So, you have seen the BBC News item about reviews and whether they are authentic! Funny, it is something I always bang on about to our clients. In fact I have done for years, in the days when having testimonials on your site was a good idea, but back then I used to tell clients that they have to find a way of making them authentic.
Anyway, let’s talk about these reviews. So, Magento has a reviews feature you can use. You simply switch it on in the Admin panel under the catalogue menu item and bam, you can now invite people to review your products. When a review is submitted you can moderate it and therefore decide if the review and or rating can be displayed on your site. Personally, I just would not use this feature. Come on, how authentic is it, you can easily do the reviews yourself or get friends and family to and they ain’t gonna give you a bad review!!!
“But Rebecca, what should I be doing”? Well, first and foremost, you should definitely have reviews, it is great for sales conversion and great for your SEO rankings.
“But Rebecca, what should I be doing”? Yes, sorry, let me tell you…
Definitely sign up to a proper independent reviews company like FeeFo or TrustPilot or this smart new company reviews.co.uk! All of these have ways of making the reviews authentic. One really good way in particular is the way they ask for a review from someone who has actually purchased from your site. This is good because not only do you know the person is real – something the BBC News raised – but you can also get them to review your service/delivery.
Again, with all of these you can decide whether or not to display the actual review on your site, thus giving other potential customers some positive information to influence their buying decision.
If you are clever, you can start using these to upsell or increase the basket value. How? Some reviews might say something like “I was delighted with my purchase, but now wishing I had spent that little bit more and bought this instead” or “Totally love what I bought and decided to now also purchase all these accessories too”.
See, so reviews is a good thing, just get it right, choose the right solution and have a strategy.
If you have a Magento site, then just call in for a no obligation chat if you want some more advice.
Good luck.
Rebecca Jones
MD
