Are you letting 88% of your potential customer base down?

The only opinion that matters is your own, right? Well, yes, if you're talking about self help books. Not so much when it comes to the way others view your business.

But it's just not very 'British' is it? We don't like to talk about how proud we are of our business. We don't go out of our way to ask people to provide feedback about our products or services. We just expect everyone to instinctively know that we do a good job, right?

But that fact is that online reviews really can make or break a business. They can influence a person to buy into or avoid your business, increase your online exposure, instil trust in your brand, help you connect with your customers and gain an insight into what may or may not be working.

So it's imperative that you start monitoring review sites and understanding how customer feedback can impact your business.

We will discuss the best way to deal with negative reviews in a later article but for now, let's focus on the good – or at least constructive – customer feedback.



So what are the benefits?

Research shows that people are more likely to engage with, and buy from a business that has a decent amount of positive customer reviews. If they know one or more of those people, they will almost certainly trust that recommendation and believe your business to be credible. But every positive online review your business gets will instil more trust in your brand.

According to BrightLocal, a staggering 88 percent of customers trust online reviews as much as they would trust in a personal recommendation from a peer.

Simply put, consumers will always trust recommendations far more than they will ever trust an advert. By not offering user reviews, you are basically depriving almost ninety percent of your potential customers of the information they seek to help them make buying decisions.

Online marketing can be an expensive business. Online reviews posted by your customers are the best form of advertising – they are honest, authentic and totally free!

When an online review is posted, your business's name, product and/or service are exposed to readers. If your company name is mentioned a lot in reviews, search engines such as Google will take this into account and you're more likely to appear higher in the search results.

This type of mass exposure really is gold dust – imagine how much it would cost if you tried to use traditional marketing channels!

It is all too easy to be a little 'removed' from your customers, particularly if your business does a lot of trade online or doesn't have a physical shop, office or showroom. However, online reviews provide you with the opportunity to develop a closer relationship with the people who buy from you, enabling your customers to get to know you as a person and not just a faceless business owner.

Not everyone would be comfortable with reviewing your business face-to-face but online, they are able to be honest and share their opinions. In an ideal world, every review would be five stars but whether they are positive or negative, you should reply to them all, demonstrating that you care about what your customers have to say. This, in turn, increases brand loyalty.

Although it may not be particularly nice to read that someone has concerns or would like to see improvements, realising that such opinions exist and being able to deal with them in a friendly, professional and public manner is extremely important.

Customer reviews provide you with feedback as to what people think about particular products or services. You may think a new product will be a hit – customer reviews will prove or disprove that belief. By taking on board your customers' opinions and suggestions, you may learn something new and gain some great ideas!