Consumer advice: an asset for your reputation and your sales?
Who hasn't looked at consumer reviews before making a purchase or booking a service? And who hasn't left a comment following a particularly good or bad experience?
Consumer associations (UFC Que choisir, 60 millions de consommateurs), Google, customer review platforms (TripAdvisor, Tous consommateurs, Yelp, Trustpilot), social networks, blogs, e-commerce sites... consumer reviews are everywhere and are becoming a source of information in their own right.
A real marketing challenge, it has a powerful impact on sales and customer relations. And all the better if your customers love you... What about negative reviews and fake reviews? How do you manage consumer reviews? We give you our opinion!
Consumer advice: definition and issues
A consumer review, or customer review, is a comment on the quality of a product, service or company, mainly on the Internet, intended for other potential consumers. It is also known as user generated content or UGC.
It is therefore :
- a means of expression for the customer, generally in rather extreme situations (incredible service or, on the contrary, abysmal service);
- a customer relations tool for the company, to respond to and take into account the various opinions;
- a promotional tool to give the company a presence and generate buzz;
- an indicator of customer satisfaction.
The impact of consumer reviews
Consumer reviews reassure future customers or, on the contrary, encourage them to look for alternatives. There are real stakes here for the company, in terms of both image and sales.
- Impact on sales:
▷ 88% of consumers consult online customer reviews, forums or blogs before making a purchase (source IFOP).
▷ Nearly 61% of consumers base their decisions on the combination of promotional content and consumer reviews (SmartFocus study).
- Impact on brand visibility :
▷ On consumer review platforms, the quantity but also the quality and date of comments are ranking criteria.
▷ Google uses reviews to understand your business, so this improves your natural referencing on the search engine.
- The recommendation of a brand by a third party has a lot of influence :
▷ According to Bright Local, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as reviews from friends and family (vs 79% in 2013).
▷ 34% of consumers say positive customer reviews are more likely to trigger a purchase than promos or special offers (American Express).
👍 Even negative reviews are important: they reassure Internet users about the sincerity of your company and convey values of transparency and commitment to customer service.
In fact, 68% of buyers say they have more confidence in a company that posts a few negative reviews of their products (Trustpilot).
The limits of consumer reviews
Of course, if you read an angry review, with arguments that are a little vague, and it's one of only a few of its kind, it won't carry much weight in the balance. The same goes for rave reviews: you'll wonder whether they're well-founded or bought. Especially when you consider a new trend: the promise of a positive review or the threat of a negative review is becoming a bargaining chip used by some customers to negotiate good deals...
This is why Internet users generally read several reviews, on several channels if possible.
67% of consumers say they read up to 6 reviews, 85% up to 10 reviews and 7% more than 20 reviews before placing their trust in a company.
Bright Local
Whatever the provider of consumer reviews, users' distrust is something to be taken into account.
Many Internet users think that certain reviews are false. And rightly so! In 2013, the French General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) found that 45% of customer reviews were faulty. A BFM report on fake certified reviews is damning for sellers looking for reviews on Amazon.
Can we trust online consumer reviews? France 5's programme La Quotidienne consulted experts (DGCCRF, Afnor, Booking.com) on the subject:
Good news: new regulations have been in force since 1 January 2018, reinforcing the Afnor standard. Decree no. 2017-1436 of 29 September 2017 requires the following to be indicated:
- whether or not there is a procedure for checking notices, next to the notice,
- the date of publication
- the date of the consumer experience commented on,
- the ranking criteria (chronological, from the best to the worst rating, etc.).
How can I obtain consumer reviews?
There's no shortage of ways - be creative and stand out from the crowd to encourage feedback, in all legality.
Companies can publicly solicit feedback from their customers on their website or social networks, or by sending out satisfaction questionnaires, the results of which they can publish. This gives customers the opportunity to give their opinion on a product or service.
There are also consumer review platforms dedicated to collecting and sharing reviews with the general public. Some of the best known are TripAdvisor, Yelp and Ciao.
Draw up a satisfaction questionnaire
Organise a competition on social networks
Offer to draw lots from all the consumer reviews received over a given period (positive or negative 😉 ). There's a good chance that even the negative reviews will be constructive and full of good points: you'll find valuable information in them.
Send an automatic email after a purchase
For example, say:
- "Thank you for your confidence, how did your purchase go?
- "What can we improve to make your next experience as pleasant as possible?
- "How would you rate this product/service?
40% of Internet users respond favourably to this request.
Qualtrics
Create a business page on Google
With Google My Business, you can create a directory listing with your business profile and your geolocation on Google Maps, and ask your customers for their opinion.
As for Google Customer Reviews, it allows your e-commerce site to collect these valuable comments.
💡 If you need support, Solocal Audit Digital analyses your digital presence on search engines, directories and social networks free of charge, and makes recommendations, particularly for creating or improving your Google, Facebook or Yellow Pages business pages.
Install a plug-in on your site and blogs
These extensions are tools that allow your visitors to rate you.
Activate reviews in your social network settings
On Facebook, for example, go to "Settings" in the top right-hand corner of the page. Click on "Modify the page" in the left-hand column, then "Add a tab". Select the Notifications tab to activate Facebook notifications.
At the end of 2018, Facebook counted 35 million monthly active users in France, a good potential customer base!
Register with online directories or consumer review platforms
Following the example of Ciao, a former very popular site for consumer reviews and a real buying aid a few years ago, here are a few well-known examples of consumer review platforms:
alaTest
This platform presents itself as a product quality comparator, in particular via product tests.
Avis Vérifiés
It's a directory combined with a support solution for collecting and managing consumer reviews in a wide variety of fields.
Foursquare
A geolocation-based social network, Foursquare not only rates businesses and services, but also shares events and tips.
TripAdvisor
Dedicated to tourism reviews, it is a price and experience comparison site for hotels, restaurants, holiday rentals, etc. that is very popular with the general public.
Trustpilot
An interface between companies and their customers, recommendations are collected through post-purchase invitations. The platform is highly regarded for its transparency, as neither it nor the companies can change the reviews published.
Yelp
Social network and search engine for local businesses and services, allowing users to leave comments in real time.
How can you make the most of your consumer reviews?
Among your human resources, a community manager or a communications/marketing manager can launch operations to collect as many opinions as possible, via games on social networks or emailing operations.
Other tasks include :
- monitoring marketing on the web
- monitoring your e-reputation
- moderating comments on all your communication channels,
- managing the content of your websites and blogs,
- analysing the operations that work best thanks to the statistics from your site and your social networks.
In addition to the free monitoring tools (such as Google Alerts, which sends an email as soon as someone mentions your company or product on the web), the range of reviews and reputation management software on offer is proportional to the scale of the phenomenon.
In addition to the platforms presented above, such as Avis Vérifiés or TrustPilot, we have selected 3 that support companies or their marketing agencies:
- Mention enables a company to monitor conversations about it on social networks, according to themes and tags set up beforehand.
Notified as soon as it is mentioned and according to key words, it gives the company the opportunity to engage in conversation, respond to comments from detractors, and identify influencers and online ambassadors.
- MyFeelBack collects customer feedback through surveys and questionnaires to measure customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement in the customer journey, better qualify customers and their behaviour, and thus enrich the CRM. The aim is to help the company find out what its customers think and adapt its marketing operations accordingly, to avoid unsuccessful over-solicitation.
- Simple Feedback is an innovative software package for managing opinions, feedback and marketing intelligence. The media monitoring tool is equipped with an AI, HaPPi, which records, analyses and generates reports on the opinions left by Internet users, whether on e-commerce sites, social networks, blogs, etc. Users receive alerts on negative reviews so they can launch relevant and rapid action plans.
Change your mind about managing your online reputation
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to destroy it.
Warren Buffet, homme d’affaires américain et milliardaire
Your success lies in the quality of your offer, the values you convey, but above all in what your customers say about you. And with the web, virality is immeasurable!
Digital word-of-mouth, consumer reviews have a real impact on the motivations and disincentives of prospective customers, and are a real decision-making tool.
Use the positive opinions of your customers to develop your reputation and your brand image, but also the negative opinions to improve and communicate your commitment. Of course, you can't control everything that's said about your company, but you can keep your ears open and your eyes open to surf the good buzz and drown out the bad. Provided you have the right tools...
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Article translated from French