The quality and popularity of many products used to be a mystery back in the day. There was no way that previous consumers could review the good or the bad about their product experience. Even if they somehow chose to review the product, odds are that most new consumers wouldn’t have the time or the patience to spend hours searching for it. With the advent of the digital era where everyone and everything is on the internet, the entire situation has changed drastically.
Nowadays, what is the one thing that you always do before you purchase anything?
You go online and look for reviews that enable you to make a better decision. According to a recent study, 91% of 18-34 year old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This goes to show how significant online reviews have become for the customers’ journey.
Online Reviews- An Essential Customer Feedback Tool
One can assert that online reviews have become the single most important feedback tool for making positive business changes. They give you a clear idea of what the customer liked and did not like about your product. With this information, businesses can then work on eliminating unpopular elements and providing other product features that will better appeal to their end customers.
For example, let’s say a customer has a genuine suggestion that can help you improve your theme parks experience. And you need to find that review and take the appropriate actions based on it. This could have a massive impact on your business, especially because it’s a highly experience-oriented business.
Impact of Online Reviews on Sales
In the age of online reviews, it is necessary to pay attention to what people are saying about you. Let’s see how online reviews can affect your sales:
Say No to Fake Reviews
Fake Reviews can be of two types. The first one is quite commonplace today on third-party sites. These are the fake reviews posted by biased people who have something personal against you or your business.
For example, let’s take a former employee who left your aquarium under acrimonious circumstances (because he thought he isn’t receiving the appropriate incentive). He might just go online and spread lies about your business.
This review may not be relevant to your business, but you need to address it, and make it clear to customers that it was a fake review and does not portray an accurate picture of you or your business.
The other type of fake review is the more devious practice of planting a review yourself in order to make your business look better. Not only is this completely unethical, but it also creates a false representation of you and your business. With closer scrutiny, such lies can easily be broken down, and what then
After knowing that you’d go to such lengths to falsely promote your business, most potential customers would rather walk away.
How do you Manage Online Customer Reviews?
All of this leads to the big question- how do you effectively manage online customer feedback
In many small businesses, there is an in-house resource in place who monitors their mentions on the internet and spends time replying to individual reviews. However, once you are a big brand with significant brand value, this process is simply not efficient enough.
For such high value businesses, managing online customer reviews can get really tricky. Your inbox may be flooded with thousands of review notifications and you’ll definitely be left completely befuddled as to which ones are worth your time.
In such a scenario, the best option for you is to opt for a customer management and analytics product that can make sense of all your online customer feedback. This software should help you locate and identify relevant reviews and take affirmative action on all of the false ones as well.
Tatvam Insights provides you a single VOC platform to monitor all your online customer feedback, as well as thorough analytics to help you create a data-driven product strategy based on the customer reviews that you’ve received.