By Nicolas Fincher

How important are client testimonials for online businesses? Is it worth to have them published on online stores? How may customer reviews influence overall sales volume and conversion rates? Recently, these questions have become a major concern for many online ventures around the Globe. In the article below I’m going to share my ideas on the related issues based on my own experience as well as on various reputable market researches.

Almost 80 percent of online shoppers consider testimonials and reviews before making a final purchase decision. Today’s consumers are getting more and more demanding and they need as many convincing facts as possible that they will get products or services of really premium quality along with responsive assistance.

Indeed, reviews matter greatly when it comes to online purchase making decisions. They may serve as a highly powerful tool to increase your credibility level, provide a better exposure, attract more new customers, boost your sales and, therefore, increase your revenues. These numbers are really eloquent: online stores with over 50 of client reviews enjoy 3,5 times as large sales volume as those with one or two reviews, and almost 2,9 times as large sales volume as those with about 10 reviews.

These researches also reveal an interesting fact that negative reviews, just as the positive ones, may help boosting online sales dramatically. As statistics show, any customer review (positive, negative or neutral) with the company’s timely response increases the number of closed sales in times.

Actually, negative reviews have a significant influence on customer purchase-making decisions, especially if they see that a company did its best to resolve the claimed problem. That’s why, ecommerce experts suggest to work consistently and thoroughly with the entire client feedback, paying the strictest possible attention to negative and critical reviews as they can be an excellent opportunity to turn your dissatisfied shoppers into loyal clients.

Obviously, online stores with the majority of positive reviews have higher purchase rates. However, you should be aware that 100 percent positive feedback will invariably make your visitors doubt about their real origin and feel rather skeptical about your trustworthiness as well as the quality of your products and services.

The researches also helped to define the most influential review categories:

  • Reviews telling about the company and product competitive advantages.
  • Reviews containing helpful information and particular details about a product or service.
  • Well-written and reasonably emotional reviews.
  • Thank-you reviews.
  • Negative reviews backed by a responsive reply and solution from an online store.

Here are some basic tips on how to work with clients and their testimonials:

  • Show your appreciation for all reviews you receive, including the negative ones.
  • If it is necessary, apologize to customers leaving negative feedback and try to provide a helpful solution to his/her problem, claim, complaint, etc.
  • Make sure that it is very easy to leave feedback on your web store.
  • Try to gain as much feedback as possible from your clients.
  • Encourage both your loyal clients and just occasional shoppers to discuss your products, services, offerings, etc. on your web store blog or social media profiles.

You should also take into consideration that testimonials attract a large additional volume of traffic. In fact, reviews create a unique user content that can significantly improve search engine rankings of your website for niche keywords.

To sum up, gaining any client feedback is definitely worth of investing time and efforts for any online venture. Today, when the ecommerce market is getting more and more competitive and online shoppers – more and more choosy, testimonials, recommendations and referrals have a really enormous power of attracting new customers and convincing them to make a purchase. Take your time to implement a highly-efficient, seamless feedback campaign for your online store and you will surely reap the rewards in the long run.

Nicolas Fincher, a PR and community manager at http://www.cs-cart.com/, an established company specializing in shopping cart software development with its primary PHP-based ecommerce solution CS-Cart.