When it comes to take the decision to purchase, the buyer is not the only party involved in the whole process. There are also friends who influence one person’s perception about particular goods or other people who can persuade the buyer (usually family, salesmen etc.).Therefore, customer reviews on product pages play a vital role in a customer’s decision to purchase.
Why are customer reviews so useful for online stores?
Econsultancy reveals that 60% of customers read online reviews before making a decision to purchase. Both positive and negative reviews lead to a complete overview of a website or a product by almost any visitor.
How to use reviews
Gathering all the reviews is like collecting data from a research. In a research, all of the data you manage to collect should be analyzed in order to get information. How can you use all of the reviews in order to help other customers with their decision to purchase?
Make an average review score. It works very well on the product page, in the proximity of the product image or its description. This way, customers get a impression at their first glance about the product.
Insert reviews in navigation. Filters help customers to navigate on your website. Use reviews as a criterion to filter all of the products.
Make charts to give customers a clear idea about the reviews. A large number of reviews won’t make sense for someone who hasn’t time to do research. Deliver the information to your customers through charts.
Rate a review. Go further with this great feature on your e-commerce website. Ask your customers to rate reviews in order to make them more valuable. After enough ratings are gathered, display the most useful reviews, appreciated by real customers who have used the product. Example:
How do you get reviews from customers?
Visitors won’t just start to write a review about their experience on an e-commerce website. Marketers can use some triggers to get a few words from customers. These are some ideas:
1. Send Post-purchase emails
Getting information from customers by sending them a post-purchase e-mail is a great way to receive feedback. The most important aspect in this action is finding the right time to send it. Firstly, the customer should receive and use the product for a few times in order to formulate an opinion about it and share his experience. Secondly, the purchase should still be fresh in the customer’s mind.
2. Ask for Reviews on product pages
New products, arrivals or anything new that you want to sell on your e-commerce website need to get reviews. Otherwise, people won’t hurry to buy it. On the other hand, if you get reviews from people who haven’t test the products yet, they won’t be so useful for other customers. The same principle applies to niche products.
3. Reviews providers
Customer reviews providers may seem the easy way to get reviews. You can use tools like Bazaarvoice or Reevoo. You can save the time you would spend with building a body for your reviews; remember that you have to make an analysis of your reviews, eliminate the errors like incomplete reviews or ‘not on the topic’. Moreover, it takes time to get charts and other statistical information out of your original data.
4. Make it simple
Completing a review should be as simple as possible. Be happy that someone is taking the time to do something for you. The option to click on a scale of stars is the easiest way to get feedback from customers, but giving rating for different products is more useful.
5. Offer something in return(let’s call it incentive)
Just the thought of winning something will make writing a review easier for customers: 'I can give up 5 minutes to have at least the chance to win something.'
Social Proof has great influence on people, especially when they want to buy something. They just want to be sure that the product was tested by someone else before(other users/buyers) and that it is working. By using reviews, online retailers can increase their customers' trust in their websites.
Find more about e-commerce websites optimization and test Omniconvert. You will test your marketing ideas in real time on real customers.
