"97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017" "90% of consumers read online reviews before online purchases" "85%-88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations"
In the past, word-of-mouth advertising was one of the most powerful marketing tools for companies, but word-of-mouth advertising is fleeting and personal. Nowadays, we have electronic word-of-mouth advertising, namely reviews. The big difference between online and offline word-of-mouth advertising is that online reviews are permanent and public. The reviews are available for everyone to read online and are permanently engraved on the internet.
Of course, you want as many positive reviews as possible, but "There is no such thing as bad publicity." A well-known saying that almost everyone has heard at some point. Of course, opinions on this are divided, but exposure to reviews, whether positive or negative, means that consumers are now familiar with your company if they had never heard of it before. In any case, only very positive reviews are usually not very credible, as this quickly raises suspicions of fabricated reviews.
Marketing professors John H. Roberts (University of Sydney) and James M. Lattin (Stanford University), specialists in the field of consumer choice behavior, designed the Consideration Set Model to map out the consumer's decision-making process. The Consideration Set Model is based on four stages:
Universal Set: All available providers worldwide for a specific product/service.
Awareness Set: All providers known to an individual for a specific product/service.
Consideration Set: The providers that an individual considers before purchasing a product or service.
Choice: The actual choice.
The moment someone comes into contact with your company through reviews, your company shifts from the Universal Set to the Awareness Set in the model. Regardless of whether this was a positive or negative message, the chance of a purchase increases. As a company, you naturally prefer to receive a positive review, as this will bring your company into the Consideration Set more quickly and increase the chance that the person in question will choose your company.
An interesting paradox is that consumers are quicker to trust and believe reviews written by consumers with little expertise than reviews posted and written by experts. There are two reasons why we as consumers are less likely to trust experts than ordinary consumers:
1. Consumers can identify more with consumers;
2. Consumers distrust experts more because they may have a hidden agenda.
We trust an expert when they have been given the rating of "expert" by consumers themselves. Think, for example, of an Uber driver who has received five stars from their customers.
Feeddex specializes in collecting reviews for its customers. By actively approaching customers for reviews as part of customer satisfaction surveys, your company will automatically receive a large number of consumer reviews. The reviews are automatically posted on your website and the review widget can be customized to match your corporate identity. Reviews strengthen your website's position in Google's organic search results, and you will receive "Google stars" next to your listing in the search results. For more information click here.