Are Review Sites Trustworthy?
For weeks now, Sam has surfed your site in hopes to find feedback from other customers about a product he’s considered buying. Since he’s searched the site multiple times to no end, he made his way over to a competitor’s website.
The competitor has customer reviews placed front and center on each product page. This provides Sam with social proof strong enough for him to go from considering a purchase, to buying a product.
Customer review platforms have done an incredible job at helping merchants win over new customers. One study revealed that a single business review can boost conversions up to 10%.
Knowing the value that a ratings & reviews solution can have, may lead merchants on the search for a new ratings & reviews platform. Once the search has begun, the dilemma then becomes finding a reputable ratings and reviews solution that provides merchants with the credibility they seek. A few tell-tale signs that a ratings and reviews site can be trusted include:
Robust User Generated Content
If you provide a service or product customers absolutely love, then they should be your brand’s biggest advocates.
Let’s play pretend for moment. You’re a retailer, and your customer receives their order on their doorstep. Eagerly, they open the package and try on the new item.
Imagine:
The customer grabs their smartphone, takes a picture and uploads it for the world to see. Just like that, you now have fresh, authentic social proof that illustrates the end of the buyer’s journey for any prospective customers that are considering making a purchase from you.
User-Generated Content also provides an opportunity to increase the amount of time your customers are spending on each page within your site. A full-scale UGC solution is among the biggest benefits merchants have for using a ratings and reviews solution. If a review site is lacking UGC, merchants have no choice but to question its credibility.
Thoughtful Responses to Negative Reviews
Picture this:
You’re fast asleep in the middle of the night until suddenly a push notification awakens you – a one-star rating with a nasty review right under it. After checking for certain that this isn’t a nightmare, you take some time to process the initial disappointment, shock and anger. A few hours pass, and you’ve had some time to consider your options which are:
- Ignore the review and move along with your day.
- Clap back with a nasty response of your own.
- Thoughtfully respond with a resolution that mends the relationship with the customer and shows future customers how much their satisfaction means to you
A lot of the concern around ratings and reviews solutions goes back to negative reviews and how they can impact buying decisions. One little known fact when it comes to undesirable reviews is that 91% of customers between the ages of 18-29 seek out bad reviews before making purchases.
Reviews with less than three stars offer merchants the opportunity to repair broken relationships with old customers or to show prospective customers how much they care about creating a customer-centric shopping experience.
Transparency is key when it comes to earning trust. Whether its digitally or in-person, merchants should always have a contingency plan for dealing with unhappy customers.
Seamless Integration with Search Engines
Review sites can easily be integrated into merchant websites making it easy for prospective customers to compare and contrast similar products using Google’s Star Rating system. A recent study shows that review stars in SERPs improve click-through rates by 35%.
Given that spike in click-through rates when review stars are displayed, review sites that offer star ratings offer an additional layer of credibility that can’t be offered by review and ratings sites that are not a verified Google Star Ratings partner.
Review sites are not only trustworthy, they’re also an insightful, valuable resource for merchants seeking out pain points among their customers. The determining factor in whether a review site is trustworthy is how much of a voice they provide customers.
Did you realize 70% of shoppers regard online reviews as the primary reasons they chose to patronize a business? Another staggering statistic is that 88% of shoppers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Still wondering if you can trust review sites? If so, talk through your concerns with a representative by scheduling your free demo today.
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