The success of your ecommerce business largely depends on how your customers feel while using your product. If they share their happy experience on Facebook, Twitter, or on a high-traffic consumer forum on the web, it will up your brand’s credibility and with that, the number of people willing to become your customer.
But what if they feel awful using your service and they decide to post their feedback on any of the aforementioned platforms? It could be disastrous for all your marketing efforts.
Negative reviews discourage the herd about your products. And if there are so many negative remarks about your brand on social media, then you are in trouble. It could be an earthshaking experience for your overall profitability.
You, in that case, will need to put your efforts to persuade and regain the trust of your audience.
Customer Reviews Are Important!
An increase in one star in your Yelp rating can lead to a 5% to 9% increase in your revenue.
Reviews increase the profitability of your ecommerce business, apart from giving you a chance to identify your happy customers – who are your largest marketing channel. They promote your brand without charging you a single penny.
Contrarily, dissatisfied customers give your brand negative publicity, which can have an adverse impact on your sales.
Customer reviews also reveal several facts, which you don’t know, about your brand. They work the same way audits do – they disclose the most liked and disliked aspects of your products.
If you hire an auditor, it would cost you thousands of dollars to get insights into the performance of your brand. Customer feedbacks give you that information for free!
Here are some of the biggest reasons why leading organizations (and you should too) encourage customers to rate and review their service –
- Helps understand customers and their expectations from your brand
- Shows scope for quality enhancement
- Boosts credibility
- Gives your brand social proof
- Makes consumers feel more powerful while using your brand
- Increases customer loyalty
- Enhances engagement
- Improves engagement
- Enables word of mouth
- Attracts more reviews
Reviews Impact Your Ecommerce Sales
Customers’ buying decision relies on how others feel about your product, service, or offering.
Trends suggest that customers like to research and read about a brand before they buy. They visit your website and social media to dig facts and deepen their knowledge about your brand. This makes the customer take an informed buying decision.
Positive Reviews Generate New Sales!
iCustomLabel.com, a website that custom designs stickers and labels, saw an 8% increase in sales in March this year; most of that traffic came from their Google My Business page.
Conversion Rate:
Apart from that, the availability of reviews on your Facebook page or Google My Business, or on any other industry specific review site can increase your conversion rate by 270%.
Conversion rate is the percentage of leads or visitors on your website converting into customers. If this metric goes up, your revenue goes up. If you fail to convert your leads or visitors into customers (or if the conversion rate on your website decreases), it will have a negative impact on your overall sales process.
Reviews have the potential to attract or distract the buyer sentiment. It is a major factor that helps prospects decide whether they will buy from you or not.
Trust Building:
57% of customers will use a product, only if it has 4 or more stars. Moreover, about 91% of customers take online reviews as a personal recommendation. Whoa!
Estimate unveil that positive reviews boost your sales by 18%. They can help built trust and helps increase your credibility – the two factors that convince people to take an action in your favor.
In your total ecommerce sales, the customers who trust your brand have a grand part to play. If they are happy and trust you, there are chances they will buy from you.
But if they don’t trust you, they will hesitate investing in your brand. If the trust of loyal customer gets broken, they would not consider your brand again. Even worse, they could spread the negative word about you.
Reviews work both ways. Both positive and negative reviews encourage users to take an action – whether in your favor or against.
Negative Reviews Push Your Customers Away:
While positive reviews bring you new customers, negative reviews can distract the ones who you think are your loyal customers.
Just one negative review can cost you about 30 customers! Imagine how many customers you would lose if there is an issue with the quality of the product or service. So, always focus on the quality of what you offer.
How to Monitor Reviews –
To make the most of it, you will need to track the reviews and take strategic actions on them.
If you receive a positive review, the customer who has posted it should be appreciated. You could give them a shout on your timeline as well. This might urge others to post their reviews too. The more positive reviews you have, the better it is for your authenticity and sales!
If there is a new negative review, then also, the reviewer should be appreciated – for bringing the concern into your knowledge. You can look into what didn’t work for them. Each negative review gives you a chance to fix an issue that you don’t know about, and eventually, upgrade the quality of your product.
So, how do you monitor the reviews about your brand? You can task your customer service team to monitor the reviews posted about you on different platforms and channels.
In addition to that, you can integrate the social listening tool in your CRM and program it to alert you whenever there is mention of your brand on the web and social. Using this tool, you can address the reviews in a timely manner.