In days of old, nothing was more coveted than the word-of-mouth referral. People trusted their families, friends, and colleagues to point them to the best providers of products and services. Now it’s 2019 and consumers want to hear from as many people as possible about what they think of you.
Take a look at these stats from Brightlocal.com:
- 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses (including 95% of people aged 18-34)
- Consumers read an average of 10 online reviews before feeling able to trust a local business
- 57% of consumers will only use a business if it has 4 or more stars
- 91% of 18-34 year old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
- Consumers are likely to spend 31 percent more on a business with excellent reviews
That makes it pretty clear. More reviews mean more business. If you want to prosper, you need reviews, lots of them. And here are another couple of tidbits: 73% of people think a review older than 3 months is no longer relevant, and 40% of consumers only take into account reviews written within the past two weeks. So, you also need a steady stream of reviews.
How can we make that happen? Well, let’s first look at the reasons why people don’t post reviews.
- For some people, they just never think about it. Less than half of consumers over the age of 55 have ever posted a review.
- While a large majority of 18-34 year olds have written at least one online review and may intend to, they simply forget.
- They don’t know where or how to post a review.
Now, before we go on, I know there are business owners out there who fear that making it easy for customers to post reviews will just encourage crazy rants and maybe even malicious fake reviews by competitors. Here’s the thing – the positives far outweigh the possible negatives. And chances are, by encouraging reviews and being involved in the review process, the number of positive comments will far outnumber the negative ones.
Okay, so how do you get more reviews? You address the top three reasons why customers don’t write reviews. You ask your customers to write a review each time they do business with you, you remind them, and you make it easy by showing them where and how to post their review.
That may sound like a lot of work, and it would be if you tried to do it one customer at a time. The good news is that we can make the whole process easy for you too by setting up a “review funnel” system for your business.
This system offers a number of benefits, including the potential to deal directly (and privately) with really unhappy customers, reducing the amount of time needed for monitoring, and streamlining the process of adding a response (which 89% of consumers read).
Are you ready to bring in new customers and build brand loyalty with more reviews? Visit https://www.iias.reviews for more information or give us a call at 604-556-0211 and ask about improving your online reviews.