Above all, companies that have built up a good "online reputation" have come to the forefront of the Internet environment, with the ratings of satisfied users contributing significantly. However, a recent study by Capterra revealed that companies do not know how to benefit sufficiently from these reviews and thus lose certain opportunities.
Capterra worked with 500 participants in order to define the importance of online ranking in the purchasing and decision-making process. The aim was to obtain information that might help goods and service vendors handle online reviews appropriately.
What emerged from the survey?
- Customers trust online reviews more than friends' personal recommendations
According to the study, 26% of customers read online reviews before each purchase. Only 4% never did so. Interestingly, as many as 36% of respondents said that, when buying a product, they would place more trust in online customer reviews than in product tests or recommendations from friends. - Satisfied customers write reviews more often than dissatisfied ones
According to the results of the study, most reviews are written by very satisfied or very dissatisfied users. More often, however, they are satisfied, which (according to Capterra) may be due to some people being paid for providing a positive rating. - Half of the customers have never received a response from the company for user ratings
The following discovery of how much an online customer rating can affect a company's reputation may surprise some people. As many as 60% of respondents said they believe online reviews and customer reviews are not taken into account by suppliers - 23% of companies say they don't respond to reviews
The survey found that 84% of companies do not use software to evaluate their customer reviews. At the same time, 23% said they did not respond to reviews. A further 9% either report negative posts or delete them immediately.
The cornerstones of customer reviews
The basic finding that online reviews are often more trustworthy than friends' opinions led to a listing of criteria according to which customers decide. Survey participants were asked to list five core customer ranking points by relevance. The results were as follows:
- Comments in text form (46%)
- Product rating e.g. number of stars (29%)
- Reviews sent via the product (15%)
- Review date (8%)
- Reviewer information (2%)
It follows that text reviews are more important than mere stars or points. Moreover, users pay attention to the number of reviews. In the survey, 76% chose a product with a slightly worse rating but three times more reviews. Depending on the product sector, users paid different attention to rating dates. Due to the product or service life, 28% of respondents trust only reviews from the last three months. For example, in home appliances, emphasis was not placed on timeliness.
User ratings affect visibility
One of the key reasons why customer reviews are so important is that vendors and suppliers benefit mainly from positive reviews, which affect visibility on Google or other comparators that collect reviews. The number, frequency and variety of reviews, as stated by Moz, a company focusing on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), impact on how high the search is listed.
Ultimately, the study identifies what every vendor should understand: online customer ranking is crucial to a company's reputation, and those who disregard and ignore it are having a serious impact on the growth of their business and are not using their potential sufficiently to bring new business opportunities.
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