Customer Reviews

Posted on July 23, 2007
Filed Under Web 2.0 |

Customer reviews are priceless - who could doubt it? Even if they’re bad they allow the wide-awake executive to respond and adapt, or at least be informed; after all we’re not in charge of our reputation, other people are.

You may enjoy this report by Colin Beasty at CRM Magazine:

A new study of the 100 highest-grossing retail Web sites that post online customer reviews has found that the availability of that content is a key factor driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and purchase decisions. According to the findings of the report, released by ForeSee Results, the presence of user-generated reviews boosted overall satisfaction with and loyalty to the Web sites; even more critical, reviews increased the likelihood for conversion and the completion of an online purchase. - A Good Review Is Worth Its Weight in Gold

I’m hearing now about a growing service called Angie’s List, which features reviews by users of products and services.

Angie’s List has exploded in the past year. In January 2006, it served 33 cities; today it’s in 124. Members can search for service companies in as many as 240 categories, from pet sitting to plumbing. - Angie’s List: Making and Breaking Service Companies

All of this is to reinforce the precept that costumer reviews are the single most valuable asset a company can acquire (after customers perhaps), and cultivating and displaying them should be one of the principal objects of marketing.

In case this was obscured in my earlier article about Jupiter’s advice for retailers to stay away from social networking sites [Web 2.0 Brings Shopping 3.0 and Just Forget Jupiter Research On This One] Jupiter’s report always did emphasize the value of exactly this.

Jupiter said, bring the Web 2.0, user-generated content into your own site. This is a perfect idea. My point went much further and said go out to where those prospects and customers are also, and listen and talk to them out in the wild. Reviews, anywhere you can get them, are indispensable.

Comments

One Response to “Customer Reviews”

  1. Hunter on July 26th, 2007 8:03 pm

    by the way that Angie’s List is a paid service, I meant to add - which leaves me cold personally. But the fact that it costs $6-7 PER MONTH, and it’s growing so fast, places a remarkable nominal value - and a metric - on authentic review and recommendation.

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