What Reviews Do Readers Care About?
Imagine you’re in the market to repaint your house, and are shopping online to find a painter to use. As most consumers do in the age of the internet, you hop online and start googling painting companies. After browsing through the first page of hits, you start to look at reviews for your top contenders. One company has a high star rating, but all of the reviews are at least six months old, and there is no recent feedback. Another company has very mixed ratings- a few quite poor reviews, and some five star ratings that are suspiciously positive and boastful of their amazing experience. Your third pick has recent and consistent reviews, but their average rating is only three and a half stars. Which company would you pick?
There are many components that make up a companies review portfolio, but which are the most important? First, lets go over some of the key qualities of a review:
Overall Star Rating
Each consumer has their own opinion on a minimum star rating when choosing what business they would use, so their is no perfect answer as to a necessary star rating for a business to obtatin- however only 19% of people would consider using a business with less than three stars! On the other coin, only 12% of consumers require a business to have a five star rating.
How Recent The Reviews Are
While opinions on just how recent the reviews need to be also vary, it’s definitely consistent that the older reviews have much less influence over the consumer than a recent one! At least 50% of people only consider reviews from within the past two weeks! The majority of people (86%) say they only read reviews from within the last three months. Consistency is key when it comes to the frequency of reviews!
How Many Reviews Do I Need?
On average, the majority of consumers need ten trustable reviews (positive and responded to by the business) before they will commit to putting trust into a new business or company!
Where Do People Want To Find Reviews?
Google leads reign as the most popular site for consumers to research new businesses and read reviews, with Facebook coming in a close second! Yelp and Tripadvisor likely fall lower on the use scale due to the decreased traffic of travel and dine in restaruants due to the pandemic. While most used is an important factor, its also important to consider how trustworthy each review site is. While Facebook is the second most frequently used site, it’s actually the least trusted!
Are My Reviews Legitimate?
We’ve all heard of fake news, but what about fake reviews? 80% of consumers report feeling like they’ve read at least one fake review in the last year!
Do Responses To Reviews Matter?
While most consumers read responses to reviews- both positive and negative- it’s important to take the time to create an individual and authentic response to each review you respond to! Many consumers (a whopping 70%) said that they would be put off of a business if they left generic, copy and paste responses to reviews!
So, What Factor is Most Important?
In 2020, the Bright Local survey group reported star rating as being the overall most important factor in a review. Legitimacy of reviews narrowly trumps recency, but remember each consumers values can differ, so a well rounded review portfolio is important!
