The growth of a business heavily relies on what customers think about your product or service because they will share this experience with everyone in the form of reviews.
Everyone knows that positive reviews can skyrocket the growth of your business, but negative feedback can drastically affect your brand.
According to statistics, around 90% of customers’ purchase decisions are based on positive reviews of customers. This means ensuring that your customers love their experience with your business, and leaving positive comments is extremely important.
If you want to achieve that, keep reading because there are many ways to influence ratings.
Your prospective customers view these ratings as a score of how good your company is and whether they should proceed with the purchase.
These ratings are available for everyone to see, which makes it extremely crucial to track these and make changes to improve them.
In this blog post, we’ll share some of the best strategies through which you can improve your customer ratings. So, let’s dive into it.
Why Are Ratings and Reviews Important?
You are running a business. Isn’t your focus supposed to be just improving the product or service? Why do you have to go above and beyond to focus on ratings?
It’s because now the customers are being extremely smart. They don’t make their purchasing decisions based on how good your ad creative looks or how your social media profile is aesthetic. It might have worked around 5 to 10 years ago, but not anymore. People are more connected with each other; they can research your project and make informed decisions.
If the experience worsens, they have full access to social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Quora. You can’t remove these responses unless the customer agrees to do so. This digital data is shown to your potential customers; if it’s bad, they will not buy from you. And even worse, they might end up buying from your competitors.
More positive ratings → Positive perception → Happy clients → More sales
More negative ratings → Negative perception → Unhappy clients → Less sales
That’s just a glimpse of how having customer reviews can lead to your business’s growth.
7 Effective Ways To Increase Customer Ratings
Now, it’s time to execute the strategy and see how you can increase your ratings. It is recommended for almost every business.
1. Simplify The Review Process
You should start streamlining your review process to ensure that customers leave good reviews and your ratings increase.
Suppose a customer purchases your product. They love your product’s color features, and everything is top-notch. You message them to leave a review.
So, they go to your social media channel. But what should they do now?
Should they message
you?Should they fill out a complete form for the review?
They are completely clueless. The result will be that they won’t leave a review even though they like your product.
You need to understand that customers don’t leave reviews, but they view it as a time-consuming and draggy process. So, instead of just texting them to leave a review and ghosting afterward.
You should send them a review link or encourage them to share valuable feedback on Google Maps. No need to sign up or anything else. Keep it sweet and simple.
2. Respond To Bad Reviews
Many businesses ignore or, even worse, delete bad reviews. Why?
Because they don’t want potential customers to see those negative comments, but that’s not good practice because it can do irreparable damage to your brand reputation.
So what should you do?
Respond to all the reviews, especially negative ones, and offer solutions. If they don’t like the product’s color, offer them an exchange. If they received a faulty product, offer them a refund or gift cards. It shows that you genuinely care about your customers and are ready to go to lengths to solve their problems.
3. Begin Conversations With Buyers
You should have conversations with your customers. Be their friend and add value to them. Don’t just ask if you like the product. Then what should you do?
Instead of close-ended questions, ask open-ended questions.
Knowing what your customers expect from your products is a great way. With this open-ended data, you can get deeper actionable insights and update your product to something your customers will most likely want to purchase.
According to data, around 79% of customers are likelier to purchase from a brand that demonstrates they care and understand them. It also builds trust and loyal customers.
4. Reward Customers for Sharing Star Ratings
Everyone loves gifts. People are more inclined to do something that has a reward attached to it.
So, give your customers incentives for leaving reviews. It doesn’t have to be something extravagant. You can keep it sweet and symbolic, such as reward points, thank you notes, or free delivery on their next purchase.
Many companies already offer reward points in loyalty programs, free samples of their products, etc.
According to an experiment conducted by HBR, customers who were offered incentives wrote reviews 40% more positive reviews. However, the group that was not offered any incentives didn’t write positive reviews.
5. Add Customer Testimonials to Your Website
You might have hundreds or thousands of reviews, but none are useful if you aren’t utilizing them properly. So, what should you do to use these to their fullest potential?
You should show these reviews on your website and social media sites. Here’s an example of a lead generation agency showing their testimonials on the website.
Source: Echofish
So, anyone visiting the company website will instantly see these reviews and ratings by past customers. It shows your customers your best side and how you can add value to their business.
Gather all the authentic reviews from social networks. Understand the sentiment of clients through these online product reviews.
6. Automate Processes
With the rise in AI technology, every process is being automated. You might have 10,000+ reviews and ratings if you have a large business.
It can take days and even months if you’re considering doing it manually.
After getting all the reviews, understanding their sentiment is so difficult. That’s why you should use software tools such as Luminoso to analyze data sentiment and get market insights within seconds.
7. Invest In Improving Your Services
No matter how much you invest in automation and streamlining the process. None of that will be fruitful if you don’t provide excellent customer service.
If you want customers to share positive experiences related to your brand on social media, you have to ensure you’re providing them best.
Give excellent services → Happy customers → Share happy experience → Give a 5-star rating and detailed review
So, to stand out, invest in giving the best experience to your customers. It can provide fast delivery service, fewer additional charges, and quick response. Find the key aspect that can outshine your brand and work on improving it. It can be extremely beneficial for your business growth.
You should have a quick response rate and incorporate feedback from customers in areas of your business. You should begin with understanding the customer journey and fulfilling the needs of your current customers. Convert them into your happiest customers, and don’t forget to measure customer satisfaction rates.
Benefits Of Improving Customer Ratings
You might be wondering if it’s worth it. Maybe focusing on R&D and market insights is more than enough. Bad ratings lead to a low level of satisfaction for consumers.
Then, here are some benefits you get if you work on improving ratings.
- Enhanced Reputation: Higher ratings and positive reviews can bolster your brand’s online reputation and instill trust among potential clients.
- Increased Sales: Positive ratings often increase conversion rate and higher sales, as consumers are more likely to choose businesses with good reviews.
- Better SEO: Improved ratings can positively impact your search engine ranking, making it easier for clients to find your business online.
- Customer Loyalty: Satisfied consumers are more likely to become repeat customers, leading to long-term loyalty and increased lifetime value.
- Word of Mouth: Happy shoppers are likelier to recommend your business to others, resulting in organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing.
Conclusion
Customer experience is extremely important to view how clients perceive your brand. Do you want to know how to ensure customers have a positive experience?
It’s by checking your ratings. If the consumer is happy, they will leave a positive comment, keep buying from you, and gladly refer you to others.
But if they have a bad experience, they will complain online through their social media posts. They might even tell their family, friends, and relatives about their terrible experiences.
You don’t want that to happen, right?
That’s why you should commit to evaluating consumer experience and finding ways to improve it. If one way is not working, then try to follow others. Brainstorm ideas and implement those that are most relevant to your business. Enhancing the ratings is important so you can stay in the business for the long run.
