In today’s digital world, online reviews are critical to your company’s reputation. It’s no secret to anyone that reviews can positively or negatively influence your customers’ buying decisions. What is more, customers are likely to spend more money with businesses that have positive reviews.
This just goes to show how important reputation management is for companies that want to appeal to the modern consumer.
Bear in mind, that most consumers these days read online reviews before making a purchase, especially in the industries listed below.
In short, there are some industries that depend more on customer reviews than others. In this article, we will name 6 of the industries for which customer reviews are more important than ever.
1. Restaurants
As you can probably guess, restaurants are at the top of our list. For most people these days, it is really difficult to discover a cozy place with delicious food and good service. This is why people often look at online reviews before visiting a particular restaurant.
Most people are very careful when choosing a restaurant to go to for a good meal. Other factors that may influence their opinion could be the atmosphere in the place, the menu, the food, some medical concerns, the service, and even the location.
Even now, in a time when we can’t physically eat at restaurants, people still find it important to choose a good place that meets their expectations. This is one of those industries where people are more likely to pay attention to reviews before choosing a place to eat.
2. Hospitality Industry
This industry could be specific because in some cases we can consider it a bit more expensive than others. People often need more attention and convincing when it comes to choosing a hotel/motel or a place to stay in general for their dream vacation.
In the modern world, travelers often rely on online reviews to find a good place to stay. At the same time cheap and comfortable. People are not likely to prefer a hotel or motel with no reviews.
In this industry just like for the others on our list, the reviews are extremely important for the customer’s decision-making process.
3. eCommerce
In an eCommerce business, the reviews and ratings from customers are basically everything. Positive reviews can help increase sales, increase engagement, improve Google ranking and most importantly build customer loyalty and trust.
The negative reviews will naturally have the opposite effect on customers and people might prefer to shop on another site with better reviews.
You’ve probably heard of the phrase “quality over quantity,” but here quantity is just as important as the quality, if not more so. In this case, if, say, someone wants to buy a pair of sunglasses online and sees that one store has only 2 positive reviews and another store has 10 positive and negative reviews, the person will likely buy those sunglasses from the store with more reviews in general.
In short, if you own an eCommerce business, keep in mind that online reviews are extremely important to this industry and much of your revenue could depend on them.
4. Plastic Surgeons
Believe it or not, patients often choose their plastic surgeon based on online reviews. As we mentioned earlier, online reviews are very important in any industry.
In this particular industry, the reviews are certainly even more important than in others. The first thing someone might do when looking for a good doctor, for example, is to check them out.
Word of mouth doesn’t just happen offline anymore and people can find out about you on social media or other forums to make a decision.
Some of the factors that might influence patients’ opinions could be their experience with a doctor or staff member, the procedural methods, or the service as a whole.
Bear in mind, that patients are sometimes more likely to come back to write a bad review for you if they are not satisfied than to give positive feedback. Their reviews and recommendations will be critical to your online reputation.
5. Lawyers
Just like plastic surgeons, lawyers and law firms depend a lot on their clients’ reviews. As long as your positive reviews as a lawyer outnumber the negative ones, you have nothing to worry about.
For example, for lawyers, it is good to have ratings above 4 stars to be an attractive option for clients. The most important factors in your clients’ ratings are likely to be your experience, the speed and accuracy of your work, and, of course, the efficiency of your work.
In this industry, the quality of reviews is more important than quantity. So, keep this in mind and ask your customers to leave you a positive review whenever possible.
To maintain a good online reputation, you should do everything you can to provide the best possible service to your clients.
6. The Hosting Industry
Last but not least on our list is the hosting industry. As a hosting company, we can agree that customer reviews are very important in our online business.
For example, when someone is building a small business website, one of the first decisions they will make is which web hosting service to use. They will likely check online reviews before choosing a hosting provider.
To choose the right hosting company for your needs, you can compare companies and their reviews, but also don’t forget to check their plans, prices, what features they offer, their up-scores/server reliability, refund policies, free trials, etc. Later on, your customers will be able to leave you positive or negative reviews based on some of these factors. To improve your company’s services, you can encourage your customers to share their feedback with you.
Conclusion
Online reviews will always continue to be an extremely important part of the consumer decision-making process. We live in a digital world and we can’t ignore the opinion of our customers online.
As we already mentioned the reviews are extremely important for your online reputation. Bear in mind that almost 90% of the customers do check the reviews before they make a purchase. Clearly, consumers find reviews helpful when identifying the products that best fit their needs.
Again, encourage your customers to leave you their feedback and try to optimize your services or products so that they are well rated by your customers.