If you’re in any business, especially hospitality, then you’ll understand the power of online reviews, either due to the positive impacts or the negative impacts. The power the customer holds in their reviews is enough to make or break your business.
What are the stats?
Every year updated stats are released about the how to market your company and the importance of business reviews. Below are some key takeaways from online research company, Bright Local:
- More consumers are reading online reviews than ever before. In 2021, 77% ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ read them when browsing for local businesses (up from 60% in 2020).
- 67% will consider leaving a review for a positive experience, while 40% will consider leaving a review for a negative experience.
- 89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews.
- 57% say they would be ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ likely to use a business that doesn’t respond to reviews at all.
- More consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses than ever before. In 2021, 81% did, but the year before that, just 63% did.
- The amount of people who only pay attention to reviews left in the previous two weeks has dropped from 50% to 22%.
- In 2021, just 3% said they would consider using a business with an average star rating of two or fewer stars. That’s down from 14% in 2020.
- 62% believe they’ve seen a fake review for a local business in the past year.
- The top sources of fake reviews, according to consumers: 1) Amazon; 2) Google; 3) Facebook.
- Only 7% of consumers say they’re ‘not at all’ suspicious of reviews on Facebook.
These stats show the important of encouraging customers to review, but also to reply to those reviews and show that the business isn’t just an entity, but is made up of people. The importance of replying to negative reviews is emphasised even more when you consider that 77% regularly read the reviews and so by not replying you’re not explaining the situation from the business’ point of view and thus increases the chances of a potential customer look elsewhere.
Benefits Of Reviews
Google then collates all your reviews from Facebook, Yell, Google My Business and uses the result to determine where to rank your website on it’s search engine results pages.
Not only are reviews beneficial, Facebook and Yell are easy to access for users, because you can send them your Facebook or Yell.com link and simply ask for the referral. Referrals help your position in the local search listings so don’t neglect them.
Review and ratings sites
If you want a more formal way of collecting reviews check these out below. These are Google accredited review sites and worth the time getting them in place especially if you are a bigger business.
Free and paid plans from Trust Pilot
While many places allow you to build up your reviews for free, every now and then you need an extra features that requires a cost. Click here to find the different plans that Trust Pilot offers, including their FREE plan which allows up to 100 testimonials. You will have your own review page where you can send people to and an admin area on the Trust Pilot site.
