Are you asking, “why are reviews important?” and trying to figure out if you need them? Read this article to learn the importance of customer reviews.
Customers are more skeptical about businesses than ever before. In the age of social media, people want transparency and authenticity from the companies they’re buying from. At the same time, they’re also not sure if they should trust the claims companies make.
Your job is to stoke any potential customer’s trust in your business. Customer reviews are one of the many tools you have in your toolkit.
They’re also one of the most overlooked tools. Why are reviews important for your business? This short guide illuminates why and how reviews are so key for any business, including yours.
Table of Contents
- Why Are Reviews Important for Visibility
- Reviews Establish Your Trustworthiness
- Customers Trust Other Customers
- Word-of-Mouth Marketing Still Works
- Reviews Give You an Opportunity
- Reviews Offer You Insights
Why Are Reviews Important for Visibility?
Reviews are helpful for getting your business in front of people in the first place.
Reviews are a key part of search engine optimization these days. They’re particularly important for local search. Google uses reviews to determine which listings it shows first.
On Google in particular, good reviews will show up on your Google My Business profile. Google uses this information to create its “3-pack,” a sidebar highlighting local businesses.
This helps people find your business. If you have no reviews, Google will rank you lower. Your competitors might earn a spot in the 3-pack, which means customers will see them first.
In short, more reviews make your business easier to find for people. If you run any kind of local business, this is key to helping you reach more customers and grow.
Reviews Establish Your Trustworthiness
Google emphasizes reviews because your customers want to see reviews. Search engines aren’t people, but Google wants to deliver good search results for its users. It refines its algorithm to reflect what search users want to see.
Reviews are a form of what’s called “social proof.” Social proof is important to people for a few reasons. One is that it shows you’re a legitimate business.
Getting reviews shows that you have customers who are working with you. Think about shopping online. If a product has many 5-star reviews, you’d be more likely to look at it than one with no reviews.
The same is true for your business. If you have no reviews, it seems like no one is working with you. That can make people leery.
They might wonder why no one is working with you. Are you actually running a legitimate business, or does your crew do a bad job?
Getting reviews also shows that your customers care about you. Some people will complain or leave a bad review, but many will leave a good one. That they take the time to give you the review tells other people that this is a business worth checking out.
Customers Trust Other Customers
Getting customer reviews also gives people authentic insight into what it’s like to work with you. You can say anything you want about your business, but people might be hard-pressed to believe you. After all, you’re the business owner.
When another customer says it, it becomes more believable for others. Another customer is likely to be more objective than the business owner. If they say you deliver outstanding customer service, it’s likely to be true!
An example proves the point. Think about the last time you ordered pizza from a new restaurant. How many businesses advertised “the best pizza in town”?
You might not believe the business’s ad copy. If you saw several reviewers saying one restaurant had “the best pizza, hands-down,” you’d be more tempted to believe it.
The same is true when it comes to your business. When your satisfied customers tell the world about their great experience, other people pay attention.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing Still Works
Customer reviews are also important because word-of-mouth marketing works.
In fact, it might be even more important today. People have always looked for recommendations from their friends and family. Referrals from a trusted source always have more weight behind them.
Reviews don’t need to come from influencers or celebrities to be valuable to consumers. Many people feel reviews from other customers are helpful to them.
The information and insight given by another customer may be more comprehensive. Some reviewers may answer questions or point out pros and cons that help people decide if working with you is right for them.
Reviews Give You an Opportunity
Some business owners hesitate to ask for reviews because they’re afraid of getting bad ones. If you’re delivering great customer service, you’ll likely get some good buzz about the business.
You can’t please everyone, though, so even the best of businesses get negative reviews from time to time. All reviews give you an opportunity to interact with your customers. A negative one gives you a chance to respond to an unhappy customer and make things right.
Other would-be customers can see how you handle this situation. By responding to customer concerns and going the extra mile, you’re not just making things right for the upset customer. You’re also showing the rest of the world how important your customers are to you.
Reviews Offer You Insights
Reviews are also a source of customer feedback and data. By collecting them, you can get more insight into how well your business is doing.
In a review, each customer can tell you what you’re doing well and where they think you could improve. When you collect many reviews together, you’ll be able to see trends. Do your customers love your pricing, but think you could improve customer service?
Maybe your reviews show that customers think you deliver the best service around. They just wish it was easier to contact you.
This is the kind of feedback you can act on to improve your business and better serve your customers.
Give Your Marketing a Boost with More Reviews
If you asked, “Why are reviews important?”, you should now see there are plenty of answers. Getting customer reviews can help your business in so many ways.
Getting reviews is easier when your website is set up for it. Get in touch and discover the difference a better website can make for your marketing.