There has been a considerable rise in the popularity of online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of this, the ecommerce industry has become more competitive than ever before. This makes it crucial to stand out from your competitors to prevent your business from missing out on vital sales opportunities. Understanding how customers make their purchase decisions is a crucial part of helping your business compete in a crowded market.
The Importance of Online Reviews
One of the most influential factors that informs customer behavior is reviews. In the absence of being able to see products in person and to be able to handle them, customers rely on online reviews to help them make their purchase decisions.
The importance of online customer reviews cannot be underestimated. Data from the Speigel Research Center shows that a product with five customer reviews increases the likelihood for consumers to make a purchase by 270% when compared with products with no reviews. This demonstrates that customer reviews play a significant role in persuading consumers to make a purchase.
Research suggests that consumers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations, so gathering as many positive online reviews as you can is essential and is a significant benefit to your business.
How to Improve Your Business’ Online Reviews
There are two main issues businesses face with online reviews. The first is dealing with fake reviews. As customer reviews are such a vital part of the shopping process for consumers, fake negative reviews on your page can be hugely detrimental. Unfortunately, negative Yelp reviews can be hard to remove from the site, even when you know that they are not genuine. If you are struggling with fake reviews posted on Yelp and are concerned about the impact that these reviews may be having on your business, you will be pleased to know that there is a new platform to assist with removing fake Yelp reviews. This will help you to ensure that your genuine customer reviews are all that appears on Yelp and will prevent any fake reviews from damaging your business’ reputation.
The second issue is customers not leaving reviews after making a purchase. Many customers only leave a review when they feel particularly strongly about their experience. Customers are more likely to be proactive and leave a review of their own accord if they have had an experience that is either extremely positive or extremely negative. If their experience has been good but not exceptional, or merely neutral, they may not bother to leave a review at all. This makes it essential to offer all customers the very best service and also to send out reminder emails to prompt customers to review their recent purchases.
As you can see, online customer reviews are a powerful tool when it comes to increasing the success of your business. In the digital age, customer reviews have become the new word of mouth, so ensuring that you obtain feedback from your customers is essential.
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