Customer feedback - how to encourage company evaluation?

Customer opinions about the products or services you offer are very important, especially for future buyers. More than two out of three customers confirm that they review other users' opinions about this particular product before making a purchase. This gives customer feedback a chance to help your sales. However, online store owners often downplay this matter - to the detriment of their own business. Do you know how to encourage customers to leave a review about the purchased product on your website? Here are some effective tricks.

Customer feedback - why are they so important?

You often hear how important it is to allow your customers to leave their reviews for your product on your store's website. Theoretically, many stores followed this advice and placed a comment window on product pages, next to which there was a simple and clear call-to-action in the style of "rate our product" or "leave a comment". Unfortunately, in just as many cases, you will not find comments on product pages. Social media may seem to be of some help in this matter, and in fact, the activity related to giving opinions has moved there.

Why is customer feedback so important? They influence the purchasing decisions of other network users. This is how Zero Moment of Truth works - Zero Moment of Truth. A potential customer begins to search the web for information about the product he wants to buy - he checks reviews, opinions of other customers, ratings on forums, etc. Good research carried out by the client allows him to verify whether a given product is really worth buying. Verification is one reason why we are so eager to consult other users' opinions. The second is to look for confirmation of our good choice in their opinions.

Are only customer opinions important?

When it comes to our making sure of the choice, the opinions of other users undoubtedly play a significant role. We try to minimize the risk of a missed purchase at all costs. However, our purchasing activities are not influenced only by the opinions of others - we should also take into account various types of product-related content that provide users with more information than the product description itself. What should be understood under the slogan of product-related content - primarily reviews or tests that the company places on the website. They can be made by company experts or commissioned from independent specialists.

Returning to customer feedback, it should be noted that the longer, more detailed and based on the user's personal experience - the better. Short comments such as "good product" or "it's okay", although they positively evaluate the product, carry little information for future customers who are looking for as many details as possible about the planned purchase.

Negative and unwanted customer feedback

It is important that the opinions that appear on your website are not anonymous. Firstly, the lack of anonymity increases the credibility of posted comments, and secondly - reduces the possibility of spam and deprecating, vulgar opinions. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about moderating comments - try to hide offensive comments with vulgar vocabulary. Explain all comments and negative opinions about products and be transparent in your actions - it is hard to imagine that everyone expresses superlatives about a given product. As we have already mentioned, especially emphasize longer, substantive opinions, paying attention to many aspects, and treat the perfunctory "good goods", "recommend", etc. with less attention. Also try to control if there are no outgoing links in the comments under your products - they may they have a negative impact on the positioning of your pages.

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How to encourage customers to leave feedback?

The opinion may have various forms - not only a comment, but also a rating (issued on a specific scale), questions, etc. However, the most important thing is to encourage users and customers to interact by leaving an opinion about the purchased product, and sometimes it is not easy. We'll show you a few ways you should see customer reviews appear on your site more often than ever before.

1. Elements of competition. Introducing a small element of competition may turn out to be a bull's eye - try to reward the most active users in comments with points or badges - it will be an element of the game, the rate of which you will set yourself. Specify small rewards for active users. These can be discount vouchers, freebies, etc. You can also activate users through contests, eg for the best review of a specific product.

2. The form of evaluating the product. Often you can come across an evaluation formula that assigns from one to five stars to a given product. Boredom. Try to modify the form of the evaluation without changing its clear rules. You can also let users "star" rating different aspects, product properties - it will make them feel like an expert. You can also think of the possibility of having top ratings in your store's ad extension in search results as a so-called rich snippet.

3. Simplify the ability to add comments. As we already mentioned, you need to ensure that your comments are not anonymous. On the other hand, overly complex forms can deter you from adding your opinion. Try to simplify the procedure for adding a comment, not forgetting that it is not anonymous. It may be effective to comment after logging in via your social media account. You can also focus on collecting opinions about products in social media. This will make the procedures mentioned above much easier for you.

4. Interesting comments as an element of content. Choose interesting and flattering opinions about your products or services and try to include them in the content of your website pages. Quote customer reviews, post them in prominent places on the website, on infographics. Certainly, many visitors to your website will recognize you as a company that respects the opinions of users and will place more trust in you.

We have mentioned that a large number of customer opinions about your products or services allows other Internet users to become interested in them as well. As a consequence, it may translate into an increase in sales in your store. Indirectly, customer opinions also contribute to the benefits in positioning, primarily by increasing interest in your website among potential customers, and thus - also linking it and recommending it to others.