The Potential of Online Reviews for Businesses

Over the past few years, the importance of online reviews has only increased in magnitude. Since ages, people have relied on recommendations, feedback and reviews for day to day decisions. From the best deal at the nearest supermarket to the newest movie released last week, word of mouth has always played an important role in influencing decisions of the masses. It should not come as a surprise that in today’s highly digitised world, product reviews have become the most important parameter for buying products and services. The impact of reviews has been so significant that even traditionally offline businesses have had to closely monitor and improve their customer experience journeys in order to compete in this rapidly evolving consumer market.

Evidence from surveys conducted over the past few years backs up this claim:

• In the UK, 61% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision, and they are now essential for e-commerce sites.
• In the USA, 95% of consumers use reviews and 86% say they are essential when making purchasing decisions. And nearly one-third of consumers under the age of 45 consult reviews for every purchase.

The Impact of Product Reviews

It is important to understand that it is good to have a wide range of positive, negative and neutral reviews of any product. For example, posting negative reviews assures consumers that the site is not hiding anything and that they can trust the content. In the USA, 82% of consumers seek negative reviews. For consumers under 45, the number jumps to 86%.In addition, a recent survey found that people were willing to pay $3.79 more for an iPad based on a positive review from an in-person acquaintance compared with a positive review from an acquaintance online.

Examples of Review Analysis

Despite all of this, there are several major global brands that are not using the rich repositories of data at their disposal. Here are some examples of such brands that could benefit greatly from online reviews:

Braun  

Product: Braun Series 3 ProSkin 3040s Electric Shaver websites with Products: Braun.com, Amazon, BestBuy, Walmart. Approximate Number of Reviews Online: 10,000+ Examples of insights that can be found across reviews of the product:

• The flexibility of the razor can be improved to help achieve a close shave around the neck area.
• The razor is not sharp enough to give a clean shave for those with thick hair. For the same reason, customers think that it takes more time to shave with this shaver.
• The razor makes a lot of noise while operating.

Nespresso

Product: Nespresso Inissia Espresso Maker with Aeroccino Plus Milk Frother websites with Products: Amazon, BestBuy, Target. Approximate Number of Reviews Online: 5,000+ Examples of insights that can be found across reviews of the product:

• Customers are disappointed that the milk frother stops working after 2 months.
• The Nespresso machine is not suitable to serve a large group of people because it cannot prepare more than one coffee at the time.
• Customers report that the Nespresso machine leaks just after a few months of usage.

Fitbit

Product: Fitbit Charge 2 websites with Products: Fitbit.com, Amazon, Target. Approximate Number of Reviews Online: 50,000+ Examples of insights that can be found across reviews of the product:

• Customers report that the step-count accuracy changes according to the kind of terrain they are running on.  
• Battery uptime can be improved to increase the regular usage of the device.
• Customers think that sleep monitoring data is often incorrect.

There are millions of reviews across marketplaces on the internet today. To stay ahead of the competition and provide the best customer experience, it is essential that brands realise the value and importance of reviews.