The Takeaway
There’s a lot to consider in this infographic, but there are a few particularly important messages. For one, if you’re trying to grab the attention of millennials, you need to make sure you have some great reviews about your brand online. After all, two-thirds of them trust online reviews over ads. And regardless of your audience’s age, most people find consumer reviews 12 times more trustworthy than product descriptions.
More specifically, you need positive reviews, because they translate to more sales in most cases. According to the infographic, people spend 31 percent more on businesses with excellent reviews, and 72 percent say they trust businesses more when they have great reviews. On the flipside, 22 percent of consumers won’t buy from a company after they see just one negative review, and overall, 86 percent of consumers are reluctant to buy from a business that has a lot of negative online reviews.
So, what should you do if your brand ends up with some bad reviews? Respond quickly and professionally. This infographic found that when business owners responded to negative reviews, one-third of customers changed it to a positive review, or at least deleted the negative one. And almost one-fifth became loyal customers!
Granted, if you want this response, you’ll likely have to reach out calmly to find out the problem so you can fix it. This may involve a refund, discount, or free products or services, but the result is typically a happy customer who leaves a positive review of your business. And as you can see, that’s an outcome that’s worth doing your best to get, considering the importance of reviews.
Photo Credit: Phenom Apps images Flickr via Compfight cc
This post was first published on The Marketing Scope.