Did you know - 95% potential customers review a brand’s reviews before making a purchase? Customer reviews are a great way to build trust amongst your target audience. What’s more, they’re truly the gateway to gain the trust and loyalty of your consumers while fostering retention. But why do we need customer reviews?
The reasons why are endless, but here are the ones that matter the most:
1. Know your customers better and increase positive experiences
A brand's heart lies in creating a fulfilling experience for its customers. This is further enhanced by customer reviews as analyzing reviews left by customers can provide the business with feedback regarding what customers want.
2. Become a credible and reliable source
Attaining credibility can boost the business as it allows the consumers to believe and put their trust in the brand. Reviews allow customers to rely on the same consumer reviews to understand and gain credibility over the brand and its products or services.
3. Stand tall with established competitors
Reviews allow businesses to reach and remain at par with established competitors and attain a niche loyal customer base.
4. Improve rankings
Reviews are the most distinctive way of getting rankings when it comes to searching locally. It helps businesses rank well, even if they have low-quality link profiles.
But wait, there’s more than 1 kind of review!
There’s a variety of reviews that exist and your brand should ideally have a healthy mix of all of them. Here are the 3 most important important ones:
1. Testimonials
One of the best and most common ways to garner reviews is to directly collect testimonials and showcase them on your website as well as social media. Short and crisp, and mostly works for a company website, they help give the brand credibility and authenticity.
2. Peer review websites
Peer review websites are the most general form of getting reviews and include Google reviews, Facebook reviews, Yelp, Amazon etc. These work best for local/small businesses.
3. Social media
Social media is the complete package when it comes to customer reviews. It's the place where you can build your brand and get feedback at the same time all at once.
Not only are customers using their accounts to share opinions and reviews but also turning to social media to ask brands questions or learn about their services.
Now that you know why reviews matter and you’re aware of the categories that exist, here comes the most important part:
Getting Reviews for Your Brand in 5 Easy Ways:
1. Claim listings
One of the key methods of attracting customer attention is to claim not one, not two but multiple listings! Google or Facebook is a great start but to reach a larger audience, it is important to have a larger footprint. This can be done by claiming listings on websites like Yelp and Tripadvisor and similar websites where customers have an option to choose from multiple avenues to leave their reviews!
2. Send an email or SMS
Another great way to get better and more reviews is by creating review request emails and SMS messages. After a user leaves your location, you can directly reach out to them by sending requests for a review on the concerned email IDs or contact information. However, this kind of communication is possible only if the user is open to sharing their personal information on the said location or website. For example, a lot of online shopping brands want to work personally with their consumers. Therefore, businesses like Nykaa, ensure to fill your inbox with requests to leave a review about the brand and/or purchase concerned.
3. Review my brand on Google
Google is the largest search engine in the world. When a potential customer searches for your business on Google, it automatically leads them to other reviews, as well as opens up an avenue for them to write a review for the same. And this can work as an advantage for any business, a simple Google search acts like a free advertisement for the brand. How cool is that?
4. Using UGC platforms
User-generated content is another way of free marketing done by consumers that automatically exposes your brand information in the public eye. Any type of content – videos, images, blog posts, testimonials, social posts, reviews, and other media – that is created by an unpaid consumer is publicly available for others to view. It acts as social proof and shows potential new consumers that current customers are happy with your product or service.
5. Ask to rate!
A short and quick way to generate immediate and better reviews is to ask customers to rate before they leave the location or website. This can be done by creating a dialogue box that pops up right before a user is about to leave the website. A feature that allows you to easily ask customers to leave a rating or short text review of the business should be included in the box. A cool example is the Zomato domain. After every purchase, they notify you to leave a rating or a small comment!
As a digital marketing agency ourselves, we deal with multiple brands closely enough to see how reviews have worked for them. What’s more it’s an active part of our strategy to help facilitate brand reviews for our clients. Not only does it allow us to witness immense growth of the brand but it also allows our clients to showcase customer loyalty in imaginative and impactful ways.
In a nutshell, customer reviews as the most immediate and direct form of communication that takes place between consumers and businesses are deeply valuable and here to stay. It is truly one of the best ways to build a better connection and stay connected with your target audience.