In today’s digital marketing age, how would you feel as a small business owner if you found out that 90% of customers state that their purchasing decisions are highly influenced by online reviews?
Reputation Management
In business, you’ll often hear how good news travels fast while bad news travels even faster. Online reviews are now just as powerful as ‘word-of-mouth’ and can spread like a wildfire. This can either make or break a business as 90% of your local customers are likely to do research about your business online before making a purchase decision. Another key point to keep in mind is that any negative reviews should be what sparks constructive conversation and actions for improvement. This means getting to the bottom of some potential pitfalls in your existing business operations and turning a bad customer experience into a great one.
Online Credibility
The local business landscape has become more competitive than ever, fighting for your business to stand out amongst the rest starts with generating consistent, positive reviews. Studies continue to show that online reviews are valued as trusted advisors and are a critical component of generating business from local searches with as many as nine out of ten buyers referring to reviews before contacting a local business.
Influence Buying Decisions
If you don’t think online reviews have much impact on new and potential customers, think again. 92% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses and 88% of them trust those reviews just as much as personal recommendations. In other words, more people read reviews as part of their pre-purchase research before committing to buying a product or service. Believe it or not, 90% of consumers read ten positive reviews or less before they feel they can trust a business, where as 68% form an opinion by reading just one to six reviews. This means your potential customers are forming their opinions about your brand and deciding whether or not to trust you, faster than ever. Your business must have consistent, positive reviews to stay relevant in a fast moving and ever changing industry.
Customer Feedback
As a business owner, ensuring your customers are pleased, satisfying their needs and eventually keeping them loyal to your brand should be a top priority. But, how can you be sure that your continuous efforts are translating into the results you are after? If you aren’t trying to find what your clients actually think and feel about your product or service, then you will never be able to give them the best customer experience. Their opinions and suggestions about the experience they had with your brand is helpful information that you can use to adjust your business to fit their needs more accurately.
Search Ranking/Search Visibility
Local search engines love online reviews, and for one primary reason, purchasers love online reviews. They’re in the business of providing people, on-the-go or at home, with the most accurate and up-to-date information to help them predict and make decisions around their future purchases. The faster they can do that, the more potential buyers will turn to them, time and time again. This means search engines are favouring companies with more online reviews to provide them with the most current and accurate information.
Outside of the restaurant and hospitality industry, it can be quite the struggle for businesses to generate consistent, positive reviews. Consumers don’t typically leave reviews for their local landscaper, for the gym they’ve just joined, for their pet’s groomer nor for many other business types that they interact with on a daily basis, unless something goes wrong, resulting in the type of review you did not want to see.
Positive online reviews help your business establish credibility in the marketplace. Generating reviews is not something that happens by accident. Getting positive reviews requires business owners to contact customers, and provide complicated instructions on how they can leave a review to drum up desired results.
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