21 Jul The importance of blog reviews
Love me, love me, say that you love me
As a small and new business specialized in the marketing field, we know how important it is to have rave reviews about your services, and products. Reviews are an incredible way to measure different aspects of a brand; they are the score result of your performance with the client, but they can be as well a tool to improve your quality and to know the behavior of your target.
We are almost in the middle of 2019 and this is an era led by immediacy and easy access to everything thanks to the internet and technology. According to a post published in Forbes: internet usage in the U.S. has doubled since 2001 to nearly 300 million users, and smartphone penetration has risen from 20% in 2010 to 69% in 2017 among American consumers.
So, what exactly does this mean? People are using the tools given by technology and we are experiencing the best moment to build a connection with a digital community, and to show them what we have to offer.
The world is in our hands and from there people can make important research before making an investment in a product or service. Back then, the battle was between the best price, but now the real battle falls on the best online reputation.
A review works as a reference point for buyers, especially if they rather shop online than visiting the store. Considering 90% of people first check out online reviews before making a purchase and 84% trust them as much as personal recommendations (data from Planet Marketing), there is no doubt your marketing strategy should be focused on creating a reliable online reputation.
The thing is, usually, there is no in-between when it comes to leaving a review, customers do it because either they had an incredible and amazing experience with you, or they felt the completely opposite thing. Let’s face it, we all want 5 stars reviews but let’s keep it real, bad reviews (or just not-so-good reviews) are part of the reputation world too, so there is no need to panic at them. In fact, a bad review is an opportunity for you as a brand to show that behind you there is a human factor willing to claim and fix the issue in pro to satisfy your consumer’s needs.
Why reviews are important for your business? Because they will help you to build a reputation that will work as a boost for your brand loyalty. The best advertising for a company is not the one you promote on social media, it’s the one given by your own customers. A happy customer is a brand ambassador with a reliable testimonial that will help transform potential customers into clients.
Companies must understand that reviews are not just “things” people say about them on the Internet. They are determining factors that affect the purchase decision in customers. When a potential client is looking for reviews, they have an urgency behind to buy and their decision will depend on the results of your score.
Reviews are also used for Search Engines -SEO- (as an indicator) to give a better visualization of businesses. Google states that when you have seller ratings, the Click Through Rate (CTR) increases by up to 17% and your exposure improves by taking data from different sources to show the best reviews of you to potential clients.
Create reliability and maintain your customer loyalty with their testimonials, make them feel appreciated and part of your community since you are considering their opinion. Show your gratitude by replying all your reviews with personalized and adapted messages to each scenario, avoid generic responses. If you have a complaint or a bad review, offer a solution.
Why are reviews important for your customers? This is a way they can communicate with you to give you their opinion about your service or product and to be HEARD. It’s time to focus on your customer’s needs and not your company’s needs.
Listen to what your clients have to say about you, even if it’s bad, canalize the communications and use their comments to change, improve and offer a better experience based on the real expectations your goal audience have from you.
A bit of advice from experts
While you might be focusing on creating an optimal customer experience for your clients to get the best reviews possible, there are some tools you can use as “hacks” to improve and organize your feedback.
A Reputation Management Service can help you to achieve this and it’s a service we offer (click here to learn more about it).
One of the things we do is basically organize your reviews, so when people want to know about you, they can see a whole perspective of them.
We use a tool that helps us to find the right moment during the sales process to ask for a review and allow the customer to make it in the easiest way possible.
Also, this tool creates a URL where it compiles all the reviews from all the sources, we track to put them together in one place. So, if you have 5 reviews on Google, 5 on Yelp and 5 on another platform, it will show a profile with 15 reviews and this complete feedback will be transferred to Facebook to build up your online reputation and boost your engagement and loyalty rate.
So now that you’ve learned about reviews, would you mind giving us yours?
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