In an era when <a href="https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-07/2019_edelman_trust_barometer_special_report_in_brands_we_trust.pdf" target="_self">three in four people say they avoid advertising altogether</a> what information do consumers trust?&nbsp;&nbsp;Customer reviews.&nbsp;Reviews are so much more than social proof, though. If you’re not currently collecting company reviews, or you feel like you could get more from them, you’re in the right place.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here’s everything you need to know about customer reviews, from their benefits to how you can find software to moderate them.&nbsp;<h2>Why are customer reviews important?&nbsp;</h2>Here are some of the most important reasons why you should be collecting, using and analysing customer reviews.&nbsp;<h3>1. Consumers rely on reviews&nbsp;</h3>According to Feefo’s <a href="https://www.feefo.com/en-gb/business/resources/reports/the-2019-feefo-consumer-report" target="_self">2019 Consumer Trends Report</a>, 96% of UK consumers use customer reviews in some way and 64% read them before they make a purchase. Shoppers want to know they can trust the company reviews they’re reading; 72% of consumers worry about fake feedback.&nbsp;<h3>2. They boost conversion rates&nbsp;</h3>Adding customer reviews to your website can make a huge difference to conversions, especially when they’re displayed on product pages. <a href="https://worldfinancialreview.com/how-reviews-impact-your-sales/" target="_self">People are 270% more likely to purchase products displaying five-star reviews </a>than those without reviews. <a href="https://www.feefo.com/en/business/resources/case-studies/salon-services-case-study" target="_self">Our case study for Feefo client Salon Services</a> shows not only 173% more sales on products with reviews compared to those without, but customer spend also rose by 294%.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also, if you collect customer reviews through a trusted Google partner, such as Feefo, you can become eligible for organic stars in the non-paid search results and seller ratings in Google Ads. Displaying your star ratings in search can boost trust, increase click-through rates and even improve conversions, but you can take it a step further with your paid ads.&nbsp;&nbsp;

<h3>3. Track internal performance&nbsp;</h3>By tracking the feedback you receive via customer reviews, you can keep tabs on how well each branch, store, and member of staff is doing. Tools like Feefo’s Insight Labels make this easy, as you can tag and track reviews by whatever category you want, whether that’s by staff name, branch location or product type.&nbsp;Using company reviews in this way allows you to identify members of staff that may need more training, spot products that should be discontinued or stores that require further investment. You can also use positive feedback to motivate staff, by rewarding those that consistently get great reviews from your customers.&nbsp;<h3>4. Understand and improve your customer experience&nbsp;</h3>By collecting feedback across the entire customer journey and analysing the ratings and reviews you receive, you can dig deeper into your customer loyalty, customer experience and so much more.&nbsp;&nbsp;Feefo’s Customer Sentiment Insight tool uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to automatically identify themes in your reviews. If topics like ‘delivery’ are constantly mentioned in a negative context, this will be highlighted to you, so you can dig deeper and find out what the issues are and get to work on fixing them.&nbsp;Another AI-powered tool designed to improve the customer experience is Dynamic Topic Display. While Customer Sentiment Insight identifies themes for internal monitoring, Dynamic Topic Display is customer-facing.&nbsp;&nbsp;This tool sits on your product pages and sorts feedback by relevant themes, so browsers can read the reviews that matter to them. This stops shoppers from having to scan hundreds, or potentially thousands, of customer reviews or leave your website to read feedback elsewhere.&nbsp;The Perfume Shop saw overall conversions rise by 13.5% in just six weeks after implementing the Dynamic Topic Display tool across their product pages. <a href="https://www.feefo.com/en/business/resources/case-studies/perfume-shop-case-study" target="_self">Read the full Perfume Shop case study here.</a><h2>How to use reviews to connect with your customers&nbsp;</h2>Here are several ways you can use reviews to create better relationships and improve customer loyalty.&nbsp;<h3>Create a personalised experience</h3>Whether you’re trying to convince your customers to take advantage of an offer or you’re asking them for their honest feedback, you need to speak to them as individuals.&nbsp;&nbsp;Our Feedback Request Manager (FRM) tool allows you to build and design multiple feedback campaigns, so you can ask the right questions, to the right people, at the right time. <a href="https://www.feefo.com/en/business/resources/case-studies/training-room-case-study">Educational provider, The Training Room</a>, wanted to generate the maximum possible responses to feedback requests, so they split test a variety of feedback usingFRM. The result was open rates increasing to 75%, with response rates up by 331%.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Respond to all of your feedback</h3>It takes time and effort for someone to write a company review, so when they leave feedback, whether good or bad, be sure to thank your customers. While we recommend responding to as many reviews as possible, you’ll want to prioritise negative feedback, as this gives you the opportunity to repair broken relationships. You may even be able to turn those one and two-star ratings into much higher ones.&nbsp;When you receive negative feedback, get in touch with the customer privately so you can fully understand the situation and try to fix any issues. Once the problem has been resolved (or you’ve done as much as you can), respond to the review publicly, so other potential customers can see you provide an excellent service, even when things go wrong.&nbsp;For more tips on how to reply to customer comments, check out our in-depth guide to dealing with negative feedback.&nbsp;<h3>Tell customers when feedback makes a difference</h3>Your customer reviews should help inform any changes you make to your business. And when you improve something thanks to that feedback, it’s important to let your audience know.&nbsp;&nbsp;Whether you’ve reduced the amount of time it takes for your customer service team to respond to a query or fixed an annoying feature on your website, use your marketing channels to show customers you listen to all feedback – good and bad.&nbsp;Using your feedback in this way is ideal for opening up communication between you and your customers. You may even win back the loyalty of customers you’d lost.&nbsp;

<h2>How to choose a customer reviews platform&nbsp;</h2>Every customer review platform offers something slightly different, so it’s important to pick one that’s right for your business. Here’s what you need to decide, and what to consider, when choosing a customer reviews platform.&nbsp;<h3>Choose whether to collect ‘open’ vs ‘invite-only’ customer reviews&nbsp;</h3>One of the biggest decisions to make is whether you only want to collect customer reviews from verified customers – known as an invite-only reviews platform, like Feefo – or if you want anyone to be able to leave feedback about your business – known as an open reviews platform.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Invite-only review platforms</h3><table><colgroup data-width='500'><col style="width:54.800000000000004%"/><col style="width:45.2%"/></colgroup><thead><tr><th>Pros</th><th>Cons</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><ul><li>No one can leave fake and spam reviews on your site, as only genuine customers are invited to leave feedback</li><li>You can trust your reports, as you know that irrelevant, spammy or fake reviews aren’t skewing your results</li><li>The majority of consumers trust invite-only platforms as they prevent the presence of fake reviews</li><li>Customers often don’t need to sign up or login to an account to leave a review because their feedback is tied to a specific sale or interaction, so the business knows exactly who the reviewer is</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Don’t allow you to collect feedback from someone who visited a branch or your website but didn’t make a purchase – unless you also run surveys or use On-Location Feedback</li><li>You may collect fewer reviews because people can’t just search for you and leave feedback</li><li>You need to be proactive about collecting feedback - otherwise, you won’t get any reviews at all</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><h3>&nbsp;Open review platforms</h3><table><thead><tr><th>Pros</th><th>Cons</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><ul><li>Potential to collect a higher volume of feedback as it’s easy for someone to search for your company and leave a review</li><li>Get feedback from people who have used your business in any way, such as those who visited your website but didn’t make a purchase</li><li>Some consumers may trust an open platform more because anyone can leave feedback</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Significant chance of receiving fake reviews from competitors and spam accounts, as verifying whether or not someone has used your business can be difficult, unless they have proof of purchase.&nbsp;</li><li>Flagging and removing this fake feedback can be time-consuming and hard, which puts your reputation at risk</li><li>Some consumers don’t trust open review platforms due to how easy it is for businesses to pay for fake feedback</li><li>Your review reports may be skewed due to fake or irrelevant reviews</li><li>Open review platforms tend to operate more like comparison sites, which means you risk losing potential customers to competitors</li><li>Consumers may have to sign up or create a profile to leave a review, which means more effort for them</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table>&nbsp;<h3>Decide where and how you want to display your company reviews&nbsp;</h3>The best way to show off your positive reviews is by using widgets and methods that work for your company and industry type.&nbsp;&nbsp;Review platforms offer different widgets and products, so decide what you’d like to do and achieve with your reviews before seeing what’s out there. That way, it will be easier to narrow down which platform ticks all of your boxes.&nbsp;<h3>Check the moderation rules&nbsp;</h3>Even if you’re using an invite-only reviews platform, you may still get reviews that are inappropriate from time to time e.g. those that contain bad language or are about the wrong product. In these cases, you need to be able to flag feedback. A good, trustworthy review platform will have clear moderation guidelines that they use to determine whether a review should be removed or not.&nbsp;Businesses should not be able to delete or remove any review they want. If that worries you, it shouldn't – <a href="https://www.feefo.com/en/business/resources/reports/the-2019-feefo-consumer-report" target="_self">52%</a> of consumers become suspicious if there are no negative reviews from the product or service they want to buy.Make sure you read your platform of choice’s moderation guidelines before signing on that dotted line.<div><a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/5707407/Websites%20Pdfs/Review_Moderation_Guidelines.pdf" target="_self">You can read Feefo’s moderation guidelines here.</a></div>Determine why you want to collect customer reviewsYou may need different review platforms for different goals, or there might be one that can do everything you need it to do.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here are some examples of some objectives and what type of review platform you should look for to achieve those goal<ul><li>Social proof — Choosing a trustworthy customer reviews platform is key. If you can prove your reviews come from real people, it will help show that your product or service lives up to its marketing. You may also want to collect photo and video reviews as further proof that real customers use your products.</li><li>Improve your business internally — Not every review platform makes it possible to track how individual stores, products or members of staff are performing. Look into the reporting functions and any additional products that allow you to track the metrics that matter to you.</li><li>Get more leads — If you want reviews to bring more potential customers to your website, look at how they will support your search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid advertising (PPC) efforts. Using a platform that gives your business its own dedicated reviews page is important for SEO, while becoming eligible for seller ratings could boost your PPC ads.</li></ul>

<h2>How to manage reviews using moderation software&nbsp;</h2>Every review platform uses some form of moderation and it’s a process that can happen before or after a review is published. But what exactly is moderation and why does it matter?&nbsp;<h3>What is moderation?&nbsp;</h3>Moderation is a process where certain types of content are reviewed to see whether they are relevant and suitable for a website, brand and audience. Content is removed, filtered or edited if it breaks the moderation guidelines, which could be anything from posting personal details to making abusive comments.&nbsp;<table><thead><tr><th>How moderation should be used:</th><th>How moderation should not be used:</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><ul><li>To protect customers</li><li>To protect businesses from false comments that could result in legal action</li><li>To make sure all reviews are relevant</li><li>To prevent and remove offensive, harmful reviews</li><li>To stop fake or spam reviews</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>To remove genuine negative feedback which is free from abuse and doesn’t break any other guidelines</li><li>To modify reviews so they say what the business wants them to say</li><li>To falsely boost the brand reputation of a company or increase its star rating</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><h3>What is review management software?&nbsp;</h3>Review management software allows brands to gather and properly administer their customer feedback, and allows consumers and potential customers to read this feedback when making buying decisions.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are two main types of review management software: self-serving and third-party.&nbsp;Self-serving software — integrated within a business’s existing IT infrastructure and allows customers to leave reviews on the retailer’s website.&nbsp;&nbsp;Self-serving review management software also often doesn’t entirely encompass customer presence – there is nothing to stop consumers from still sharing their thoughts and ‘unofficially’ reviewing their products and services elsewhere.&nbsp;Third-party review management software — involves an independent company taking on the full management of customer review interaction. This method of customer review management has numerous benefits over self-serve systems, such as:&nbsp;<ul><li>Helps to build brand loyalty and consumer trust in a way that self-serving systems can’t. Third-party review software features only verified customers which guarantees that reviews are authentic.</li><li>Can be beneficial for both the search engine bots and the page visitors as it demonstrates authenticity for readers and relevancy to the bots and algorithms.</li><li>An independent review management software provider can act as a mediator between customer and brand if the customer leaves an unfair negative review.</li></ul><ul><li>Third-party review management software providers are specialists and often come with additional tools to monitor, analyse and report on customer engagement, loyalty and sentiments.&nbsp;</li><li>Third-party software creates a merchant review page hosted on their own website which collects and displays all customer reviews on a single page and links back to the merchant’s site. This assists prospective customers in their research journey whilst channelling the traffic back to the brand.&nbsp;</li></ul>

<h2>How to get more customers to leave reviews&nbsp;</h2>Follow our tips to make your customers more likely to leave a review.&nbsp;<h3>1. Make your invitation clear and inviting&nbsp;</h3>We all receive multiple emails a day. Ensure yours stand out with a clear subject line, describing what it’s about and any incentive to your customers to leave feedback.&nbsp;<h3>2. Thank them for their time&nbsp;</h3>It’s polite and everyone likes to feel appreciated. It helps reinforce our usefulness to someone else and sends out positive feelings to the recipient. Thanking someone, even before they have gone through with an action puts them in a position to complete that action and be worthy of your appreciation.&nbsp;<h3>3. Dare them to be honest&nbsp;</h3>People love sharing their opinions with others and an open opinion can feel freeing. Use that to your advantage by daring your customers to leave an honest review about you. Encourage them in a cheeky way, or you can keep to a formal tone.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>4. Draw attention to what you want them to talk about&nbsp;</h3>This is especially useful if you require feedback regarding a particular product or feature, or have recently launched something new. Use the key words you want the customer review to focus on in a bid to guide them in the right direction.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>5. Tap into their sense of social responsibility&nbsp;</h3>People love to feel like they are making a difference. Reviews give them the power to influence, so this is your chance to tap into their need for social responsibility.&nbsp;<h3>6. Use humour&nbsp;</h3>Humour is always a great tactic, especially if something went wrong. Maintain your professionalism, but also show your personality (if that's part of your brand image and tone).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Customers are likely to engage with a brand that they can relate to as a human with flaws and a real personality.&nbsp;<h3>7. Encourage sympathy&nbsp;</h3>Be honest and ask. Tell your customer how hard you’ve worked, what efforts have gone into getting them the right product and you can even name the person who made it happen for them. Tell them that, as a business, you depend on their happiness and that it starts with them giving you feedback.&nbsp;<h2>Find your perfect customer reviews platform today&nbsp;</h2>At Feefo, we’re proud to be a trusted, transparent reviews and insights platform. We tailor our service to you, so get in touch with a friendly consultant today to find out what we can do for you.&nbsp;

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