Why all Businesses should care about their Reviews

Featured article by Megan Arevalo, Independent Technology Author

As the era of the internet has taken over the world, the importance of online reviews for businesses has also grown considerably. This is mostly due to the inability of customers to test out the objects, or experience the services prior to making their purchase, hence needing to rely on more factors other than the product description and the afferent price.

This is where reviews kick in. At this moment in time, reviews impact most kind of businesses, operating both online and in the real world. Examples include hotels, restaurants, resorts, spas, gyms, but also firms that build and sell actual products. A recent study by Websitebuilder.org has shown that over 60% of customers read reviews for restaurants, 40% for hotels, 41% for medical and healthcare services, 31% for clothing stores, 28% for hair and beauty salons, 28% for grocery stores, 26% for pubs, 20% for car dealerships and 18% for insurance services.

Not only this, but both positive and negative reviews can have a huge positive or negative impact on the popularity of businesses, their number of customers and overall profitability. With this in mind, 22% of consumers will refuse to buy a product after reading only one negative review, whereas 70% will refuse to purchase a product after seeing more than four negative reviews. On the other side of the spectrum, each start can bring about a 5%-9% increase in revenue, whereas customers are willing to spend up to 31% more money on businesses with excellent reviews.

Therefore, apart from trying to keep the number of negative reviews done by offering excellent services, it is also important to encourage people nonetheless to leave reviews, in order to express their opinions.

Reviews can also:

1. Help Build Brand Trust

For small businesses, establishing a brand is an essential step towards entrepreneurial success, and reviews definitely help this happen. Each positive comments works on creating an image for your business, which will be constantly shared with the community that you are targeting. This can both help bring in new customers, while also encouraging customers to return for more purchases in the future.

2. Offer SEO benefits

While Google’s algorithms are bound to ignore the number of reviews when normally searching for a product/service provider, if you have numerous reviews, you can get a SEO advantage on alternative searches on Google, such as Google Maps, or even Google Now for mobile, therefore facilitating free internet marketing.

3. Allow you to improve the experience of unsatisfied customers

As all reviews hold value, whenever a business sees a negative review, rather than ignoring it, most often encourage the practice of getting back to the unsatisfied customer and asking what went wrong. This simple practice can help turn even unsatisfied customers into happy ones.

Based on everything that has been outlined so far, these are only few of the reasons why all businesses should care about their reviews, and should try to provide better customer service.

About the Author

Megan Arevalo, community director and writer for Websitebuilder.org, lives in Portland Oregon with her husband and two young children. When she isn’t calling to the duties of motherhood, she creates and manages content for Websitebuilder.org. She is passionate about social media, website building, writing, photography and of course, her children and husband.