer feedback increases the credibility of the positive reviews and creates the impression that the company has nothing to hide. Obviously, it is essential that there are more positive reviews than negative ones.

By reading bad reviews, customers can get a peek at the worst-case scenarios, and decide for themselves if trusting you is worth the risk.

Don’t be afraid of getting bad reviews. Many times, potential customers can sense when the bad review is left out of spite or if the reviewer might be the problem instead of the company.

Why do reviews work?

Reviews, testimonials and customer stories are the most important sales and marketing tools because they:

• build trust
• prove your ability to serve customers successfully
• provide concrete examples of how your service works in practice
• bring out the details that interest your potential customer – you may even learn something new about how customers benefit from your services
• sell your services and products for you
• help you to build a better marketing message

How to get reviews for your business?

Reviews that provide a detailed description of the features of the service or product along with their benefits are the ones that boost marketing and sales the most.

The format doesn’t really matter – even a recommendation on social media will do. Positive reviews often encourage others to share their experiences as well, but we rarely give feedback without asking. If you receive feedback from your clients on social media or other channels, ask if your feedback can be published on your website. 

The most effective way to get feedback is to provide an easy channel for giving a review. 

When you collect feedback, remember the following tips:

Authenticity

Fake reviews can have serious consequences because trust me, your potential customers know if the feedback is fake.

If you are thinking that no one would praise your business, you should start collecting feedback systematically right away. You will get important information about the things that you can do better to get more satisfied customers in the future. 

Use the actual names and pictures of your customers

This serves as proof that the feedback comes from a real customer.

Pay attention to different customer segments and buyer personas

Provide reviews and experiences for each of your target groups.

Publish feedback on all possible channels

Add your own section of customer feedback and testimonials to your website. Publish reviews on relevant service or product pages. Include customer feedback in sales and marketing materials. Post them on social media. 

With Trustmary, you can import existing reviews from different sources, including Google, Capterra, G2, Facebook, and many more, and manage them with one platform!

Use videos

When a potential customer sees and hears the customer telling about their experiences and sees the product or service in practice, the feedback resonates more strongly than plain text. If this sounds like a complicated project, let us produce the video for you. Or try one of these three remote video testimonial templates!

Streamline Review Processes

Reviews and testimonials have a huge impact on the results of marketing and sales.

The more reviews you have, the better conversion you will have on your website and the greater the impact will be in sales. 

With reviews, you increase the reliability of your business and provide your potential customers with the information that they need in order to purchase from you.