Recently, a marketing director of a London-based restaurant was contacted by a Yelp user offering to post a positive review in exchange for £4. This wasn’t the first time the restaurant experienced this; this year alone the marketing director received four offers to post positive reviews in exchange for payment. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence and a recent BBC investigation found that twenty percent of comments on review websites were false.
Today’s consumers are seeking an honest and transparent experience with a brand, meaning businesses have a responsibility to safeguard the authenticity of all forms of content people depend on to make informed purchase decisions.
Below are some of the key practices businesses should look to adopt to make the most of customer feedback and ultimately ensure their customers see them as trustworthy:
1. Start a dialogue with customers
Whether consumer feedback is positive or negative, the best practice a brand should take on is regularly communicating with their customers.
In such a digital world, customer reviews will make it into the public circle one way or another, so brands need to embrace those conversations and work with them not against them. A new survey reveals that online reviews impact 67.7% of respondents' purchasing decisions. More than half of the respondents (54.7%) also admitted that online reviews are fairly, very, or absolutely an important part of their decision-making process.
Consumers become more trustworthy of a brand and its products when the brand replies to customer feedback. Data from the Bazaarvoice Conversation Index Volume 6 shows that shoppers who saw a brand respond to questions, feedback and negative reviews were 186% more likely to purchase, than from brands that did not respond to feedback.
2. Be transparent at all times
The Edelman 2015 Trust Barometer found engagement and integrity are two of the most important factors in building trust. Building transparency will lead to better informed, satisfied and trusting customers.
Findings from the Conversation Index Volume 6 also reveal that after reading review responses which corrected product misuse and gave instructions for using the products correctly, consumers showed 157 per cent higher average sentiment toward these products than those who read the reviews without brand responses. And when a brand response offered to refund or upgrade the reviewer’s product, readers showed 88% higher average product sentiment than those who didn’t see the response.
Providing easy access to tools that enable customers to express their receptiveness has the most powerful impact on demonstrating transparency.
3. Embrace and leverage negative feedback
No brand wants negative feedback or worst, negative feedback for the world to see, but hidden within it are opportunities to improve your business. For example, at the 2014 Bazaarvoice Summit, Gap, Inc. discussed why using negative reviews to root out product, service or even marketing flaws can be extremely valuable. The brand was able to use negative reviews to highlight adjustments they needed to make in production to the fit, quality and material of their products. .
A mix of positive and negative content empowers customers with a platform to share their authentic opinions and also have confidence in your brand. It’s also worth noting that not all customers are the same, nor will they use your products and/or services in the same way. Negative feedback from one customer won’t always deter another. One customer’s negative is a potential customer’s positive.
Embracing negative feedback also allows businesses to gather insight into issues that they may not already be aware of and make improvements to enhance the experience for their customers. By starting a dialogue with customers following the feedback they have posted, brands will also encourage additional engagement down the line.
4. Ensure authenticity of content
The importance of sharing authentic content is crucial to building customers’ trust, particularly with today’s growing informed and connected consumers.
According to a research commissioned by Bazaarvoice, 84 percent of consumers state that they would feel more trusting of reviews if they knew the reviews were screened for fraud, moderated, and displayed by a neutral, credible third party. Forty-five percent of respondents say they were more trusting of reviews that had passed through a technology filter and human analysis, but only 14 % of respondents say a technology filter alone is sufficient.
A step a brand should consider is displaying a trust mark along with the review. Trust marks demonstrate the brand’s commitment to authentic consumer feedback. This will also help increase consumers trust towards reviews - in fact, 47 % of respondents say they “would be more trusting of the reviews” if presented with a trust mark and an accompanying description of anti-fraud policies displayed when reading online reviews.
With the number of today’s social platforms growing remarkably, a brand can achieve enormous visibility amongst consumers more than ever. Positive and negative customer feedback will be readily available on the web. Encouraging conversations with customers should be a key consideration within business-authentic, customer feedback has enormous potential to positively influence buying intent and audience’s opinion. Brands seeking to improve their reputation, while staying ahead of the curve in a competitive landscape, can no longer overlook the importance and impact of engaging with consumers’ conversations, whether positive or negative, being transparent in their communications, and leveraging authentic consumer feedback.
By Prelini Udayan-Chiechi, VP Marketing EMEA of Bazaarvoice.
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