The Customer Review: A Sure Way To Build Trust and Increase Conversions

In this blog we take a closer look at the customer review – an important tool to help build trust and increase conversions for eCommerce stores.

When you run any kind of business, customer feedback is to be expected. This is even more so in the online age – where sites like Yelp! And Trustpilot give consumers a dedicated space to share their praise or air their grievances with a company.

If you run an online store, reviews are vital to your continued success. Here we take a look at the importance of customer reviews and give you some of the latest data that back this up.

Why Are Reviews So Important?

Here’s why reviews are vital to the success of your online store:

1. The Majority of Shoppers Consult Reviews

If you’ve ever browsed for a product online, the chances are you’ve consulted the reviews of other customers who’ve already bought the item you’re considering. This alone shows the importance of the customer review.

The evidence for this is far more than anecdotal, however. According to data aggregated by Invesp, 90% of consumers read reviews before they visit a business or make a purchase. This is too big a number to ignore!

2. They Build Trust

So, why do shoppers consult reviews? Well, customers simply trust the opinions of other customers.

Again, the data put together by Invesp highlights that 9 out of 10 shoppers trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend, and 92% of shoppers will use a business if it has at least a four-star rating.

Constantine La, from iVisa says that a good brand is inherently trustworthy. A brand is not simply the name or trademark of the organization but an abstraction for that social group, which includes the customers, employees, managers, and shareholders. When customers buy a brand, they’re joining a tribe. People will only do this when the brand is trustworthy. Good reviews is one way to communicate the trustworthiness of a brand to the consumer.

3. They Help Improve Customer Service

Customer reviews are a great way to gain feedback – both in terms of what you’re doing well and areas where you could improve.

Reviews say overwhelmingly that people love your products? That’s great news for everyone – keep on delivering!

Majority of reviews say shipping was too expensive? It’s time to take a serious look at how you can improve that aspect of your service and if you can bring costs down.

Even when the feedback is negative, you can usually turn it into a constructive criticism to learn from and improve on.

4. They Boost Your SEO

As an online store owner, you no doubt know and understand the importance of good SEO. But did you know that customer reviews can help to improve your ranking?

As detailed by Yotpo, reviews help your SEO in a myriad of ways – not least by providing search engines with fresh, relevant content on a regular basis that helps boost your ranking on sites like Google, Bing, and even Facebook.

How to Engage Your Customers

Although customer reviews are invaluable to businesses, unfortunately not all customers are engaged enough to leave them.

In fact, in his experience, business founder Andrew Thomas found that only 1 in 10 customers would leave a review if they had a positive experience. This is sad news when so many customers turn to reviews when planning to make a purchase.

So, what can businesses do to change things?

Give Customers an Incentive They Can’t Refuse

One of the best ways to encourage customers to leave reviews is by giving them an offer they can’t refuse in the form of an incentive.

The CreativeMinds Product Review Incentive extension for Magento 2 is a tool that encourages customers to leave that all important precious feedback.

Here’s how it works:

1. The customer makes a purchase. First, the customer must have completed a purchase with the store and received their item.
2. An incentive is sent straight to their inbox. The site admin can then set up incentives to be automatically sent to the customer via e-mail – this could be a discount or special offer.
3. The incentive is activated once the review is approved. After the customer writes their review and it’s been moderated and approved, their unique coupon code is activated.

The features of the extension include:

1. Automatic Coupons: Send coupons automatically to customers who left a product review.
2. Total Control: The admin can moderate reviews and control whether they go live on the store product pages.
3. Usage Reports: The extension provides full reports on the sent coupons for easy tracking on their usage.
4. Customizable Email: The email messages that are sent to the users are fully customizable with HTML and shortcodes.

The extension is simple to use and gives you full control – so it’s a win-win for both you and your customers.

Not only does the incentive method encourage customers to leave reviews, it can also boost satisfaction, making them more likely to purchase from you again in the future (and leave another review of course!)

More Extensions

For more extensions that upgrade your Magento store and help to boost your sales, browse CreativeMinds full collection of extensions for Magento 2.