Bad online reviews actually help retailers
10:46AM - Thu 26th January 2012
If retailers displayed criticisms and complaints from their customers on their websites instead of hiding them away they would benefit from customers spending longer on their sites and improved conversion rates, new research has shown.
Although it seems to go against conventional wisdom, research by social commerce solutions provider Reevoo has shown that allowing bad reviews to be published online makes retailers appear more trustworthy to their customers.
In its new report called ‘Bad reviews are good for business’, Reevoo found that online shoppers will stay on a retail website four times as long when they go looking for bad reviews and convert their browsing into spending nearly 70 per cent more often.
People become sceptical about websites where all of the reviews are complimentary or positive, making the customer more distrustful of the brand and less likely to spend.
Richard Anson, founder and CEO of Reevoo, said: “Consumers who seek out negative reviews outperform the average visitor to a website: we see a 67 per cent bump in conversion rates for these shoppers.
“Counter-intuitive as it may seem, negative user-generated content is actually one of the most effective conversion tools.”
Of the shoppers that Reevoo polled, 68 per cent of them said that they trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, while 95 per cent suspect censorship or faked reviews when they do not see any bad scores on a site.
Customers are so much more engaged with bad reviews then good ones, with twice as many consumers seeking out negative comments rather than positive ones according to the research, not because they want to convince themselves out of a sale but because they want to investigate the true quality of any service or product.
This does not mean that retailers should just open the floodgates and walk away, rather they should monitor all reviews and respond to the bad ones in order to reengage disillusioned customers.
In ‘Bad reviews are good for business’ Reevoo explores how retailers should manage their online comments and looks at the ways companies can use negative feedback to improve customer service and secure more sales.
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