5 Examples of Customer Reviews That Can Help Your Business

5 Examples of Customer Reviews That Can Help Your Business

Customer reviews are critical to your business and ignoring them is a grave mistake.

They provide a window into how your customers feel about your products and services and lead to important changes that help increase customer loyalty and retention.

Research from Reevoo has found that conversion rates increase according to the number of reviews per product.

They also found that these rates don't plateau, the conversations keep growing as reviews increase.

In short, good customer reviews lead to more sales.

In this guide we'll go through what customer reviews are, see some examples of customer reviews, and learn how to get more of the customer reviews that matter.

Already understand what customer reviews are and where to find them? Then, jump ahead here: 

  1. What Are Customer Reviews?
  2. Examples of Customer Reviews
  3. How To Get Customer Reviews
  4. What To Do With the Reviews
  5. Takeaways

What Are Customer Reviews?

Customer reviews are often unsolicited information left by your customer. They provide a quick summary of the customer's experience with your organization, product, or service.

This could be related to the service they receive from your customer support team, the usability of your product, or really anything about the customer experience they receive.

Customers can leave these reviews in a wide range of different ways. Common places include company websites, social media, or third party websites, like Google Reviews, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, to name a few.

Often these reviews are left spontaneously, but you can (and should) actively request reviews from your customers.

Reviews can be good, bad, neutral, long, or short. They can also be detailed and packed with useful consumer insights, or lacking in any usable information.

In order to know whether or not they contain useful information you have to analyze your customer and product reviews, but more on that to come.

Reviews are critical to the health of your business.

They tell you when something is going wrong but they also signal to other customers whether they should or shouldn't purchase your products.

According to Trustpilot, 93% of consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

On the other hand, 94% of customers said they have avoided a business due to negative reviews.

So, you need to read your reviews, identify any pain points, and put in place measures to fix them and generate positive reviews.

It's only then that you will start to experience increased growth. 

Examples of Customer Reviews & Where to Find Them

There are a number of different ways customers can tell you what they think of your organization. Here are the 5 most common examples of customer reviews:

  1. Review sites
  2. Quotes and testimonials
  3. Videos
  4. Social media
  5. Blog posts
  6. Brand ambassadors

1. Review Sites

Third party websites devoted to reviews like Google Reviews, G2, and Yelp are filled with valuable customer insights.

The reviews found on these sites are often detailed and tell you what your customer likes and doesn't like about their experience with your company.

Here's an example from Google which shows star ratings following up with a comment. 

2 five star google reviews praising a restaurant on its food, staff, and pricing.

The great thing about third party websites is that the reviews are impartial and unfiltered. Therefore the reader has more confidence that they are authentic.

As a business, you can also take a look at the kinds of reviews your competitors are getting. This shows what they are doing well and what you could be doing more of.

It's worth noting that reviews on these sites are very public and visible.

Therefore it's important that you work hard to respond to all reviews, mitigate any negative reviews, and generate more positive ones

2. Quotes and Testimonials

 

Testimonials can be a powerful tool to generate new business. If your existing customers have had a positive experience with your company, they'll also be more likely to provide you with a testimonial.

These kinds of reviews are normally housed on your website or your social channels.

Here's an example from water filter company Second Nature's website: 

A testimonial from a second nature customer praising the convenience and cost-effectiveness of their service.

This testimonial lets any prospective buyer know that existing customers think the service is affordable and that it makes their lives easier.

Customer testimonials do have less reach than something like a Google review, however as you are the one publishing it, you have more control of the message.

You make sure that the most positive, authentic reviews are the most visible. 

3. Videos

Videos have become a popular place to leave verbal reviews, and to go searching for reviews.

They can be easier to consume than a lengthy blog post as they require less attention. This can make them more attractive to potential customers.

They also allow the reviewer to go into a lot of detail regarding what they did and didn't like about the product or service.

Common places to see customer review videos include YouTube.

Let's say you're looking to buy a cordless vacuum cleaner but you're not sure which one, a quick YouTube search brings up videos comparing various models:

YouTube reviews on the best cordless vacuum cleaners on the market in 2022.

Seeing a real person in the flesh recommending (or not) a product can be much more influential than just words on a page.

TikTok product reviews are also becoming more common and have the potential to go viral quickly.

4. Social media

The fact that almost everyone uses some form of social media means it's the perfect place for a highly visible review.

This is especially true if your customer base or target audience is mainly made up of Gen Zs and Millennials.

Reviews on social media are easily shareable. Reviews on your products and/or services, be they good or bad, can reach a large amount of people in a short amount of time.

Common social media platforms where reviews can be left include Instagram, and, as we saw in the previous section, TikTok, and YouTube.

TikTok product reviews tend to be shorter with less detail. That can also be attractive to customers with shorter attention spans, or less time, who need fast reviews.

To give you an idea of the reach of TikTok, the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt currently has 12.1 billion views.

And, according to research from TikTok, 67% of users say TikTok introduced them to products they had never even thought of before.

Different videos posting with the hashtag TikTokMadeMeBuyIt

5. Blog Posts

We know that when people embark on their purchasing journey they are likely to seek out reviews with a quick search.

Often, you'll find impartial and detailed blog posts that compare products. This makes it easier for customers to believe that the reviews can be trusted.

They're also a great place for consumers from demographics that wouldn't go straight to social media to seek out reviews.

Blog post reviews can also help businesses see what is working for your customers and what you need to improve. 

6. Brand Ambassadors 

Brand ambassadors are people who love your products and services and will endorse them to their following in the form of a review.

These reviews are effective because normally the ambassadors' following trusts their opinions. This makes the followers more likely to purchase what they recommend.

Often consumers can also interact with the brand ambassador to ask further questions about the product and get all the information they need.

The only drawback to this kind of review is if the ambassador's audience doesn't have much trust in them and suspects their reviews are inauthentic.

This can be countered by brands thoroughly researching potential brand ambassadors before coming to any agreements. 

How to Get Customer Reviews

Now you're aware of the different types of customer reviews and the benefits they can bring you, you'll want to know how to generate more customer reviews.

Here are a few ways you can get more reviews:

  • Ask for them. It might sound obvious, but the best way to get more reviews is to ask for them. This could be via email, SMS, on a thank you card, or over the phone following on from a purchase or a delivery.

    You could also get creative and request them via a social media campaign with a dedicated hashtag.

  • Incentivise your customers to leave reviews. Offering your customers something enticing in return for a review can be successful. Incentives could include discounts, offers, and giveaways.

  • Make it easy. If you give your customer an easy way to complete the review, they are more likely to do so. This might look like embedding a survey request in an email or adding a pop-up after purchase.

What to Do with The Reviews

Acting on your reviews is crucial. This is because when you read your reviews and act on the insights, you can make improvements to your customer experience that then lead to future positive reviews.

This all leads to more business and more revenue. Research from Search Engine Land even found that businesses who have more reviews than the average generate 54% more revenue.

However, when you are dealing with a huge quantity of reviews, it's impossible to read through and analyze all of your individual reviews manually.

Here is where tools like MonkeyLearn can help.

Harnessing the power of AI, MonkeyLearn can automatically analyze tens of thousands of reviews in a matter of seconds.

With no-code templates, you can quickly sift through your reviews to detect keywords, sentiment, topic, and more. You can then visualize all of your results in real time with our studio dashboard.

Let's take a step-by-step walk through what that would look like with a tutorial of our App Review Analysis template. 

Step 1

Choose the App Review Analysis template to create your workflow:

App review analysis template button showing machine models included: sentiment analysis, topic classification, and keyword extraction.

Step 2

Upload your data:

Select data fields. Upload CSV file with the text data you want to process.

Step 3

Match your data to the right fields in each column:

Select data fields. Rows and columns to be filled.

Fields:

  • created_at: Date that the response was sent
  • text: Text of the response or the review
  • rating: Number or star rating given by the customer

Step 4

Name your workflow:

Name you workflow: Reviews Analysis.

Step 5

Explore your dashboard!

MonkeyLearn studio dashboard with detailed analysis.

Once you're here, you can:

  • Filter by topic, sentiment, keyword, or rating.
  • Share via email with other coworkers.

When you have all of your data insights in front of you in an easy-to-read format, it's much easier to prioritize and take action.

These actions might include reaching out to your customers who have left reviews to thank them for a positive review.

It could also mean reaching out to a customer to ask for more information regarding their issue so that you can resolve it.

Whatever you do, make sure that you act

Takeaways

Customer reviews can be found in a wide range of places. They can also have a huge impact on your business and your business' growth.

For this impact to be positive, it's essential that they are handled correctly. 

This means analyzing your reviews to draw out as many insights as possible, responding to these reviews, and making any necessary changes to the customer experience.

To analyze a large amount of reviews, you need analysis tools that give you accurate, easy-to-interpret, and quick insights.

MonkeyLearn offers just that with its varied analysis tools and studio dashboard.

To see how you can turn customer reviews into meaningful insights that allow you to make positive changes for your business, sign up to MonkeyLearn for free today.

Inés Roldós

May 18th, 2022

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