5 reasons to use a tool to manage reviews for your online store

Online reviews are essential for all types of business, and we never tire of repeating it. However, it isn’t always easy to collect your customers’ feedback and achieve an excellent online reputation. Despite the fact that 97% of the users state that they read online reviews before booking or purchasing a service, unfortunately, for businesses, there is still too much apprehension towards the active use of a tool to better manage their online reputation.
Regarding online stores specifically, collecting reviews from customers is very important as they are free, genuine and also a great advertisement. Customers tend to believe other customers more than the business itself, and therefore utilising word-of-mouth can only be beneficial to your business.
Have we still not convinced you? Of course, that’s understandable. That is why we have decided to show you step by step, the 5 reasons why your online store needs to use an online reputation management tool:

1. Collect more feedback:

Do you want to manually send to all of your customers an email asking for feedback? How long would that take? The answer: too much. That is why you need a tool that automates the process of sending feedback requests. With Customer Alliance you can upload your customer list (in full compliance with GDPR standards) and send them a message to thank them for their purchase, accompanied with a link to our questionnaire to collect reviews.

2. Grow your brand’s credibility:

Having your reviews distributed on multiple channels such as Google and Facebook, as well as displayed on a certificate and a widget for your website offer more credibility to your brand, and increase the trust amongst potential customers. Think about it, nobody likes self-promotional messages, or companies that self-proclaim their skills. This is why you absolutely need to use UGC (User Generated Content) in order to attain the authority and the excellent online reputation that you deserve.

3. Reduce the cart abandonment rate:

Often users will visit your site and once they have taken a look around, fall in love with one or more products, but is not so convinced to proceed with the purchase and spend their money. For this reason, you need to provide a bit of support to convince the user to purchase from your online store and not to continue his search on a competitor’s site.
How do you do it? With the reviews of other happy customers, of course! Reading the positive opinions of those who have already used a service, drives the new buyer to take the same action and then be equally satisfied as their predecessors. There are various options to show directly your customers’ reviews in your online store. It is possible to integrate feedback directly into a dedicated section of your site rather than in the homepage thanks to the XML feed of reviews. Furthermore, it is possible to display them with pride via the Customer Alliance widget, which collects all of the review scores across the various portals and merges them by providing an average of the Customer Satisfaction index. The widget is in turn linked to the certificate in which all the reviews collected through our flexible questionnaire are visible.

4. Gain more online visibility:

Thanks to our review XML feed, it is possible to not only reduce the cart abandonment rate, convincing even the most undecided customers to purchase, but you also get a great boost in terms of SEO. The automatic availability of reviews integrated into your website through XML is a great source of UGC, which Google tends to prefer due to the authenticity and unique nature of the content. However, XML alone is not enough to have more visibility and catch the keen eye of potential customers. In the jungle of results provided by Google, it is possible to attract more attention through Rich Snippets. Thanks to the new functionality just implemented by Customer Alliance it is now possible to integrate Rich Snippets directly via widgets.

5. Analyze the online reputation of the online store anywhere, anytime

It is no secret that reviews are essential for your activity and timing is everything. For this reason, you have to constantly monitor what is said about your business and actively manage the feedback given by your customers. Obviously, this is not always possible and would require a lot of time, especially if it is done every day. However, with Semantic Analysis of your reviews (also those of your competitors) combined with the statistics available via Customer Alliance, you will gain a detailed overview of your online reputation 24 hours a day wherever you are (our backend is mobile friendly).

These are only 5 of the main reasons for which a tool to manage your online reputation is essential for your eCommerce. If you want to discover even more reasons, request a free consultation with one of our reputation experts!