Keys to Keeping Ratings and Reviews Relevant for Shoppers

After gaining the attention of a new shopper, losing it is the last thing a retailer hopes for, especially if they’re engaged to the point of reading customer reviews. Ensuring ratings and reviews keep the attention of shoppers can be tough with all the distractions online nowadays. That’s exactly why retailers should take into consideration what resonates with customers when it comes to ratings and reviews and what doesn’t.

Retailers who find value in cultivating feedback that shoppers are seeking should take these tips into consideration:

Incorporate the Use of Customer Photos and Videos

Staying relevant to customers is easier to do when retailers emphasize content from other shoppers during the buying journey. Customer pictures and videos have their own unique way of resonating with customers by allowing them to picture themselves in the shoes of other shoppers. Let’s say you’re doing some online shopping for a new blender and you come across one you really like. After clicking on the product, you see a steady stream of long reviews. The blocks of black and white text contain some valid insights, but mostly just musings about the sequence of life events causing them to need the blender.  

Upon doing more research, you navigate to the website of a different retailer who collects photo reviews for their state-of-the-art blender. Seeing the photos and reviews of customers who’ve used theirs to create some of the same things you planned on trying out, automatically makes you forget about what you’ve read from the reviews from the other website. Content from customers that helps prospective shoppers envision themselves using a product or service will very rarely be written off as irrelevant. An often overlooked part of providing content that resonates with customers is making sure that content is shared within a time frame customers find acceptable.

Don’t Rely on Outdated Reviews

Having a busy calendar might leave certain tasks like getting rid of outdated reviews on the backburner. Sadly for retailers, that could have an adverse effect on customers who come across them. Did you know that 86% of shoppers exclusively look at reviews from the past three months? That means brands or retailers who at one point may have collected reviews, but for whatever reason stopped should consider sharing new reviews, since customers probably aren’t reading the ones they already have anymore. Outdated reviews can also lead to questions about whether a problem a customer had with a product or service has been fixed or not.

For example, say a customer ordered a shirt from a retailer but was unhappy with the way the ink disappeared after only a few washes. After stating this in a review and seeing a number of other customers making the same complaint, the retailer decides to improve the quality of their shirts and to use a new process for printing graphics on them. Upon changing the process, the quality improves drastically. Unfortunately, because the retailer stopped collecting reviews due to all the negative feedback they received at a certain time, new customers have been wary to give them a try because every review they see discusses their quality issues. By collecting reviews again, the retailer would not only be able to respond to past customers letting them know how they resolved their printing problems, but they’d also allow new customers to speak on their behalf by uploading photos proving the improvement in quality. By making a consistent effort of inviting customers to share their experience, customers are less inclined to rely on old, outdated and possibly inaccurate accounts from other shoppers.

Deal With False or Misleading Reviews Accordingly

As competitive as ecommerce is these days, some brands and retailers may resort to some underhanded tactics in order to gain an advantage. Leaving false reviews painting a competitor in a bad light in hopes of turning away new customers certainly falls under this category. Once a brand or retailer suspects they’ve been a victim of a smear campaign in the form of bad reviews from a competitor, their options can include reporting the matter to entities like Google, taking legal action or responding to the reviewer and kindly asking them to remove it. Of course, doing any of the above won’t guarantee that customers won’t read or base their decisions on them. The only way to completely prevent false feedback from entering a new customer’s decision-making process is to stop them before they happen.

The ideal resource for filtering out misleading content from dishonest parties is by working with a ratings and review provider you can trust to act as a partner in your reputation management efforts. By taking advantage of seller ratings, retailers and brands have the opportunity to benefit from content filtering tools that flag content believed to originate from competitors, foul language and otherwise unwanted content. Even better, they can help illuminate the positive changes and improvements retailers have made, which is a great way to stay relevant in the minds of shoppers. Curious about the impact seller ratings can have on your potential shoppers? Schedule a demo with one of our experts today.

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