An important part of doing business online is the ability for people to share opinions, experiences, and other information.
A statistic published by Business Week (October 2008) reports that 70% of the people interviewed consult reviews or ratings before purchasing. Do you know what your customers are saying about your business? Do you recognize what your customers’ needs are and how you can help them? One way to do this is through customer feedback. Customer feedback is invaluable. It helps you present the best products and services in the best way possible.
Polarity of Reviews
Typically people tend to leave a review if they had a very emotional experience with your business. This can happen whether the experience was good or bad. It is important to capitalize on those that had a positive experience and minimize the occurrence of the negative. Saturate the market with positive feedback about your service or product. But how do you do this? How can you get people to take the time to write a review about your company?
Provide Incentives
People are more likely to leave a review if you offer them an incentive. Luckily, you are the one that decides what a fair incentive is. Perhaps it could be 5-15% off their next purchase, or even just a free candy bar. Remind them about the incentive right before they leave your office, and be sure to specify what you are asking them to do.
Three Online Review Sites
1. Yelp: http://www.yelp.com
2. Local.com: http://www.local.com
3. Insider Pages: http://www.insiderpages.com
Sign up your business for an account on each of these sites immediately. Review sites are favored by the search engines, and quickly generate high rankings in web searches. This will provide an additional method to help people find their way to your website, blog, or even office (via online contact information).
Consider this statistic:
“Compared to a base group that didn’t read or contribute product reviews at all, people who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert, based on analysis across several Coremetrics clients. (Coremetrics, reported in BtoB, March 2007)” – retrieved from http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats on October 1, 2010.
Take advantage of the power of social proof. Get your business listed on several review sites, and remind your customers to leave a review. This strategy will help build your business for years to come.