Tips & Tricks to Get More Product Reviews and Ratings on Your E-commerce Site

Tips & Tricks to Get More Product Reviews and Ratings on Your E-commerce Site

Product reviews not only matter to business owners but also to customers. People don’t want to spend money or precious time on something that’s going to result in a terrible experience. So, reviews and ratings are the first things they go and search for before any online purchase.

According to some statistics, 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has user reviews, 88% of online shoppers include reviews in their purchase decision and 70% of customers consult reviews and ratings before making a final purchase.

With these statistics, we can easily guess that reviews can be one of your greatest tools to effectively drive traffic, conversions, and sales on your e-commerce site.

However, many business owners end up concluding that their customers don’t want to write reviews. But in my opinion, they do want to share their experiences if you know how to ask correctly. You can definitely succeed in getting more customer reviews and building stronger relationships with your customers if you follow some tips & tricks.

In this article, we’re going to tell you some of those tips & tricks that will magically work to get more quality product reviews & ratings on your e-commerce site.

Why Product Reviews and Ratings are Important?

When you will know how product reviews can be beneficial for your e-commerce site then you can realize the importance of product reviews. In this section, I will provide 5 reasons why product reviews are important to your e-commerce site. Let’s have a look.

1. Product Reviews and Ratings Build Trust

A brand can build significant trust and credibility from a steady stream of positive reviews. A product having good reviews would surely be able to help the customers in their buying decision. They would likely put their trust in your products as well as your Brand.

For example, Amazon displays average ratings for products based on customer feedback, right on the top of the product page, and at the bottom are the customer’s reviews. Whenever a prospect visits the product page, they are straight away displayed the product ratings along with the number of people who rated that product. That makes it easy for potential customers to trust the product.

But another thing, it’s not as simple as just displaying reviews. You have to ensure that they are authentic. If customers suspect a product has fake reviews, “36% would not buy the product, 28% would not trust the brand, 27% would not trust the site’s other reviews, and 25% would not purchase from the website — and 18% said all of the above”.

2. Product Reviews and Ratings Expand Conversation

Product reviews are an easy way to expand your brand’s reach and play a huge role in boosting your conversions. If you deliver products to your customer’s expectations, they will openly do the marketing for you by leaving positive reviews. A single positive review can lead to an increase in the conversion rate.

Also, when people have good things to say, they are more likely to share their reviews on more sites, including external websites. Those play a vital role in your online presence, as Google collects data from those sites while building its results ranking. Even on an individual level, having positive reviews can help push further reviews.

3. Reduce Possibilities of Returns

If you do not display product reviews, how your customers are going to decide on the product quality? They would not be confident enough to make a purchase. Moreover, they will have doubts regarding product quality.

A product having good ratings and reviews would likely face fewer returns, simply because most of the customers are satisfied with it, whereas on the other hand, if negative reviews are dominating positive ones, it simply means that most people have faced some kind of issue with it. And hence people would not even go for the purchase, in the first place.

4. Product Reviews and Rating Impact SEO

When it comes to SEO, Google puts your customer (their users) first. What the user wants, believes and trusts is what Google wants, believes, and trusts. So if Google sees your customer saying that your business is good, Google will use that as a signal to rank you the good. 

Google depends on a variety of signals to determine whether or not your site is worthy of good rankings. When a customer reviews your business, it tells Google that your business is real and trustworthy. It helps Google to gain a clearer picture of you and your business, which in turn helps them to position you better for relevant searches.

Every time a customer leaves you a review, they’re leaving exactly that for Google to crawl. The more people talk about you, the more likely you will pop up in search results. Also, SEO these days revolves around quality and authentic content. And customer reviews are a prime example of authentic content.

5. Product Reviews and Rating Work as Social Proof

Today, product reviews are the biggest source of social proof and they have a clear impact on sales.  You would have often seen brands highlighting what their customers have to say about their products or services. These are what we call testimonials and they make a significant impact on a prospect’s purchase. It is one of the best ways to promote your brand that can attract a large number of potential customers to your website and also leave an excellent impression when a visitor lands on your website.

Tips & Tricks to Get More Product Reviews on Your E-commerce Site:

Now that we’ve covered why reviews are important for your e-commerce site, it’s time to dig into how to get more product reviews.

Getting product reviews isn’t that difficult. It just takes a few tweaks to do it the right way. Let’s take a look at the eight ways to get more reviews from your customers:

Just Ask Them:

The first and potentially most obvious way to get more reviews for your products is to ask your customers for reviews. Often, your customers purchase a product and have a satisfactory experience using it, but never think to go back to your page and leave a review. Remind your customers to leave reviews as much as possible.

Find a way to collect customer emails at the point of purchase. Whether that’s in your physical location or online, you don’t want too much time to pass before you ask for reviews. That’s why so many brands see great results with post-purchase emails. After enough time has passed since their initial order, you can ask for feedback through emails that recount the exact items you bought.

Make it Easy for Them:

One of the biggest obstacles to garnering user reviews is making the review process too complicated. The easier you make the process, the more likely you are to get reviews. Companies with simple review processes often have more customer reviews because their platform is easily accessible and they engage the customer before they lose interest. So, rather than making users go through multiple steps, make it a simple one-click process. Include a link on your website that brings customers directly to a review platform. Putting this link directly on your website saves the customer four steps.

Many of your online shoppers buy multiple items at a single time. It doesn’t make sense to send them individual follow-ups asking them to review their purchases one at a time.  After all, no one wants to click back and forth through different pages to leave multiple reviews. Provide an all-in-one view to write content and create a better experience. Include a link on emails asking for feedback, instead of linking to your website itself, link directly to the review page. All they need to do is click one link, and they’re able to leave a review. This is simple and easy for your customers.

Mobile optimization is incredibly important. Remember, customers won’t go out of their way to leave a review unless they had a bad experience. If you want to encourage customers who had a great experience to write reviews as well, you need to make your review process mobile-friendly.

Give Them Lots of Options on Different Platforms:

Having lots of options for your customers to rate your business on multiple platforms is a great way to increase the number of reviews and generate some social proof. Don’t limit your customers. Expanding their options will increase the chances that they will leave a review.

Plenty of users prefer to find reviews through many other sites offering business reviews. Your website should not be the only place where customers can review your products. If you have no reviews on any other sites other than yours, your reviews may look purchased. While asking for reviews, ask your customers through other popular review sites. Allow your customers to choose the sites of their preference. Some users will also go the extra mile to post reviews on several sites.

Remember, make sure you are available on platforms that you know people are using daily. Like, Facebook reviews can give your business added exposure, because of their popularity. According to Facebook’s metrics, if someone reviews your company, the review will appear on the news feed of the reviewer’s friends. It helps the other Facebook users to see the review and encourages the prospective customers to click on your page. Driving more people to your Facebook page can generate more traffic on your website as well. Ultimately, this can increase your conversions.

Show Some Love to the Reviewer:

Research found that 55% of consumers who don’t write reviews said they needed a reward or recognition to do so. People are more likely to give reviews when they have an incentive, so give customers that final push by offering them a reward for writing a review. Any time a customer leaves a review for you, they’re doing you a huge favor. You should reward them for that.

Some businesses like to offer discounts, points, or raffles. We’ve found that discounts are effective for writing reviews and additional for sharing on social channels. For example, you could provide every client who gives you a review a 10% discount. A few things happen:

  1. Customers are more likely to write a review.
  2. You get the explosive publicity.
  3. They become a repeat customer when they come back to your store to use the coupon.

Another easy way to show users you’re recognizing their contributions is to share their reviews on social. Either directly share their quote while making sure to give them credit or simply repost a positive experience. This also creates transparency and it can help drive more reviews if you link to your product pages asking for more reviews!

If you can’t give your customers any reward or recognition, simply thank them directly on each platform where people are leaving feedback. Thanking reviewers can also improve your SEO. Notice the first words in this reply should be ‘Thank You’. Thanking your customers will make them feel good. It’s a great way to let them know that their opinions are being heard. Ultimately, it establishes a more personal connection between you and the customer.

Pay Attention to Negative Reviews and Ratings:

When you add the review option to your website, it is quite obvious that you will get negative reviews. You may think that the best thing you can do with negative reviews is to ignore them, but it isn’t.

Ignoring negative reviews won’t make them go away. Try to respond to negative reviews, especially if you think the reviewer is justified in their complaint or other customers have complained about the same issue. Take this opportunity to learn from your clients and improve your business. Ask the negative reviewer to get in touch with your customer service department, apologize to them, and explain how you’ll make it right. 

If you can satisfy the negative reviewer, ask them to reply to their original review. If you’ve handled everything professionally and compassionately you may have gained a lifelong customer from a formerly bad review. To know more details about how to handle negative feedback, check How To Utilize Negative Product Feedback For Growth and Improvement.

Provide Great Service:

In the end, getting reviews is going to be impossible if your product or your service isn’t up to the mark. You can use all the tricks to bring in reviews, but they won’t help you if you don’t provide a service or product worthy of those reviews.  In today’s highly competitive world, no business can sustain itself unless it provides quality products or services.

Maintaining your core standards of service is the key to encouraging sharing and discussion. If no one is satisfied with your service, no one will leave a positive review on your page.  Do whatever it takes to leave a massive positive impression on your customers. Make sure your customer service is up to snuff and your products are satisfactory. They’ll return the favor with tons of reviews, free word of mouth, and loyalty. Good service will bring reviews organically and the rest of these tips will help you encourage more.


Use a Trusted Review and Rating Tool:

Now, before following all those tips and tricks you need a good tool to enable the review option on your site. The ‘Download Manager User Review’ add-on is the best tool you can use for getting reviews from your customers. It’s very easy to use both in the backend (for site owners) and front (for customers).

Every review posted will be first submitted for approval. Admin will get an email notification when someone posts a new review and only after the admin approves the reviews, will visible to everyone.  

You can highly customize your review and rating system with this add-on.  By using this add-on customers can engage with you and with each other within the product reviews. They can even ask each other questions about the fit and feel of the product, which can result in increased social proof.

Get the User Review add-on with the WordPress E-commerce Pack – Digital Store Solution. Subscribe to this package; it will give you the entire e-commerce feature in one bundle. Also, to give your e-commerce site a more sophisticated look try the Attire theme. You will get the Attire both in the paid and free versions, check this article to know more about the Attire theme.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, customers are the king. They are the ones who can either take your business to new heights or bring it down drastically. So their feedback is highly important as it will only be their experience that will decide how good your product is. So what are you waiting for? Follow the above-mentioned tips and tricks on your e-commerce site and get tons of good reviews and ratings. Also, don’t forget to visit our Blog page for more informative articles.


Leave a Reply