You might have seen customer reviews on e-commerce websites and there are various benefits to displaying them. 

Aspects of digital media do influence customers and their purchase decisions. Therefore, a brand’s e-commerce store needs to showcase factors like customer reviews that can influence the visitors. 

Any website’s performance depends and is driven by content and to boost your performance, you need to present content to your visitors that will help you achieve that goal. And here, customer reviews play a crucial role.  

What Exactly Are Customer Reviews?

Customer reviews are essentially a piece of information/content that the customer shares with a brand regarding their experiences, ideas, and feedback about the brand and its products and services. 

Reviews highlight the brand’s authority, identity, quality, values, etc. and this helps potential customers to learn about the brand and make their purchase decisions in a well-informed manner; these reviews become the voice for the brand. 

But why should you display them? What benefits do they have?
In this guide, we’ll answer these questions and help you realize the benefits of sharing customer reviews on your site from your brand’s perspective.

Benefits Of Customer Reviews

Free Promotions

Effectively promoting your brand on digital platforms can be challenging, especially when engagement and conversion rates are low. 

Here, customer reviews will work in your favor as they drive online promotions- every review posted by the customer will highlight aspects of your brand in a positive light and this will act as cost-free promotion and aid in marketing. 

Valuable & Original Content

Content is the focal point of any website as it defines and drives conversions, engagement and overall performance, so valuable and fresh content is imperative to any e-commerce website. 

And these customer reviews, displayed on your site, will ensure that original, valuable, and informative content is shared by trusted sources. Thus, helping you save on the task and cost of constantly creating content for your website that is fresh, unique, and relevant. 

Build Trust & Reliability

As it is the inherent nature of the digital age, distrust, and unreliability can cause the customers to not purchase from the brand. Therefore, your content has to help build that trust and reliability, not only through images or descriptions presented from your side but also through customer reviews- these can act as a perfect measure of the brand quality. 

Thus, customer reviews will help you achieve trust and reliability for your brands and the products and services you offer as these reviews are posted by customers with real-life experience and interactions with your brand, thus highly regarding your brand image. 

Showcase Authenticity & Credibility

Just as customer reviews will help with building trust and reliability, they will also help you assert the authenticity and credibility of your brand and its product and services. 

This credibility and authenticity will help influence the potential customer to engage with your brand and move towards the purchase funnel of your site to want to be a consumer of your brand. 

Empower Brand Advocacy & Positive WOM

The above-mentioned combination of credibility, authenticity, trust, and reliability will lead to highlighting how the customers are perceiving your brand through an account of their real interactions and experiences. 

And this will act as brand advocacy where existing customers will spread positive reviews through word-of-mouth and help your brand attract new customers, increase your conversion rates and enhance your brand authority. 

Improve Engagement & Dwell Time

User engagement is one of the most important things for defining the success metric for your brand website. Higher engagement is positively related to higher conversions and revenue. 

Therefore, when you present customer reviews on your site, it will also the visitors to get more information about the brand and understand what the customers have to say. And this will automatically improve user engagement, leading to an increase in the average dwell time on the website by the visitors. 

Gain SEO Benefits

As mentioned, with engagement and dwell time increasing, it will reduce the bound rate on the website and can help lessen the number of abandoned carts as well. 

Additionally, it will help in improving your SERP ranking because users will be engaging more and you will gain stronger impressions and your site traffic will improve exponentially. 

Google, furthermore, values authentic and trusting content as compared to branded promotional content.

Boost Conversions & Revenue Through Website

Conversions and revenue generation are the primary goals for any brand and their e-commerce business website. 

And according to Taggbox, over 90% of people trust User-Generated content like customers reviews, when making their online purchase decisions. Also, 93% of the customers admit to being influenced by reviews when making purchase decisions and 90% of customers read reviews diligently before investing in a purchase.

Thus, customer reviews are highly influential and can help in improving the conversion rates and boost revenue for your e-commerce business.

Reputation & Relationship Management

Brand reputation is vital on digital media platforms- it influences customer attraction, interaction and conversions. And customer reviews will help you build a strong brand reputation as these reviews will ensure transparency between users and brands, leading to a better brand image and integrity. 

Furthermore, this will help you improve your relationship with your existing customers and building a good foundation for potential relationships in the future. 

Indirect Reach & Brand Awareness Building

Another benefit is that your brand reach, brand awareness, and digital exposure will improve. 

When users will comes across reviews on your site, it will encourage them to promote the brand to their network and introduce it to new demographics by associating your brand with positive and good values. 

How do I get customer reviews on my e-commerce website?

There are various options available to consider when setting up customer reviews for your e-commerce website:

Use an e-commerce review app

There are apps like Reevoo, Yotpo, Bazaarvoice, and Rating Widget that you can use to collect customer reviews. Most of them will work with all e-commerce platforms and some are even free, therefore it shouldn’t be a behemoth task to set these apps up. 

These apps are a great way to collect reliable reviews for products without having to individually reach out to the customers. And these reviews are also authenticated, thus your future customers can be assured about genuineness and trustworthiness. 

However, the downside could be that such reviews can focus only on the product and may not highlight the experience and interaction with your brand. 

Email your customers

Another great way of getting reviews is by contacting your customers via email, asking for a review, after they have purchased from your brand. 

However, a crucial point to remember here is the timing- you should allow them enough time between the receiving of the product, their experience with it, and asking them for a review. At the same time, your email should reach them when their memory is still fresh. 

Make the process easy for your customers

Remember, your customers are busy people, therefore make the entire process of receiving feedback as simple and quick as possible. And one way to do this is to focus on rating out of 5 so that they don’t have to take time out of their busy schedule and rush to simply cater to your request. 

You can choose to ask them for an overall review rating of your product, or you can divide the reviews into bits focusing on the product, the price and delivery, and even their experience engaging with your site. You can also leave space for any further feedback, in case they have something more to add. 

All of these can help provide more information to potential customers, helping them make a purchase decision. 

Display customer reviews prominently

Ensure that you present your reviews in a clear and visible position on your sites so that potential customers can find the section easily. 

Additionally, it is a good idea to share reviews on your social media platforms to boost your profiles. 

How do I moderate and manage my reviews?

To create a positive impact and build a trusting relationship with your customers, your reviews need to be perceived as trustworthy and genuine. 

However, the sad case is that every online review is not genuine; some can simply be a personal attack or an attempt to ruin the brand’s reputation. And these kind of reviews can be damaging to the brand.

You should remember to be genuine from your side. If you are ever caught promoting false feedback, it will have a negative repercussion on your business. Therefore, be careful when moderating the customer reviews. 

Deal with negative reviews in a positive manner and take it as an opportunity to convert customer dissatisfaction to satisfaction. And ensure that positive reviews are credible and genuine. 

How to use customer reviews for e-commerce

Now that you realise the important of customer reviews and the benefits they have, we shall now look at how should you be using these reviews. 

There is no set formula for leveraging reviews; the best way is to try a mix of tactics. 

Social Media: Share your Reviews

After you collect all the quality reviews, check with your legal team to understand if using these reviews as testimonials are okay. And once you get a confirmation, present these testimonials in a visually appealing manner and post them on your social media. 

This will convert some of your followers into brand loyalists. Additionally, it can also help you get more followers who weren’t aware of your e-commerce business before. 

Advertising: Quote your customers

Similar to social media, advertising testimonials should be clarified with the legal team. 

Historically, advertisements are not accepted and aren’t considered genuine because it comes from the brand and not the customer. 

However, you can advertise these testimonials by putting them on digital banners, billboards, etc. These shifts the focus from brand voice to the customers thus appealing to potential buyers. 

Meta-text: Incorporate reviews on product pages

Meta-text is the text that follows the title of your e-commerce website link on the research engine. 

Meta-text is a usually a space to talk big about your brand and products, but it can serve as an optimal place to share product reviews. Customer reviews are credible, therefore you can entice people to click on your website. 

Email Marketing: Use reviews to generate FOMO

If it is legal permitted, e-commerce business owners should create an email marketing campaign focusing on customer testimonials. 

If a site visitor hasn’t made a purchase, you can target them with a email that has a testimonial to entice them to return to your site and complete their purchase.

And if the customer has already purchased something, you can ask them send a review. This is beneficial because you can generate new reviews and at the same time, entice them to come back and purchase more. 

Badges: Turn reviews into trust signals

If you are the best in the game, you have the bragging rights. Create badges for the reviews you’ve gotten, specifically if you are displaying them on third-party platforms. 

For example, on Google Play Store, if you check some apps have badges and are ranked based on the reviews they’ve received. 

Address negative reviews: Answer your critics (and show you care)

Do not get upset when you come across a negative review. Try to find a silver lining as you can use this opportunity to rectify your issues and improve your performance overall. 

Since nobody is perfect, you may receive some negative reviews, and it is okay, as long as you make amends. 

There could be something faulty with your product and if you get a negative review about it, you can improve the quality of your product and ensure it doesn’t repeat. Or perhaps the customer couldn’t understand how to use the product correctly, you can take this time to help them. 

Never ignore negative reviews as they would do more harm, and respond to them even though they can feel like a personal attack at times. 

Video testimonials: Turn reviews into customer ads

You can build customer loyalty by contacting people who wrote the reviews and asking them if they’d be willing to submit a video testimonial. Since the world is submerged in fake reviews, video reviews can help combat it by letting people actually see the customers behind the reviews. 

So, if the customer is willing, turn the written customer review into a video testimonial and you can use this on your landing page, your social media, or as a part of your other marketing campaigns.

Include testimonials on sales pages and product sites.

You can use these testimonials by adding them to your landing product pages and sales pages. When a visitor is shown a good testimonial at the moment of making a purchase decision, it can positively influence them to buy your product. 

These reviews help them answer questions like “will this product help me with my problem?”, “Is this the right product that can be used as a solution”, etc.

Post customer reviews on your homepage.

Another way to use testimonials is to display them on your website homepage.

Usually, your homepage is the first page a visitor browses through. 

This is a strategic place to provide a glance into the brand identities and values by displaying customer reviews. 

Ways to Increase E-commerce Reviews Indirectly

If you feel like focusing on direct methods to collect reviews is a taxing task, here are some methods that you can use to boost e-commerce reviews indirectly that may already be compatible with your existing strategy:

1. Maintain an accurate online presence

Firstly, ensure that your business and products are listed properly on all relevant platforms. For instance, on social media, Google My Business, etc. as these platforms are frequented by your audience.

Once you have established a presence on these platforms, provide accurate information so that reviews are enabled when possible. The same goes for third-party sites that sell your products. 

Therefore, any customer who comes across your listings can see the reviews and be encouraged to share their experience as well.

2. Provide exceptional quality & service

Reviews are most likely left by passionate customers, therefore you have to make sure that your customers are passionate about your brand. 

You can achieve this by maintaining a good quality product list, packaging your orders with extra care, and creating an air of excitement around receiving the products from you. 

Additionally, ensure to provide exceptional customer service that can achieve the goal of customer satisfaction if not customer delight. Once the customer sees your efforts, they will be enthusiastic to tell people about their positive experience with your brand. 

3. Delight loyal customers with special brand initiatives

Impressing customers into leaving positive reviews can be a noble goal but it is not very often that the customers are impressed. Simply shift your focus on a smaller group of customers to impress who’ll further go on to advocate for your e-commerce business on online platforms. 

You can reward your loyal customers will special brand incentives like discounts, deals, and giveaways to state that you value them and want them to keep coming back to you. 

Positive experiences like these will keep them wanting to do more business with you and they’ll be more willing to recommend you to their network.

4. Engage with customers on social media

Popularity of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others have cemented the fact that they are a great place to connect and interact with your customers. 

It is highly likely that your customers will leave feedback on these channels instead of your e-commerce business site because they are already logged on and using them, therefore the entry barrier is lower. 

And by regularly engaging with your followers on these platforms, you can expect them to engage more with you in the form of reviews or feedback. 

Ways to Increase the Likelihood of Follow-Through

Most of the time, customers may be eager to share their feedback and reviews but may simply forget or lose interest after a while. Therefore, it is imperative to have a follow-through strategy to make the process easy for the customer and present it in a way that is beneficial for both you and them.

1. Suggest multiple review page options

If you ask your customer to write a review on your Facebook but they do not have an account on the platform, you will not get a review. So provide them with options of platforms to share reviews like your site, social media, Google, etc. 

By doing this, you increase your chances of receiving reviews because you are allowing them to do so as per their own preference. 

2. Provide direct links to review pages

Remember, when you contact the customer for a review via an email, chat, or any other DM system, provide them the links to the review forms you’d like them to fill out to make the entire process more convenient and seamless. 

It is not a good idea to draw out the process by making them jump through hoops- this can end in you receiving a negative review or worse, no reviews at all. 

You’re reaching out to them with favor, therefore, ensure it is easy to fulfill. 

3. Offer incentives for reviews (carefully)

You can offer a freebie or a discount in exchange for their feedback or reviews. However, it is considered bad practice since on paper, it is a textbook definition of bribery. 

And because of this, many businesses are penalized and labeled untrustworthy. 

However, you can reward your customers for having left you great reviews by simply sending them a discount code in a gratitude email. You can encourage them to tell their friends to leave a positive review as well and it will boost the customer’s perception of your brand and will help build a great customer-business relationship. 

Top Review Management Tools:

1. Yotpo is a popular review management platform that helps businesses collect, display, and manage customer reviews. It offers a variety of features, including the ability to send automated review requests, track customer sentiment, and respond to reviews.

2. BirdEye is a review management platform that helps e-commerce business owners gather customer reviews via Google My Business. It offers a variety of features, such as the ability to track customer sentiment towards a business and respond to reviews.

3. Gatherup is a review management platform that lets e-commeron collect customer reviews via pop-up surveys. It offers a variety of features, such as the ability to send automated review requests and track customer sentiment.

4. ResellerRatings is a review management platform that focuses on collecting reviews from customers via online marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay. It offers a variety of features, such as the ability to track customer sentiment and identify trends.

5. Klear: Klear is a reputation management platform that focuses on helping businesses monitor their online presence. It offers a variety of features, such as the ability to track mentions of your brand on social media and review sites.