Consumers leave ratings and reviews daily. This feedback significantly impacts your brand reputation, customer perception, and sales. Effective, timely review monitoring is essential for driving revenue for your business.

This article explores the importance of ratings and review monitoring and highlights how these factors influence your success. 

Understanding Ratings and Review Monitoring

Ratings and reviews are the lifeblood of omnichannel brands. And in today’s retail space, every brand is an omnichannel player. 

It’s not enough for businesses to have reviews for their products or services. Effective monitoring is essential to establish a dominant presence on the digital shelf and win market share. 

Review monitoring is the process of tracking reviews left online about your brand across various review sites. Effective monitoring includes: 

• Reading all reviews
• Responding to all reviews
• Rectifying mistakes expressed in reviews 
• Monitoring customer sentiment 
• Adapting products and services to provide a satisfying customer experience 

According to Statista, 17 percent of consumers will always read an online review before purchasing a product. An additional 41 percent read reviews most of the time. In total, 93 percent of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. 

Ratings and reviews are crucial components in the buyer’s journey. Brands must understand the influence of their reviews –– and review management strategy –– to make the most of their online presence and earn customer trust and confidence that leads to sales. 

Brands can’t ignore online reviews. Below we outline five ways to utilize review monitoring to maintain a competitive advantage in your market. 

1. Earn Consumer Trust and Empower Confident Purchase Decisions

Positive reviews are among the most effective, compelling marketing tools a brand can utilize. Few things are more powerful than an honest review: customers are more likely to trust an online review than a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. 

When brands incentivize, earn, and monitor positive reviews, they are not only building relationships with existing customers but also planting seeds of trust and confidence in potential customers reading those reviews. 

Multiple positive reviews signal to readers that your product –– and brand –– deliver on quality. Users read reviews because they want to make an informed purchase decision. Effective review monitoring puts valuable, accurate information in the shopper’s hands so they can make confident choices regarding their purchases.

2. Earn Higher Search Rankings and More Clicks

Positive chatter surrounding your products and services will lead to increased interest in your brand. This is especially true regarding online reviews. 

Review sites are high-traffic sites where you can reach a limitless customer base. And when you publish reviews on your website, optimizing the reviews for SEO, you can earn high-value traffic that leads to conversions. 

Customers leaving positive reviews provide the information shoppers look for when purchasing. And when you publish those positive reviews on your site, you provide the third-party proof consumers want when shopping for your goods.

3. Responding to Reviews Affects Customer Perception – and Ratings

Your reviews are more than a place for customers to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. They’re also a means for brands to engage with, listen to, and endear customers. 

Review responses make a measurable difference in customer perception and sentiment: 45 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to patronize a business if it responds to a negative review. Fifty-three percent of customers expect companies to respond to negative reviews within a week, and one in three shorten that timeline to less than three days. Fast, sincere review responses are essential to earn customer trust and respect and increase brand affinity.

The most successful brands respond to every review, but executing review responses is impossible without monitoring software. Review management solutions alert brands of new reviews, providing the data necessary to segment those reviews and send them to the appropriate party. For example, negative reviews might be directed to a team member assigned to handle complaints. In contrast, positive reviews are sent to a different party who can provide a quick, thankful response. 

Responding to reviews can affect review changes. For example, addressing a customer’s complaint can transform their perception of your brand. Correcting mistakes or creating a positive experience for a customer often results in a review edit. When brands respond sincerely to negative reviews, customers are more likely to revisit their original reviews and leave a higher rating.

4. Receive Free, Specific Customer Feedback Regarding the Product and Retailer

There are fewer honest, candid places online than a product’s review page. Customers feel the freedom to detail their experiences honestly. Reviews allow brands to receive free, specific customer feedback. 

Review monitoring solutions allow brands to segment this feedback, categorizing reviews based on specific criteria or star ratings. Monitoring and evaluating positive and negative reviews will enable brands to understand what customers enjoy and what needs to change. Reviews detail the product, the purchase experience, customers’ opinions about the retailer, and more. 

A thorough review of each piece of consumer feedback empowers brands to make the necessary changes to provide an exceptional experience for every customer with every purchase.

5. See What’s Selling across Products, Brands, and Retailers 

Brands receive product reviews for items sold. And because you’re selling in an omnichannel market, you receive reviews across multiple platforms, through various retailers, and at all hours of the day and night. 

As such, you need a review monitoring strategy that allows you to see when and where your products are selling and the volume of items purchased. Comprehensive monitoring solutions provide insight into the number of reviews across products, brands, and retailers. The more reviews you have for a product or retailer, the more sales for that product or retailer. 

Access to these metrics lets you know where to funnel your brand’s resources. If one of your products is selling more than others, ask why? Evaluating reviews can provide information regarding an item’s or retailer’s high-performance numbers.

Review Monitoring that Drives Your Reputation

Reviews and ratings significantly influence how existing and potential customers perceive your brand. The social proof provided by reviews proves to be a powerful marketing asset, especially when those reviews are monitored effectively. 

Content Status has the tools and resources you need for ratings and review monitoring. Contact our team today to learn how our unique solutions empower you to manage your reputation, earn customer trust, and, ultimately, increase your sales.