Customer reviews are the best ways to generate more business. Every marketer knows that the word of mouth and endorsements can have an impact on people’s choice to purchase or not. When prospective clients hear the opinions of others, it creates perception and influences the decision process.
It is common now for product pages to include customer reviews that tell others of the experience about the brand. It can be good reviews or bad ones but they both influence the buyers. Sales are made through good reviews while the negative ones warn customers and this is not taken lightly. Some people read reviews before making any purchase.
Getting great customer feedback entails some tactics to ensure client satisfaction and for them to willingly leave.a positive review for other clients to see.
Reason Why People Read Reviews
People look at online reviews for the following reasons:
- To know more about the product or service
- To get social proof of the product or service
- To reduce the possibility of making a bad decision
- To get more info about product or service benefits
Getting good reviews is definitely a positive tone to boost sales and grow the brand online. Here are more tactics to use in order to get great positive reviews:
- Make sure that the reviews are across a range of platforms
The very first thing that an online marketer would do is to see to it that reviews can be accessible and seen by the most number of customers. The more reviews across several platforms the more reach to prospective customers. These are the most effective platforms for customer reviews:
- Facebook Business Page
- LinkedIn Recommendations
- Manta
- YouTube Reviews underneath the videos
- Yelp
- YellowPages
- Four Square
- Better Business Bureau
The ones above are general platforms but there are industry reviews that are as effective. Example is TripAdvisor for travel and hotel reviews. These platforms are simple and generally available to the public.
- Leverage on the business website
The business website is a good place to get customer reviews. Be sure commenting on product pages and blog articles is possible to allow customers to leave comments and reviews.
If the website is for ecommerce then the CMS would allow reviews for each product. Encourage clients to give their opinion about the brand.
3. Email clients and ask for a review of brand
As part of customer care, send out a short email after purchase of the product and ask for an honest opinion of what the client thinks about the brand. An honest feedback can also alert on possible problems and issues and allow the marketing people to make adjustments.
4. Offer incentives for customer feedback
Consider an incentive program for those who give their customer reviews. This would be in the form of product discounts or freebies and would be appreciated by the customers.
The company Birchbox asks customers to leave reviews by offering Birch Points. Since 2010, the products have grown from mere beauty products to being the sixth popular subscription service in the world. The incentive program has really been a success.
5. Timing is important
When planning to get customer reviews, be sure to look for perfect timing. Whether it is on the website, social media or email, timing is essential so that no negative review will be given.
It is best to give the client time to interact with the product after they purchase. They will probably mention the brand or company in their social media posts if a good experience resulted from using the product or service. The idea is to approach clients when they are happy and satisfied with what they purchased.
Final Thoughts
There is no hard and fast rules on how to get great customer reviews, but the business can always get some positive ones if the product or service is worthy of such review. If customer feedback plays an important role in the business, devote some time to study and develop the customer service and feedback portion of the company. In the long run this will pay off especially if it is across many platforms.
