The impact of customer reviews on point-of-sale visits

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Before visiting to the point of sale, consumers consult the customer reviews published by their peer reviewers. The brand networks must, therefore, be properly referenced: be where the Internet users are.

Establishments must also have a good reputation on the Internet because consumers read the comments left by customers before them.

Why do online reviews influence traffic within your physical stores?

As consumers, we are experienced this on a daily basis: when searching the Internet, we are confidence goes to companies (or products) with a minimum of negative opinions and a good average score. Therefore, physical stores are directly concerned about:

  • 63.6% of consumers say they are more likely to see reviews online on Google before visiting a business than any other review site.
  • 94% of consumers say that an online review has convinced them to avoid an establishment.
  • 80% of consumers say they are confident for a rating of 4.0, 4.5 and 5 stars.

How to manage the local reputation of your Internet sales outlets?

Before or after a visit to a store (or other establishments), there are several steps to follow if you want to leave a positive impression in the minds of consumers.

Improve the visibility of customer reviews by soliciting… customer reviews

If the local pages of your establishments are not properly visible on the Internet, the feedback can be well-retrieved neither. First, develop your local presence where Internet users are informed.

On the other hand, we know that the number of opinions on a point of sale page has a great influence on its referencing in local search results.

So the more ratings and comments you have, the better your local pages (and reviews) will be presented in the search results.

Be proactive! Ask your customers for feedback on how to improve local SEO in your facilities.

This collection of customer feedback can be done through different channels:

  • Social platforms: Google My Business, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Yelp, Trustpilot…
  • On-Site: your website and/or its local pages, your applications.
  • After the purchase: email, push notification (mobile), receipt…
  • In the point of sale: sticker, flyer, interactive terminal…

To collect opinions in more depth, and if the environment allows it, measurement tools such as CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), NPS (Net Promoter Score), CES (Customer Effort Score) are useful to gather the consumers’ value in different touch points of their purchasing journey.

Respond to customer reviews

53% of customers expect businesses to respond to negative reviews within a week. But 63% say that a company has never responded to their opinion.

As a consumer, it is significant that his opinion is taken into account. Receiving an answer, and better yet, a personalized response is always “pleasurable” even if the store experience has not been expected. Sometimes the client even modifies his assessment following a satisfactory response. It is therefore important to respond to opinions, even if they are negative.

Analyze the customer experience

Thanks to all this data collection, you will be able to identify your strengths and areas to be improved, both externally and internally.

To deal with the negative opinions, think of proposing actions for dissatisfied or disappointed consumers.

Analyze and improve the review management within your marketing department or local (example: speed and rate of answers) in order to reinforce the satisfaction of your customers.

Emphasize the “positive”

Critics are shifting from a trend where consumers express their dissatisfaction to a trend where they recommend outlets after a positive experience.

Relay positive opinions through your different communication channels:

  • On-Site: your website and/or local pages, enhance content (“Rich Snippets”)
  • In your email marketing communications (newsletters, offers…)
  • On social networks

To enhance the positive opinion concerning your establishments, do not hesitate to go beyond the scope of the “raw” opinion and work with your loyal customers so that they become, in a way, become influencers in their surrounding environment. Sponsorship campaigns are one of the examples that can be set up.

Simplify review management for your retail physical network

Google and Facebook have become the # 1 and # 2 online reviews.

Tools exist to set up a basic management of your local e-reputation.

In this context, the first media you need to understand are Google My Business, Facebook page and your own website.

Then, if your points of sale fits to specific sector and has special services, it will be always a time to explore other possibilities (for example: Tripadvisor for hotels and restaurants).

The My.Mobilosoft platform is equipped with a solution to which makes it possible to:

  • Collect and consolidate local reviews (Google, Facebook, on-site) in one place.
  • Respond to customer reviews via marketing department (centralized) or via points of sale (decentralized) in a “semi-automated” way (access to predefined response models according to the feedback and/or comment published).
  • Filter establishments to facilitate the processing of customer reviews (display by rating, by keyword, by zone, by response rate …)

Any questions? Contact us!

Notes: The statistics in this article are from ReviewTrackers that surveyed millions of reviews from +100 review sites within the last decade.