Online reviews are an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy in the digital age, providing outside perspectives on products and services. Spiegel’s research came from a study that found that 95% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business and they rely on reviews to make virtually every purchase, from buying a coffee maker on Shopee to booking a vacation on Booking.com or Airbnb.
In the latest episode of the Truelogic DX podcast, Bernard San Juan III, Managing Partner of Truelogic Inc., highlights that online reviews should be part of any brand’s strategy, and companies should encourage their customers to leave reviews.
“Word-of-mouth just creates the most valuable kinds of customers. And this is what reviews are. They are sort of evergreen, word-of-mouth feedback about your business. They are always available, always online forms of feedback, and word-of-mouth about your business,” he said.
A survey conducted by Power Reviews revealed that 30% of respondents said that reviews influenced their purchasing decision with a brand or a product.
“Practical application, everybody goes to Lazada. Everybody goes to Shopee. What is the one thing that your friends will tell you? Aside from, you know, what’s the one thing that your friends will tell you aside from, you know, buying it from a LazMall? They’ll say only go with vendors that have reviews, right? So reviews matter, they are great credibility virtue signals,” San Juan underscored.
Not all negative reviews are bad because one of the factors that your customers will look for is your resilience and your ability to respond to negative feedback. “In the presence of a negative review, people will usually replace the sentimentality metric with the response time metric. And so you want to make sure that you respond quickly, especially to negative reviews,” he suggested.
Tips to Get More Online Reviews
- Make it automatic and logical
“One, take a lesson from the pandemic. People adapt to new behaviors quickly. If you could have offered somebody a tablet, or an iPad on their way in before you could service them, why not offer them an iPad that they could work on and give you and leave you a review for one, or two minutes, right? So A, make it common sense, make it automatic. Make it logical. So that’s the first way to get a review,” San Juan said.
- Make it easy and shorten the process.
“I think there are, there are people that will say, oh sir, can you give me a review by scanning this QR code? The person then has to whip out their phone and then they have to scan the QR code and then they might not have mobile data. They might be on an Android that doesn’t have a camera that automatically scans the QR code. Like, save the hassle. Have a device in your office, or your establishment that the user can use to leave you a review,” he added.
- Make it a habit to ask your loyal customers to leave reviews if they haven’t yet.
Ask them why they’re there or while they’re there. Like putting up an iPad every, do a review. That’s easy, but directly engage with them. You don’t have to do electronic solicitation.
- Share your reviews on social media
If your customers provide you with reviews, share them on social media. Tag your customers, right? Amplify their voice. Don’t just use your social media to amplify your ideas and how great your brand is.
“People don’t care about you as a brand until you care about their problem first. But we also care about people that we think are like us. So amplify the voice of your customers if they leave you positive, and solicit their reviews on social media for all the world to see. Amplify their reviews on social media for the world to see,” he said.
- Incentivise customers to leave a review
Everybody likes getting something for free. And in a survey, 73% of customers said they’d be inclined to leave a review if they were offered reward points, a freebie, or whatnot. It doesn’t have to be expensive.
“In today’s digital age, online reviews have the power to make or break a business. Embracing them as a marketing strategy is no longer optional, but a necessity for success,” he finally said.
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