What do buyers prefer in products or services?

This is how important online reviews are in the age of digitization

If you are not yet aware of the importance of online reviews in the age of digitization, you should take a look at the following statistics: Business service platforms with product reviews on the platform generate 67% more traffic and 75% more leads than providers without corresponding reviews.

User reviews therefore have a direct impact on the traffic, sales, reputation and brand awareness of companies.

The online reputation of companies is significantly influenced by user reviews. Companies can of course present themselves great with an attractively designed website, cute YouTube videos with playing kittens and a successful Facebook presence. However, buyers will never believe what companies say about themselves as much as opinions from real users.

Online reviews become more trusted than recommendations from friends

According to a study by buyers trust online reviews significantly more than personal recommendations from friends and acquaintances. Expert opinions are now also given less credence than private online reviews.

This is mainly due to the fact that they come from real users in the respective industry and are usually available in increased numbers. Different evaluations can provide information about different aspects or focal points of a product or service.

Most Americans use online reviews to help them make a purchase. For example, 26% of buyers read customer reviews online before making a purchase, 48% state that they often read reviews on the Internet and 22% at least occasionally. Only 4% of the respondents never or rarely read online reviews before buying a product.

Reviews on the Internet have long become an effective adjustment screw that has a significant influence on the success of products and services.

When do buyers write online reviews?

Online-writing-reviews

Very satisfied or very dissatisfied users are known to write online reviews. However, when everything goes “as expected”, customers rarely leave a review. In USA, however, the majority of online reviews are from satisfied users. This gives companies a great opportunity to collect reviews from their (satisfied) customers and to promote such a positive reputation.

The willingness to write reviews is higher with satisfied customers than with dissatisfied ones. After all, reviewers usually want to give other customers advice before making a purchase.

Most of the reviews in USA are written for electrical goods, entertainment articles and clothing, while food and software programs receive the fewest reviews.

Which online reviews do buyers trust?

American global buyers trust negative reviews more than positive reviews and trust products when they reach 20–50 reviews.

24% of buyers attach great importance to the fact that an evaluation is not older than 6 months. 28% only trust reviews that were written in the last 3 months. With regard to the timeliness of evaluations, it must be noted that there are strong fluctuations in different sectors.

Information about the reviewers can also have an impact on the trust and credibility of a user review. The author’s profile has significantly less influence on the credibility when evaluating clothing or furniture, whereas it can be more important when evaluating a professional photo lens or special sports equipment.

Cornerstone-of-a-customer-evaluation

Furthermore, with a lower number of ratings, the level of the overall rating becomes increasingly irrelevant. If a product has 5 out of 5 stars but only 5 customer ratings, 76% of buyers prefer a product that only has 4 out of 5 stars from 15 submitted ratings.

80% of buyers read customer reviews on Amazon. Other popular platforms are Google, eBay, eWorldTrade, Otto, and Idealo. Reviews on the website of the provider / company are the least trusted.

Beware of fake reviews

Fake reviews are a big problem for retail groups like Amazon as they ruin customer trust. The group is therefore investing a lot in identifying and eliminating these reviews. In 2015, Amazon sued 1,000 fake reviewers and in 2017 deleted tens of thousands of reviews that had been purchased. The software provider Review Meta has determined that every fifth Amazon review is fake.

In general, customers should be careful with products with few, exclusively positive or very long text reviews. New products with thousands of reviews or ratings shortly after the release date are also suspect.

Companies should therefore prefer platforms for collecting reviews that check the origin of the reviews and use portals that have an arbitration board. This ensures that there is a regulated procedure for removing fake reviews.

How do companies deal with user reviews?

Almost half of all buyers in study stated that they have never had a company response to a customer review. Only 33% of buyers even want a response from companies. One possible reason for this low percentage could be the poor quality of responses from most companies. The majority of buyers have the feeling that reviews are not or not enough taken into account by companies.

If we take a look at the company website, 23% of respondents say they do not react to reviews at all. 42% of companies, on the other hand, seek contact with customers. 38% of companies state that they adjust their own performance after negative reviews, while 9% report or delete bad customer reviews.

84% of the companies do not use any software to evaluate their customer ratings. With the help of so-called “Review Management Software “you can record user reviews. The software supports you in responding to negative feedback and improving the perception of your offer. A quick and correct reaction to especially negative user reviews is crucial.

Since users trust negative reviews more than positive ones, companies should see this as an opportunity to demonstrate how professionally they can handle criticism. Companies can increase their credibility by responding in a factual and friendly manner, apologizing for mistakes and then learning from them.

Online reviews and their impact on Google

In the “Local Search Ranking Factors Report” it is reported that user reviews (number, frequency and variety of reviews) are one of the five most important factors that determine whether companies are listed in the “Local Pack”. The three highlighted map-based search results are referred to as the “Local Pack”.

User reviews also contain keywords that support companies in their SEO strategy with suitable content.

Collect reviews — do not lose any competitive disadvantages

In addition to increased sales, improved reputation and support in achieving branding and branding goals, online reviews also have an impact on the visibility of companies in search engines.

Companies that do not pursue a targeted review strategy and leave online reviews to chance should change this as soon as possible. Otherwise, they have to accept severe competitive disadvantages compared to the competition that collects reviews.

Even today, 26% of Germans read online reviews before making a purchase. This trend is increasing and will continue to increase, especially with the coming generations, increasing online purchases and increasing digitization. By 2022, half of all buyers will probably use reviews as a decision-making aid before making a purchase.