Several studies prove that consumer product reviews actually tend to boost, rather than hurt sales, according to e-Marketer. In fact, 55% of buyers rely on them for online and offline purchases.
The article also points out, “Getting online shoppers to convert to buyers, whether online or offline, requires trust-building tactics such as easy site navigation, good search tools and complete product information.” That would be a blinding flash of the obvious but it’s still a foreign concept to many companies.
So why are companies so scared of consumers? Why do so many view consumer review sites, social networks, blogs, and other online communities as a threat?
The fact is, communities are user-regulated. When one person sets out to discredit another person or a company unfairly, the community evens out the issue with a variety of opinions.
Negative feedback is often a sign that something needs to change. Assuming they’re starting with a good product, the companies that benefit the most from listening are also the ones that gain the most in traffic, influence and sales.
Why is that so hard for so many companies to accept?
Studies: Consumer Reviews Boost – Not Hurt – Sales
BL Ochman | December 11, 2007 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) | TrackBack (
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/gnp0fnhzxcgi/domains/whatsnextblog.com/html/wp/wp-content/themes/WNO2/single.php on line 32
0)
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/gnp0fnhzxcgi/domains/whatsnextblog.com/html/wp/wp-content/themes/WNO2/single.php on line 32
0)
Boy, are you right on the negative feedback thing! I spent part of yesterday morning giving a (now former) vendor’s account rep a piece of my mind.
Long story short: It’s a printing company with account reps who are little more than order-takers. They don’t see their customers’ printing jobs through to their conclusion. When things go wrong, all they can do is offer apologies, do-overs, or credits to customer accounts. While these things sound nice, they are no substitute for quality control.
OTOH, I have dealt with other printing companies who do have effective customer care and quality control systems. So, it’s not like these things don’t exist.
good question you pose. It would seem to be fairly obvious that you want people to review your product since they give an independent (read: more convincing) opinion on your product. Apparently its not that obvious and companies would rather not have the reviews then deal with the negative feedback… foolhardy and i think it will change in the not so distant future.
If your product really does what the consumer expects it to do, you should not be afraid of a consumer review.
After all, even after we agree to purchase a product, we still have to convince ourselves that we did the right thing and a good product review says that.
More often than not you’ll get a positive review because people hate to admit that they did the wrong thing.
I would suggest that the deck is always stacked in your favor if your product does what its supposed to do.
If it doesn’t, you should ask your self the question “Why are you here?”
I’m not entirely sure that I’d agree that people are more likely to give positive reviews to boost their confidence in their own purchasing ability. It seems to me that the people who write reviews are those with something to say – either a really good or really bad experience. For me, I would be most likely to take the time to go back and write a review if I had had a bad experience, as good shopping experiences should come as standard (!). It would be interesting to analyse the data on this kind of thing.
Of course consumer reviews will help boost sales, so long as the majority of the reviews are positive, and there are some negative reviews thrown in for legitimacy.
-Jack