Don’t be indifferent to reviews

Reviews have been all the buzz the past couple of years. If you recently purchased something online, has a review influenced your purchase decision?

New research further illustrates their value:

• 77% of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when purchasing (Jupiter Research, August 2006)
• 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA & iPerceptions study)
• 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend’s recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (MarketSherpa)

Most people don’t seem to focus on all the factors involved in implementing reviews to enhance conversion. It’s important that you test and optimize for conversion and persuasion by focusing on the following areas:

Placement for Visibility
• Above the fold
• Size
• Stars or other graphic
• Near point of attention or action

Review Interaction
• Ease of reading
• Sorting
• Rating Distribution
• Use across the site

Single Dimension versus Multi Dimension Reviews
• What are the key attributes across different categories
• Can review content influence purchase decision

Credibility Factors
• Negative and Positive reviews
• Review Approval policy
• Reviewer Characteristics

What does a review mean
• Number of Reviews
• What questions are you asking
• Qualitative versus quantitative

Reviews are just one trend of the market demanding more authenticity and transparency and these are key factors in getting your visitors to take action. Anytime you have a choice between opening up more or less always opt for giving your customers more. Many companies have an unsubstantiated fear of “negative” reviews. You shouldn’t. Negative reviews don’t mean lower conversions. Research from BazaarVoice indicates that negative reviews can increase product conversion. This is likely due to the fact that customers realize that products are not perfect and want to know a products flaws as well as weaknesses. In addition, overwhelmingly negative reviews can help you pull bad products from your offering and merchandise better.

Now take action

a) Enable customer reviews on your site. Don’t know how? Contact a 3rd party, like Bazaarvoice.

Enjoy!

Stay tuned for my next article "Point a Critical Eye to Your Check Out Process".