The Power of Customer Reviews
Published by Incomedia in WebSite X5 News · Wednesday 28 Jun 2023
Even if sometimes we don't want to, human beings tend to trust the opinions of others and let ourselves be influenced by them.
It's why we ask our friends for restaurant recommendations, and why we scrutinize Amazon reviews before deciding to buy anything - no matter how expensive or cheap. It's also the reason we spend so much time scrolling through TripAdvisor before booking our next vacation.
The power of reviews is undeniable: they are useful to us because they provide us with valuable information about products or services that, in most cases, we would not be able to see or test directly before purchasing. And that's why it's really important to include them on your website.
In this article, we'll try to go a little deeper. We'll explore the advantages of using customer reviews, and we'll try to understand how to use them to improve the performance of a website.
Why customer reviews matter
As we mentioned earlier, reading customer reviews has become a fundamental part of many people's buying process. Reviews have the power to significantly affect the success of your business and, for this reason, you cannot afford to underestimate them.
In short, these are the main reasons why customer reviews are important:
- Credibility and trust
Customer reviews provide powerful social proof of the quality of your product/service. Consider that people tend to trust people who have already tried a product or service more than they trust the manufacturer or seller. Therefore, reading positive reviews can help build trust with potential customers and convince them to make a purchase. - Detailed information
Customer reviews often contain detailed information about the user's experience with a product/service. They cover aspects such as quality, features, value for money and customer service – information like this can be very useful in enabling potential buyers to make informed decisions. - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Customer reviews are authentic, relevant, user-generated content that search engines really like and, as a result, they can improve your website's visibility in related searches. - Feedback for the company
Customer reviews highlight both strengths and areas that need improvement. Use them to try to better understand the needs and expectations of your customers and to improve your business. - Customer Experience Improvement
Listening to and responding to reviews helps you retain customers and build a sense of community around your brand. If you can, take action to resolve issues reported to you and improve customer service and experience. - Marketing and visibility
Positive reviews are also a powerful marketing tool. You can use them as testimonials on your channels to increase your visibility and attract new customers.
Overall, therefore, customer reviews guarantee a range of advantages for your business. Since they offer real, unbiased perspectives on the experience of using a product/service, reviews can influence purchasing decisions and play a crucial role in building the trust of potential customers. In addition, they can lead to an increase in traffic to your website and improve your online reputation. Finally, they provide feedback that can be leveraged to improve products, services, and the overall customer experience.
5 Tips for Optimal Review Management
At this point, having customer reviews is clearly an undisputed advantage but - unfortunately, there is always a "but" - collecting and managing reviews is not always easy.
The process can bring you great satisfaction, but it takes time and attention. Here are some tips to avoid missteps:
- ASK for reviews
Reviews don't fall out of the sky – you have to solicit them. Be prompt, and shortly after a customer has made a purchase, ask them to leave a review. You can do this by sending a follow-up email, perhaps offering him a small incentive, such as a gift or discount. Keep the process of leaving a review as simple as possible and always be sure to act politely and ethically so as not to encourage fake or manipulated reviews. - Constantly monitor reviews
Maintaining a constant focus on customer reviews is key. Use online monitoring tools or social media to keep track of any reviews that are left about your business. That way, you'll be able to respond quickly and appropriately. - Reply to all reviews
Try to respond to all customer reviews, both positive and negative. Express gratitude for positive reviews and show appreciation for the time customers have taken to share their experience. For negative reviews, start by acknowledging the customer's experience, offer a sincere apology, and try to offer concrete solutions. This demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction and can even turn an unsatisfied customer into a loyal one. Negative reviews can be frustrating, but if you handle them right, they can turn into something positive. - Keep calm and be professional
When you receive a negative or critical review, avoid reacting impulsively or emotionally—remember that it's not a personal offense. Remain calm and respond professionally. Provide clear and conciliatory explanations, offer solutions, and be open to dialogue. Showing that you take customers' opinions seriously can help improve the image of your business. - Promote positive reviews
If you get positive reviews from satisfied customers, don't hesitate to promote them. Share them on your social media channels, website or other marketing efforts. As we said, positive reviews can positively influence other customers' decisions and help build a solid reputation for your business - so why not leverage them?
How to display customer reviews on your website
You can use many different systems to collect reviews: for example, you can take advantage of your social pages, or prepare a special form on a page of your website.
One very effective way is to use platforms that allow you to collect online reviews such as Google My Business, Yelp or TripAdvisor.
Whichever path you decide to take, make sure it's simple and intuitive. You're asking your customers to take the time and effort to share their opinion – keep that effort as small as possible. Otherwise, few people will decide to leave a review.
At this point, the question is: once you have collected these valuable reviews, how can you display them on your website?
Without the right tools, using reviews on your website can be difficult and time-consuming. You'll need a tool, and we suggest using Trustmary.
With Trustmary, you can manage the entire process of generating, taking charge and displaying reviews.
Let's see some examples of what you can do with Trustmary.
Collection and management of reviews
Trustmary allows you to collect testimonials from your customers in several ways: through feedback forms, satisfaction surveys, or specific questions.
Once the testimonials are collected, Trustmary provides you with an intuitive management panel that will help you organize, moderate, and approve the reviews. You can decide to view the testimonials you received, respond to customers, and post the appropriate testimonials on your website.
You'll find it easy to create a helpful and thorough page with testimonials.
Widget for viewing reviews
With Trustmary, it only takes minutes to create elegant widgets to display your reviews. You can use the reviews you've already received on Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor and other platforms, or collect new reviews through dedicated forms.
Obviously, you're free to modify the widget as you like to add your website colours and match it with your brand's graphics. Several layouts are available, including: carousel, dynamic wall, masonry, or list view.
The built-in Artificial Intelligence algorithm in Trustmary automatically identifies your best reviews and ensures that only those are shown in the widget.
Once configured, inserting the widget with reviews on your site is very simple, especially if you created the site with WebSite X5. Copy the widget code, open your site project in WebSite X5, and use an HTML Object to insert the code obtained. With this simple "copy and paste" action, you've done everything you need to do.
Lead generation widget
With Trustmary, you can use the full power of customer reviews to try to convert visitors to your website into leads or qualified contacts.
The specific widgets allow you to change your contact forms, outgoing pop-ups, CTA buttons (Call To Action), and also aspects in the chat, and the communications managed by your CRM. These aspects can be enhanced with reviews that make them more impactful.
Again, the widgets are highly customizable: you can easily get them to integrate with your site.
Another important point is that Trustmary also delivers monitoring and analysis tools to allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your widgets. You can get information on the number of leads generated, conversion rate, traffic sources and other important metrics to evaluate the success of your strategies.
In closing
Lack of trust is definitely one of the biggest obstacles to acquiring new customers from your website.
Luckily, the solution is simple: add customer reviews to your pages and, in this way, take advantage of social proof to increase your credibility.
What's the fastest and most effective way to do it? Take advantage of the tools and widgets that a service like Trustmary offers: you'll be sure that you're managing all your reviews in the best way, and you'll always have an updated list of reviews visible online.