Customer reviews on a website – why are they so important?

What importance do customer opinions have?

Regardless of the type of business conducted, it is worth taking care of the opinions about the offered products, services, and the company itself. Especially now, in the era of the Internet, when the percentage of online sales is constantly growing, and obtaining reliable opinions is within reach. Authentic and sincere recommendations from customers, even if there are few of them, are “worth their weight in gold”.

By demonstrating the value of customer opinions, one can refer to numbers, percentages, surveys, etc. However, it is known that there is no stronger argument for the credibility of a given entity than testimonials of the course and outcome of cooperation left by impartial individuals or organizations.

Due to this, buying valuable references is not always the correct solution. Exposing these practices by your audience will result in more losses than benefits. Furthermore, such a reputational flaw will cost you a lot, and removing its repercussions is nearly impossible.

You can of course prevent the addition of opinions or comments on your websites or profiles. However, mentions and ratings of your activity will still appear online, along with the increase in reach and popularity of your business. Furthermore, their absence raises suspicions, and the lack of ability to publish them deprives you of an essential communication channel.

However, if you take your business seriously and play fair, you will care about acquiring as many opinions as possible, even those unfavorable ones. Moreover, mere superlatives referring to your business may turn out to be less credible.

Customer opinions – how to use them and what can be gained?

Below we present how both favorable and less favorable customer opinions (excluding hate and dishonest actions of competitors) can positively impact the conversion, reputation, and even the budget of your company.

The effect of social proof of correctness

This is probably the most important aspect of publishing customer reviews, which is based on psychology. Otherwise known as the “social proof”, it is one of the persuasion methods that will help you gain the trust of the customer. This method allows you to build a dialogue between you and your audience.

Social proof of validity can be based not only on the opinions of customers who have already used your offer, but it can also be reviews from experts or influencers. It is they who attest to your credibility with their reputation.

Building a positive image

It happens that someone will express their opinions in a more or less forceful way. Can such proverbial spoonful of tar spoil the whole barrel of your company’s honey? It turns out, no. In a similar situation, a little creativity and even empathy directed towards such reviewer is enough.

Contrary to appearances, these unwanted reviews can provide you with valuable information about your product or service and create an opportunity to present to other customers the level of your commitment, care for the recipient, and knowledge of current affairs. By responding to negative customer reviews, you are conducting actions that improve your public relations.

Customer opinions are a free market research

Consumers, by providing constructive opinions in which they present their observations, will help you forecast and improve your business. In this way, you will learn about customer preferences and determine your position compared to the competition. Analyzing the reviews and comments will provide you with the necessary information for:

• directions, redesign of advertising campaign;
• improvement, update of marketing strategy;
• introduction of new products or services to the market.

Longer time spent on the website

The consumer often checks at the very beginning whether there are reviews on the website regarding a specific product/service or the provider themselves. They pay particular attention to the less favorable ones, of course. In the event that they are unable to familiarize themselves with them, they leave the website and continue their search elsewhere. Of course, the consequence of this may be finding a competitive offer.

Better positioning

In addition to strictly marketing benefits, customer reviews also contribute to improving and strengthening the position of a website in Google’s organic search results. This is achieved, among other things, through:

• keywords contained in customer reviews;
• links added to reviews posted outside the website (link building, off-site SEO);
• updating and publishing new, unique content (which can be obtained from other websites with the consent of the reviewers), which increases traffic to the website;
• user-generated content, which is free and sometimes very useful content in which the user will describe in detail the operation of the product or the course of performing the service;
• labeling customer reviews as structured data that will be visible in search results. This, in turn, helps to acquire new customers who will receive information about your reputation more quickly.

Reliability

Consumer observations are a neutral testimony confirming:

• product appearance consistent with the photograph;
• delivery date;
• quality of service during the transaction, as well as possible complaints or repair service.

Customer reviews increase conversion

It may seem obvious, but your audience doesn’t have the whole day to search the internet in order to find the perfect offer. A large number of reviews and, above all, reliable comments will speed up their decision-making process. The reason for this may be laziness, lack of time, or unfamiliarity with the industry or product, for example, when buying a gift.

Customer opinion – how to obtain it?

There are several ways in which you can encourage a customer to leave a review on your website.

• adding a special widget that will redirect the customer to a review form – it is important for it to be clearly visible, aesthetically pleasing, and attention-grabbing;
• leaving space for reviews on product pages – this is where customers most often read reviews and make purchasing decisions;
• offering a discount or free product to customers who leave a review – this will make them feel that it is worth taking a few moments to write a review;
• adding auxiliary questions to the review form, such as “Are you satisfied with the product?” and “What did you purchase?” – this will encourage customers to provide more detailed responses;
• using emails or text messages to ask customers to leave a review after purchasing the product – it is best to wait for about 2-3 days.