Straight from the Shopper’s Mouth: Making Customer Reviews Work For You

As a frequent eCommerce shopper, I’ve got a mental checklist of things I want to see before I go hunting for the “Add to Cart” button. Some of them are no-brainers: Price. Benefits. Pictures. Then there are the more secondary (but still important) attributes, like shipping cost, product availability, and any applicable options to configure, such as color or size.

And then, of course, there are the reviews.

Over the past few years, I have become a review snob. If I’m poised to purchase a product from a website but there are no comments from other customers who have used it, I immediately enter hesitation mode. Usually, I’ll leave my cart, open up a Google window, and search for reviews of the item elsewhere. Sometimes, I end up finding the product on a competing website with a lower retail price, a free shipping offer, or some other incentive that causes me to abandon the first site. And I’m not alone—a recent study by Forrester found that a whopping 71% of web shoppers rely on product reviews as an influential factor in their buying decisions.

Why You Should Consider Reviews

Obviously, as an eCommerce site proprietor, you don’t want to drive would-be customers to ditch you, which is why including a mechanism for capturing and displaying customer reviews is worth considering. The electronic version of good old word-of-mouth marketing, a positive review can do wonders for building a prospective buyer’s confidence in your product, your website, and the overall shopping experience you offer.

And trust is just the beginning. Customer reviews have been proven to help turn clicks into conversions, reduce product return rates, and create a sense of loyalty and community that keeps customers coming back. Plus, reviews can help to boost long-tail organic search rankings by including customers’ natural phraseology on the page—if Sally Johnson writes a paragraph raving about “the best Kenmore coffee maker,” that product page is likely to rank for future product searches using variations of that same phrase.

Reeling Them In

Unfortunately, it’s easier to justify customer reviews than it is to get them. Online shoppers are busy people, and it often takes an earth-shattering impression to compel them to go back to the website, hunt for the product they bought, and enter their feedback. But don’t write off reviews just yet—there are some strategic ways in which you can implore customers to toss in their two cents, as well as guidelines for how to best utilize the information.

Solicit feedback. A few weeks after shipping a product to a consumer, try sending an email requesting their feedback. You don’t have to hit them over the head with the review aspect—start off by thanking them for their purchase, maybe offering some soft cross-sells for accessory items, and then gently asking for their feedback. Most customers will likely be impressed by the level of personalization of the correspondence. (This may go without saying, but be sure to filter out any customers who have returned their purchase, as their reviews may not be as positive as you’d like.) Some online shops even offer direct or indirect incentives for reviews, such as an entry into a drawing for a free gift card or a certain percentage off their next purchase. Another option for solicitation is to include a hard-copy insert in the product shipment.

Don’t make them think. If the customer has to spend too much time or effort finding the product, hunting down the page where they’re supposed to enter their feedback, and then navigating through multiple input fields, they’re more likely to bag the whole thing. Make the review process as easy as possible by providing can’t-miss links to the reviews page along with a quick rating system. Multiple-choice or starred questions are easiest, but be sure to give the customer the option to fill out a text field in order to reap the long-tail SEO benefits of product repetition.

Don’t be afraid of negative comments. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to companies who shy away from capturing and displaying customer reviews is the risk of someone dragging their product through the proverbial mud for all to see. Anyone who has shopped Amazon.com can see there are plenty of neutral and negative reviews peppering their product pages. The key is to use the critical feedback as a means of improving upon your product or service offerings with the goal of boosting the positive-to-negative ratio.

Spread ‘em around. Whether they’re positive or negative, customer reviews can serve as invaluable tools in educating personnel on consumer behavior and expectations, as well as pinpointing areas that may need work. In a best-case scenario, a rave review can help to boost employee morale and confirm that your business is on the right track.