Your Users Trust Each Other, Not You: Why and How to Implement Ratings and Reviews

Steve Mulder Why and how to implement ratings and reviews Your users trust each other, not you

Why implement ratings & reviews?

People don’t trust you

76% of American consumers believe companies don’t tell the truth in advertising Yankelovich (2005)

60% have a much more negative opinion of marketing & advertising than a few years ago Yankelovich (2004)

People do trust each other

78% say consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising Nielsen (2007)

83% say online evaluations and reviews influence their purchasing decisions Opinion Research Corporation (2008)

84% trust user reviews more than critics’ reviews MarketingSherpa (2007)

Trust in “person like me” tripled to 68% from 2004-2006 – biggest influencer to consumers Edelman Trust Barometer (2006, 2007)

Think beyond products Content Topics Features People Places Companies Events

76% use online reviews to help make purchase decisions Forrester Research (2007)

63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site offering ratings/reviews eVOC Insights / RelevantView (2006)

69% of those who read online reviews share them with friends, family, or colleagues Deloitte & Touche (2007)

What about B2B?

93% consider ratings and reviews valuable or very valuable for the business user Christian C Carlsson dissertation research (08)

58% have removed a supplier as an option because of a negative rating/review Christian C Carlsson dissertation research (08)

What do the adopters think?

Although only 25% of top ecommerce sites have ratings and reviews so far… Forrester Research (2007)

96% of those sites rate them as an effective or very effective merchandising tactic Forrester Research (2007)

Reasons merchants added online reviews
Improving the customer experience
E-Tailing Group (2008) 58% Building customer loyalty 47% Driving sales 42% Maintaining a competitive advantage 37%

What’s the ROI?

Impact of ratings/reviews on online retailers
reported site traffic increases
E-consultancy and Bazaarvoice (2007) 77% reported improved conversion rates 56% reported higher average order values 42%

NetShops found that reviewed products experience a 26% lift in sales College of Information Science, University of Nebraska (2007) Product with no review Product with reviews

Petco let users sort products by rating and saw sales increase 41% per visitor Petco (2007) Before rating sort After rating sort

Bass Pro Shops users who viewed Top Rated Products had a 59% higher conversion rate Bass Pro Shops (2007) Average visitors Viewers of Top Rated Products

Impact goes beyond the sale
higher satisfaction reported for sites with reviews
ForeSee Results (2007) 10% more likely to purchase from the retailer again 8% more likely to recommend the site to others 11%

Customer support

200% ROI in one year Forrester’s calculated ROI for ebags.com implementation of ratings/reviews

Benefits beyond the Web

Petco saw a 500% increase in email clickthrough after including ratings/reviews Petco (2008) Before ratings After ratings

93% of adults research products online before purchasing in a store BIGresearch (2007)

24% of those online have used online reviews before buying a service delivered offline comScore / The Kelsey Group (2007)

The challenge of negative reviews

“ People only write reviews when they’re mad or disappointed”

80% of reviews are positive Forrester (2007)

Breakdown of ratings submitted on all Bazaarvoice client sites 1 2 3 4 5 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Bazaarvoice (2006)

“ Negative reviews scare others away”

Conversion rates are higher for products with positive and negative reviews
Negative ratings and reviews…
make the site (and its products) more credible
increase comfort in purchasing (weaknesses are now known)
"We're always surprised by how much negative reviews help drive sales." John Squire, VP of Product Strategy, Coremetrics
“ When customers see a mix of different ratings they are more apt to trust the review process…. Negative reviews help customers affirm they've vetted all concerns before making a purchase decision.” Don Zeidler, Director of Direct Marketing, Burpee

Negative reviews can lead to product improvements

Turning a negative into a positive

Best Practices

Best Practices Item Page

Make ratings & reviews discoverable: location, context, prominence

Stick to what’s familiar: stars

Use the familiar 1-5 scale

Consider ratings by attribute

Show date of review

… and reviewer info

Name/nickname
Contributions
Relevant profile (e.g., location)
Member since

Badges
Stats
Personal info
Connections

Reviewer actually owns it

Helpful votes
Report/offensive
Comments

Respond to negative reviews

Average rating and number of ratings

Distribution of ratings

Trend over time

Sort reviews (also by helpful)

Friends’ reviews

Summary of reviews

Parsing by attribute

Cross-selling / merchandising

Best Practices Beyond the Item Page

Show ratings on listing pages

Search results pages too

No ratings shown???

No way to filter or sort by rating???

Sort by highest rating

Filter by rating

Give users more control

Show ratings from people like me

Promote using ratings

Merchandise/promote using “top” lists

Cross-sell using “top” lists

Best Practices Eliciting Reviews

19% of US online adults write an online review at least monthly Forrester Research (2008)

Step 1: Ask!

Step 2: Invite reviews via email follow-up

Step 3: Invite reviews via your site

Incentives can help, but rarely needed

Recognize top reviewers

The easier the better

Clean design, few distractions, helpful tips

Keep registration barrier low

Encourage detail, prod with questions

Don’t go insane

Let people preview their review

Set expectations for posting

Moderate lightly

Implementation options

[email_address] Let your customers talk slideshare.net/MolecularInc

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Your Users Trust Each Other, Not You: Why and How to Implement Ratings and Reviews

by Molecular Inc on Dec 09, 2008

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