Customer trust is essential for building a successful ecommerce brand. One of the most important reasons for gaining your customers’ trust is because customer retention is more cost-effective than constant acquisition. Also, active studies reveal that 83% of customers say they’d recommend an ecommerce brand they trust to others. So, earning customer trust helps you keep your existing customers and also earns you new leads and sales through word of mouth marketing. This is where Customer reviews can help you out!
Customer reviews make your ecommerce store more trustworthy. They tell consumers that people with similar needs have had a positive shopping experience with you. This information might be exactly what a new shopper needs in order to make a purchase.
Why are product reviews important in ecommerce?
Positive reviews nudge customers from a state of hesitation to zealous decisiveness. Studies show that this transition happens within moments, consequently impacting the bottom line of an ecommerce business.
Generally, user-generated content is regarded as the best way to know about the growth of any ecommerce store. However, reviews from happy customers can be a challenge. So, stores need to create out-of-the-box ideas to attract customers to write them.
Here are the top 10 smart reviews and ratings tips to boost the performance of your ecommerce store.
1. Showcase reviews on the product page
We know the importance of user-generated content and with TargetBay, you can drive more product and brand reviews to improve your stores’ sales. Highlighting reviews on product pages is one of the best ways to sell your products online. Positive reviews impact the buyer’s perception of a product and can help you to combat cart abandonment.
2. Smart automation: Get more positive reviews with less effort
Send the email to the buyer as early as possible to get a positive review once they complete a purchase. Use an automation tool to reach out to the customer so you never miss the post-purchase window. However, remember to be vigilant as sometimes automated replies and emails can get mechanical. Experian study revealed that personalized mails have a 29% higher open rate and 41% unique click-through rate personalized touch to the conversation as they make customers feel valued and this will result in positive reviews.
3. Photo reviews: Visuals speaks louder
Boost your visual marketing strategy and attract more customers with pictures shared by your customers. Seeing a photo of fellow shoppers using it in real-time provides effective visual representation and allows people to see the product at work. This visual connection is important for shoppers to decide if a product will fit their own requirements.
Offer buyers leaving a review the opportunity to include photos of the product. The impact of photos reviews is more significant and long-lasting compared to textual reviews. Photo reviews can also be included in abandoned cart emails to recover lost shoppers.
4. Questions and answers: Helps better engagement
According to Invespcro, it is five times costlier to acquire a new buyer than to retain the existing buyer. ecommerce stores need to focus more on customer retention. Achieve this by engaging with your buyers, especially with reviews. Encourage shoppers to ask questions and offer a personalized reply. This also helps minimize cart abandonment. Customer engagement is a rare but important factor in building a loyal customer base who will buy more and spread a positive word about your brand. You can also accommodate this through automation with the help of the Q&A automation tool.
5. Customer engagement: For better conversion rates
A brand ‘s responsibility towards a customer does not end with the delivery. Every review written by customers must be acknowledged, not just the positive ones. Any query raised in the review, must be resolved in the least time. Include an open-end form for the new audience who land on the store to tell them you care to solve every query and enhance your brand’s Image. Overall customer experience is highly dependent on how the store handles queries and customer support.
You can use an ecommerce Reviews Plugin that automates the review collection process and helps you stay ahead of the competitors.
6. Leverage reviews on Facebook to increase visibility
Collect reviews on your Facebook page and display them on your ecommerce website to build brand reputation and to drive more sales. When a user reviews a product on Facebook, there’s a cascading effect as everyone in the network will discover the brand. This organic advertising increases the reputation of your ecommerce business.
Use a plugin for Facebook reviews to simplify collecting your product and brand reviews.
7. Rich snippets: Show your positive reviews
Positive reviews make great Google snippets. The user-generated content connects better with new audiences. Google has put some limitations on using rich content review snippets. But some businesses,especially if they’re local, can use rich content review snippets to make their website stand out in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Shoppers generally prefer to click on rich snippets results and, in turn, this will improve traffic to your website, eventually improving ranking on SERPs.
8. Social media: Towards a whole new online market
Most people engage with brands on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, which gives you another opportunity to flaunt the product reviews received on social media channels. With help of ecommerce social plugins, you can easily integrate your brand’s social media handles with the product reviews sections of your online store. This integration will allow you to import product reviews from social media channels to your website.
You can turn your brand’s social media users to your brand ambassadors. This organic advertising increases the reputation of the ecommerce business, creates more customers, and increases your sales.
9. Include user reviews in your abandoned cart emails
Retailers know discounting hurts the bottom line. Every online seller’s worst nightmare is shopping cart abandonment. 70% of customers across the globe abandon their carts just before the checkout. One of the best ways to recover carts is with an abandoned cart email campaign.
Take complete control of your email marketing through trigger-based automated emails. Set triggers to send a series of customized, automated emails at different times, including after a customer has abandoned their cart.
10. Intelligent customer segmentation
Streamline your review collection through powerful customer segmentation. ecommerce tools in the market make it easier for you to identify and reach out to customers who can generate meaningful user-generated content. They also help with segmentation, allowing you to specifically collect reviews for the Most Expensive or Least Reviewed item in the list of products purchased by the customer.
Summary
Several factors contribute to an ecommerce store’s success and credibility. Gathering reviews doesn’t have to be a manual process anymore, as it’s too time-consuming. Focus on automating your review collection process and always listen to your customers. This way, you will be able to scale new heights in your online retail journey.
