Online reviews influence users’ purchases. Are you managing them?

How do consumers use online reviews, and what perception do businesses have of them? Surveys by the Local Search Association (LSA), in collaboration with SOCi, reveal the answer.

On one hand, the results confirm the now widely recognized importance of reviews; on the other, they show how much work companies still have ahead of them on their strategies for managing reviews and their online reputation: 50% of local businesses still don’t have a clearly defined strategy for managing reviews and their web reputation. This despite the fact that everyone keeps talking about how reviews are an absolutely essential component of any digital marketing strategy that aims to succeed. RevLocal reminds us of some data, already widely reported but worth repeating, about how much importance consumers place on web reviews: no less than 91% of consumers read online reviews, most say they trust other users’ comments as much as a recommendation from a friend or family member, and consumers spend on average as much as 31% more with brands that have excellent reviews. In short, as if it hadn’t already been said enough, reviews really matter!

If we add that positive reviews influence the purchasing decisions of as many as 66% of consumers – second only to discounts among influencing factors – their value becomes clear.

The LSA and SOCi survey is particularly useful to us, though, because it digs deeper into consumer behavior than these facts, already well-known and digested by (almost) everyone, can tell us. We uncover some very interesting details about certain consumer attitudes toward reviews. Among the most notable are the following three: consumers are more often motivated to write a review in order to share a positive experience than a negative one, almost 80% of consumers expect a response to their comments from the brand they’re addressed to (often within 24 hours), and 89% of consumers say they’re willing to change a negative review if reassured in the right way by the brand.

What do these numbers actually tell us? That the crucial elements for building a successful review management strategy are, first and foremost, encouraging customers as much as possible to review your brand, and then, just as important, interacting with their comments. The quality of reviews obviously matters a great deal, but so does quantity. If the reviews about your brand are too few or too dated, they won’t be convincing. Not to mention the fact that reviews and comments generate traffic, and therefore visibility, so the more there are, the better. The fact that consumers are more easily motivated to write reviews to share positive experiences is encouraging on this front. It means that if a brand offers an incentive to publish a review, it’s more likely to be taken up by a particularly satisfied customer than by a disappointed one.

This obviously doesn’t mean it’s possible to be completely immune to negative reviews. However excellent your products and customer service may be, pleasing everyone is impossible. Here too, though, the data lets us breathe a sigh of relief. The vast majority of consumers say they’re willing to change a negative review if the brand shows itself receptive to criticism and willing to make amends. That’s why it’s absolutely necessary not only to encourage your customers to publish reviews but also to keep a close eye on them, across all the platforms where you have a presence, and to interact with them. This applies to all reviews, not just negative ones. The data speaks clearly: when people take even just a few minutes of their time to write you a comment, they expect some form of acknowledgment. Sometimes a simple thank you (maybe with a smiley face) can be gratifying enough to encourage the customer it’s addressed to write more positive reviews in the future, or to convince a customer who might not be particularly motivated to make the effort of publishing a comment.

The advantages of receiving a steady, rich stream of reviews, of dedicating time and resources to keeping them under control, and of giving your customers the right attention, should by now be clear. Nevertheless, when reviews start multiplying and spreading across the countless platforms crowding the web, keeping up with everything can seem like an impossible task.

With RetailTune, we help you manage reviews. How?

From a single dashboard, we give you the ability to view and interact with all your reviews, and to compare reviews across different stores to assess which one is performing best, and in just a few simple clicks, you can reply to, archive, or make a review visible on the store locator.

Claudio Agazzi, Founder & MD at RetailTune.ai