Do
you want to drive sales, build a solid reputation and convince people
of your expertise? Then you need to start featuring customer reviews
on your website. According to PeopleClaim, 70%
of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision,
so they really can have an affect on whether people buy from you or
not.
Increasing
conversions and building confidence are clear benefits of customer
reviews, but what many don't realize is that it can actually help
improve
SEO
too. Yep that's right, if you regularly publish reviews you are
adding brand new content to your site, and search engines love
regular unique content.
Plus,
if you ensure that the content is correctly optimized then this can
help to increase click through rates as it helps to make your product
pages stand out in search results!
How
to encourage customers to leave reviews...
Encouraging
people to leave reviews should be the first step in your strategy.
What you need to do is give them a reason to write about you. Sounds
easy, right? Providing exceptional customer service is a great start
in encouraging reviews. People are really impressed when a company
goes above and beyond, so try to keep that in mind at all times.
Ahead
of that, what else can you do? Well you should really be thinking
about the customer journey to help target them at the right time.
Sending a friendly follow up email to see if they like your product
is a great way to encourage people to leave a review. Include a link
to the product page to make it easy for the customer to find the
right page. And be timely with your email – give the customer the
chance to experience your product to see if they are happy with it,
but don't leave it so long that they forget about you.
Use
an Ecommerce platform that makes it easy for you to introduce reviews
on your site. For example, our store builder lets you integrate your
store with Yotpo,
a review generator platform that offers a ton of cool features to add
reviews to your store, send out email templates and view analytics.
As
a start-up you may find it a little harder than most to get reviews
up and running, so in this instance your customers may need a little
incentive to do so. When you ask them to leave a review, offer them a
discount to shop with you again. That way, you'll gain a great review
- and another sale!
What
about bad reviews?
As
cynical as it may sound, people are more likely to complain if
something is bad, than write a positive review if something is good.
But you shouldn’t be too concerned with
that.
We understand that you want to make it seem like every customer is
happy with your product and service, but a bad review isn't as bad
as you may think...
Firstly,
customers who check out your site and see 100% positive reviews may
be slightly skeptical and see
you as an untrustworthy site. It
may sound contradictory but a bad review can actually help build
trust in potential customers.
The
next benefit (yes benefit!) of a negative review is that it can help
you show how awesome your customer service is. Responding to each
review, whether good or bad, is a great idea as it shows potential
customers how you value your customers. The good news is that 95%
of unhappy customers will return to your store if an issue is
resolved quickly. So long as you are tackling negative reviews head
on and offering a solution, you don't need to freak out if you
receive a bad review,
And
finally, one of the most important points to remember is that you can
learn a lot from a bad review. It can help you make improvements to
your service or your products, and help to grow your store for the
better.
How
to make the most out of each review...
So
once you start building up your reviews you need to consider where
you want to place them on your site. A review can really help
potential customers discover product details that you may have not
have thought to include, in order to make their purchase decision. It
may take a little more effort but it's best to feature product
reviews next to the right products. Check out this product page
grabbed from Circulon below as a great example:
Adding
reviews to your homepage is also an awesome selling tool. Don't
litter it, but pick out some of the best reviews that talk about how
great your service is, and showcase it on your homepage so people can
see it right off the bat. Check out this image below from our
homepage as a good example. We've picked out keywords, a small
sentence and the company name:
Direct
happy customers to outside review sources...
In
addition to your own website, think about taking advantage of outside
review sites so that you can build a solid reputation as a business,
as well as promoting the products you sell. Encourage customers to
leave reviews on platforms such as Google Reviews or Yelp, as these
are the sites that potential customers may look at to see what your
reputation is like on a neutral platform.
Takeaway
Customer
reviews really are one of the biggest selling tools you can have.
Your customers will look for reviews on your site in order to build
trust and to help influence their buying decision. Just be sure to
feature them in the right place so you can encourage people to buy
your stuff! And as we mentioned above, we do offer awesome features
to help you easily set up reviews on your own store, so build your online store
with us today!