Online Review Management: Best Practices for eCommerce Sellers

Learn about best practices for online review management for your own website or eCommerce marketplaces outside of Amazon in this guest article.

The importance of online review management cannot be understated. Brand perception affects your sales and revenue generation, and the growing number of companies moving their businesses online has placed an even greater significance on this crucial task. If you’re an eCommerce business owner looking to blow your competition out of the water, you’ll want to leverage online reputation management techniques to make more sales and win your customers’ trust and loyalty.

Research has shown that consumer reviews impact buyers’ purchasing decisions. According to Statista, 92% of people say that negative reviews made them less likely to use a business. This is why many eCommerce companies find it a worthwhile investment to purchase reputation management software or hire a digital marketing agency to oversee their online presence.

No seller ever wants to receive poor ratings for the products they’re selling. However, unjust negative reviews may be unavoidable in the eCommerce realm. Some factors are beyond your control, and these very well could affect your customers’ buying experience. These dissatisfied customers are inclined to share this experience with nine to 15 other people. They are also more likely to write a bad review online.

While negative comments can be a significant cause for concern, receiving them isn't the end of the world. Most customers expect negative product reviews, and most become skeptical about brands that only have glowing customer reviews.

As an eCommerce seller, you obviously want to avoid getting poor ratings. But it’s even more important to develop a concrete plan and proven approach to dealing with negative reviews when they happen. You need to know how to turn things around, get more positive reviews, and use bad reviews to boost your brand image.

This is where online reputation management comes into play.

How Online Reputation Management Works

As a consumer, how do you verify if you’re choosing the right store, product, or service? Just like the majority of online buyers, you probably check out the product ratings and customer reviews first before you add anything to your cart.

Consumer reviews can help eCommerce sellers gain and maintain customers’ trust and loyalty because many buyers look to these ratings to gain more insights about a business or a brand.

Before we delve deeper into how online reputation management works, here are some more statistics worth knowing about:

• 87% of consumers read reviews online.
• 48% of buyers are likely not to use a business with fewer than four stars.
• 73% only read the reviews posted in the last month, and 80% believe recency is an essential factor.

This necessitates review generation so that your store consistently has fresh, high-quality customer testimonials. Online reputation management entails collecting, monitoring, and responding to customer reviews across all channels, such as your store website, online review platforms, and social media.

You might have received an email or SMS message from a store you’ve recently visited or purchased from asking you to leave a review. You might have also seen a response on a rating you posted online. These are among the online reputation management strategies that eCommerce merchants use.

Online review monitoring can be done using technology such as reputation management software. Many businesses today hire digital marketing or reputation management agencies to take care of their online review monitoring needs. Review monitoring gives you a better understanding of how your customers perceive your business. You can tell whether or not they trust your store and products based on their social media posts, your brand mentions, their ratings on review sites, and their testimonials on your product page.

Best Online Review Management Practices for eCommerce Sellers

If you’re struggling with streamlining your online review monitoring strategies or if you simply don’t know where to start, you’re not alone. Here are some online review management best practices that you might find helpful:

1. Provide your customers with avenues to leave their reviews. There are various plugins you can download for Shopify, WooCommerce, and other eCommerce platforms. If you’re not gaining much customer insight through these, it’s time to be more proactive about increasing your consumer testimonials which you can do through email or SMS marketing outreach campaigns.
2. Bolster your review generation efforts and convert your satisfied customers into 5-star ratings. Not all of your customers will leave a review, but studies have shown that 72% of consumers who are asked to give their ratings grant the request. Sending them a personalized email politely requesting their review response works wonders as does a thank you email or pop-up after they’ve given their feedback.
3. Select the best times to collect your buyers’ review responses. Customers are likely to enjoy your product or service the most within the first two weeks after purchase. This is the opportune time to collect their testimonials and encourage them to post their review response on your website, review platforms, and social media pages.
4. Highlight your customers’ positive review responses on your website and social media pages. This helps amplify your online credibility. If you get a negative review response, make sure to address the customer’s grievances and make an attempt at correcting any mistakes made on your part. This can turn a negative review into a positive one.
5. Download and set up apps that help monitor online mentions. For example, creating a Google alert can get you relevant information about your brand mentions. This also gives you insight into how your brand is perceived.
6. Invest in reputation management software that conducts comprehensive review monitoring across all online platforms. This ensures that no negative reviews or posts go unnoticed. Negative online mentions and poor ratings captured by the software are opportunities to engage with your customers and perform damage control.
7. Respond to customer reviews – both positive and negative. Thank them for the good ratings and address the concerns of your dissatisfied customers. Be concise yet specific when addressing the negative reviews. Apologize to them for the experience they had and express your genuine desire to help.
8. Create a positive reputation for your store by providing exemplary customer service, especially to disgruntled customers. Be open to moving the conversation offline if it’s impossible to resolve the issue with a single online response. Let your upset customers, as well as your current and potential buyers, know you’re committed to making things right.
9. Strengthen your email and text messaging strategies so you can generate quality review responses. Some reputation management software can help you execute your customer outreach strategy and review monitoring more efficiently.
10. Use your customers’ review responses to improve your products and processes. Be transparent about the actions you have taken by posting them on your website and social media pages. Your customers will feel valued because they know you take their feedback seriously.

The Impact of Review Generation on Your eCommerce Reputation

Your customers’ ratings and reviews can go a long way. At least five ratings for a product raises its chances of being purchased by a staggering 270% – and this statistic highlights the very real need for review generation tactics.

Your customers’ testimonials can make or break your eCommerce reputation. Implementing strategic eCommerce reputation management techniques for your business is key to your online success.

Editor's note: Having a process for review generation and management is key for every platform you sell on. If you're selling on Amazon, it's important to get to know Amazon's review guidelines. You can use FeedbackFive to automate Amazon review requests on your behalf.