Every effective marketer is aware that, when it comes to attracting new clients, word-of-mouth promotion reigns supreme. When potential consumers or clients hear others speak highly of your business, it fosters trust and has a powerful impact on purchasing decisions in a manner that conventional advertising cannot.
The new form of word-of-mouth is customer reviews. People seek them out, take note of them, and use them as the basis for their purchasing decisions. Negative reviews can limit revenue and force a business to take a step back, while positive ratings can spread quickly and result in explosive sales.
Fortunately, generating positive client feedback requires more than merely putting your goods and services on the market and crossing your fingers. There are strategies you may employ to make sure clients are content and prepared to submit favorable reviews.
Why People Read Reviews Online
There usually are four reasons why someone would search for an internet review:
- In order to obtain social proof from users of the good or service
- To better understand the item they are purchasing
- To reduce the possibility of making an inferior purchase
- To better understand the advantages and restrictions of the product
Naturally, any company wants to garner favorable evaluations so they may use them to increase sales and build their online brand. Here are seven strategies you may employ to obtain excellent customer feedback.
Request Reviews on a Variety of Platforms
Making it as simple as possible for customers to submit reviews is the first step to getting great ones online. It is less likely that someone will take the time to provide the kind of review you desire the harder it is to leave one. The use of social media and independent review websites to promote your brand, goods, or services is highly recommended.
Depending on your sector, there are a ton of specialist review sites that can help you get fantastic client feedback. In order to avoid confusion about what you want your visitors to accomplish, the key for all of these platforms is to keep it straightforward and solicit feedback.
Encourage and honor reviews
Consider adding incentives to the process if you discover that you aren’t obtaining as many reviews as you’d like or you simply like the idea of rewarding your customers.
People should be motivated by incentives like discounts, coupons, gift cards, or competitions, which may even increase their sales when they return and shop again.
When employing this strategy, you must construct a compensation plan that helps your business achieve its objectives. It has been demonstrated that providing incentives increases positive reviews. However, you should also be open and make sure that reviews are sincere and not merely driven by the “offer.”
Improve your timing and be aware of when to ask!
You’ll get more out of the process and enhance your client service by asking for reviews at the correct moment. Timing is crucial whether communicating via email, social media, or your website. The last thing you want to do is annoy someone at the wrong time and leave them with a bad review that other people will read.
You must comprehend and monitor your customer’s journey. A brand’s interaction points should be known. You may use this to map out the points of contact and channels that will have the biggest effects and help you increase engagement.
Customers believe what other people have to say, thus it’s worthwhile to make the effort to not only spread the word about your product but also discover more about your clientele and your goods and services.
If you want to prioritize reviews, be sure to assign the task to specific team members and give them enough time to do it. As soon as the plan is in place, put it into action and keep going until you have a multifaceted procedure for obtaining reviews from a variety of platforms.