Encourage Shoppers to Post Trustworthy Reviews

With digital technology inhabiting many items on store shelves, results from a survey of about 2,000 purchasers of consumer electronics products have implications for a range of retailers. The survey, sponsored by public relations firm Weber Shandwick and conducted by KRC Research, looked at how prospective purchasers use product reviews of electronics products.
     In the survey, 77% of respondents said they pay attention to reviews by other consumers, while only 23% said they attend to reviews by professional critics. With higher-technology products like computers and tablets, there was a greater tendency to look at the professional reviews. But even here, more people paid attention to those reviews by other consumers.
     Shoppers are open to using reviews posted by other shoppers on retailers’ websites, even though fully 80% of the Weber Shandwick survey respondents said they’ve been concerned about the authenticity of a review.
     Encourage your customers to post reviews, but in ways that generate trust. The survey identified characteristics of such reviews:

• Balanced. Suggest to people that the reviews they post go beyond glowing praise to point out areas for improvement. Balance enhances believability. In addition, reviews which include both strong positives and a few negatives will develop curiosity in prospective shoppers. The curiosity can lead to the shoppers wanting to check things out for themselves at your store or website. Research at Rutgers University concluded that store experience affects how negative information is interpreted. 
• Well-written. Researchers at New York University evaluated the various factors in online product reviews that influence a shopper’s decision to purchase a specific item. Toward the top was ease of reading. Demand for a hotel was greater when reviews on TripAdvisor and Travelocity got a good grade for grammar from the researchers. Sales of items on Amazon were higher when the reviews would have received a nod of approval from your former English teacher. 
• Technical. Shoppers who consider themselves to be experts especially want to see technical specifications. At the same time, they often make product selections without prolonged thought. They don’t request features lists because the experts think they already know what the products can do for them. Actually, experts are interested in technical specifications largely to justify to themselves and others that they have made the right choices. University of Pittsburgh and University of South Carolina researchers say experts are notoriously complacent in using the technical information before choosing what they’ll purchase. 

Click below for more: 
Encourage Balanced Customer Reviews 
Mind Your Ps & Qs in Reviews 
Embrace Shopper Expertise