A big crowd of happy customers is the best sales team for your business that you can ever wish! Nowadays, credibility is a hard-to-earn value of businesses. If you’re interested in the psychological triggers of customer reviews success and what’s the most important factor that you need in the reviews you use, see the first part of this article.
There is no person who hasn’t been scammed by an online product or hasn’t been approached by the sales materials of fad dietary products, suspicious software packages, or hazardous financial investing opportunities. This is why you should use customer reviews and testimonials because these user-generated content types make people trust you and your business.
The real numbers behind customer reviews
Today’s world, when every salesperson can state anything, reviews and testimonials have the power of word-of-mouth and build up (or tear down) your reputation.
But don’t take our word for it. Let’s see the stats:
- Eighty-eight percent of customers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. And this trend is increasing. According to the research, in 2011, 33% of people said they didn’t trust online reviews as much as personal advice, while it decreased to 13% in 2014, and this trend continues.
- Seventy-two percent of them say positive reviews and testimonials make them trust a business more.
- Fifty or more customer reviews usually mean a 4.6% increase in your conversion.
- When a business earns more than 10 reviews, their search traffic increases by 15-20%.
- You should also take into consideration those customers who interact with your reviews. They are 58% more likely to buy and generate 62% more revenue per site visitor.
Just think of yourself and your own personal opinion. Would you buy an item with no reviews? Would you buy an item without high-star reviews? I’m pretty sure your answers are: not really, or rarely.
In fact, if the customer cares only a bit about the product or service, they choose the product with positive reviews. Without reviews, it’s tough to build any trust with your customers.
Also, customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business with “excellent” reviews, and 72% of potential customers say they will take action only after they’ve read one or more positive reviews.
The right quantity of reviews that you need
You might ask how many reviews you need to build trust with your consumers. Fortunately, there was a survey conducted for this too. Let’s see how many reviews are enough for potential customers to feel trust in a product:
- 0 reviews: 8% of customers read 0 reviews before they start trusting a business
- 1 review: 3%
- 2-3 reviews: 24%
- 4-6 reviews: 32%
- 7-10 reviews: 18%
- 11-20 reviews: 8%
- 21-30 reviews: 3%
- 31-40 reviews: 1%
- 41-50 reviews: 1%
- 51+ reviews: 2%
As you can see, more than half of people need 2-6 reviews to feel trust in your business.
Customer reviews substituted for word-of-mouth locally
Customer reviews are also relevant for local businesses. In the age of the Internet, people don’t insist on word-of-mouth even if they want to purchase locally, but they tend to make their buying decision based on online reviews.
- Seventy-two percent of people say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.
- Ninety-two percent of users will use a local business if it has at least a four-star rating.
- The top three reputation traits are reliability (27%), expertise (21%), and professionalism (18%) for a local business.
Customer reviews enhance your chance to sell more products. They are not only less salesy and build credibility for your next customer, but help you emotionally connect with your potential customers.
