Online customer reviews are a business’s secret weapon. They may be the most quietly helpful thing for a business – yet many businesses still won’t put any effort into getting them from their happy customers.
Why is that?
Perhaps that’s because they haven’t heard about the most powerful ways that online reviews help businesses – read on for info that’ll make you start asking for reviews right away…
1. Reviews build trust that wouldn’t exist without them.
People are unpredictable, but statistically speaking, we know how they think and how it affects businesses, especially when it comes to trusting that business.
87 percent of people say a business needs a 3-5 star (out of 5) overall rating before they’ll purchase from them.
What’s more, 90 percent of consumers read reviews about a product or service before purchasing – up to 10 different reviews, usually.
And 88 percent of people stated that they trust online reviews from strangers just as much as word of mouth from friends and family.
2. Reviews speed up the sales process.
Online customer reviews have the benefit of helping buyers make up their mind much more quickly. 89% of users make their purchase within 1 week of reading reviews.
Additionally, by leaving reviews recommending a business to others, customers are psychologically primed to become repeat customers.
Trust leads to better sales as well. For each star increased in a business’s overall online average star rating, revenue increases on average by 39 percent.
3. Reviews increase visibility on popular platforms as well as in searches on Google and Bing.
Rich snippets in organic search results and local business listings provide visual trust indicators for businesses and websites. Over 10 percent of organic search results’ content is comprised of reviews.
Additionally, more reviews and ratings can improve your click through rate on search, which can indirectly improve your page’s rankings. Google’s algorithm takes roughly 200 factors into account when determining rankings for search queries, and click through rate is a big one.
So if you own a business and you aren’t asking every single customer for a positive review of their experience, just remember: you’re leaving money on the table…and you’re giving your competition more opportunity to take your customers away.
Start now! Think of 10 happy customers off the top of your head. Ask them for a review. You’ll be surprised at how willing people are to say nice things about your business!
