Online Reviews can make or break your business. That’s been the popular theory for a long time, and we now have the statistical evidence to back that statement up.
This report is a minefield of empirical evidence that we, the Great British Public, do indeed love to shop online – but we’re super cautious about where and how we spend our hard-earned money, and we use online reviews and star ratings to show us the way through the online maze of company choices.
Think about it. You’re deciding between two restaurants to eat out in, in an unfamiliar town on your first night on holiday. What do you do? Like everyone else, you look on Google to see what star ratings and reviews the two venues have….and you make your choice for your evening out based entirely on what you see online. There’s no longer any question that online ratings can make or break your business, we see the proof of that fact daily.
And here come those facts:-
- Source
- 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their buying choice
- A 3.3* rating is the LOWEST star rating of a business that consumers would consider viable to use
- 58% of consumers look at online reviews at least once a week
- 68% of consumers are willing to pay up to 15% more for the same product or service if it can be guaranteed that they’ll have a better experience for spending the extra money
- 82% of consumers say that the content of a review has convinced them to make a purchase
- 77% of consumers surveyed stated they would be willing to leave a review if asked
- 80% of consumers found reviews for local businesses as helpful as product reviews on major sites like Amazon
- 81% of consumers use Google as their main source of reviews and information to make purchasing decisions
- 59% of consumers use Yelp for the same reason
- And 49% of consumers use Facebook for the same purpose too, to check reviews and star ratings
- 66% of consumers say they wouldn’t trust reviews from sites they’re unfamiliar with
- 59% of consumers searched for reviews on local businesses on their smartphones or tablets
- Of those smartphone online searches, 77% used Google and 67% used Facebook to search for reviews
- 54% of consumers searching for a company online used a search engine to conduct their search, and
- 30% used Google Maps for the same search instead of the main Google search engine
So if you want to be found online, you need to be sure your company can be found on Google and that the information visible to consumers searching is mobile/tablet friendly, and fully reflective of the image you want to present and enticing for them to engage with.