Customer reviews are an essential part of your marketing strategy. Consumers read, on average, 10 online reviews before trusting a new business and 73% of people say that they trust a local business more if it has positive reviews.
Interestingly, roughly 40% of consumers only take into account reviews that have been posted in the last 2 weeks. That means that it is essential that you have a constant stream of positive reviews on your website. If you do not, consumers are far less likely to trust your business and that will have a significant impact on sales. If you do not have enough customer reviews on your site, these are some of the most effective ways to encourage more feedback.
Improve Your Customer Experience
Before we consider ways to encourage customers to leave reviews, it’s important to ensure that the reviews they leave will be positive. If the customer experience is excellent, consumers are far more likely to leave a positive review, so you need to consider whether there are any areas for improvement.
If you are an online retailer, it is important that you work with an express courier service so you can cut delivery times as much as possible. Delivery times are often referenced in customer reviews, so it is important to consider. You also need to invest in your customer service department because after care is another impact factor that people take into consideration when reviewing a business. If people feel that your business went above and beyond to help them, they are more likely to leave a positive review.
Use Email Marketing
Many customers will only leave reviews when asked, so it is important that you prompt people. You can use email marketing campaigns to reach existing customers and ask them to leave a review on your website. In some cases, you can improve the return rate on these emails by offering an incentive, like a small discount on their next purchase or entry into a prize draw. If you are asking people to take time out of their day to leave a review, you may need to offer them something in return.
Respond To Reviews
When customers leave a review, they are opening a dialogue with you and it is important that you respond. If customers feel that their review will have some impact and you will address any issues that they raise, they will see it as a valuable use of their time. However, if they feel that nobody will ever read the review, they will be less inclined to write one in the first place. You should respond to every review, even if you are simply thanking them for taking the time to give you their feedback.
Make The Process Simple
If you want to encourage customers to leave reviews, you need to make the process as simple as possible. People are taking time out of their day to leave a review, and if the process is too lengthy, they will be less likely to do it. It’s best to provide multiple ways for people to leave reviews so they can leave one directly on your site as well as through social media or third party review sites.
Encouraging customers to leave positive reviews will help you to build trust with new customers and you should see an increase in sales as a result.