Customer engagement matters. When you’re running an online store, you want to make sure your potential customers get the treatment they deserve. That’s why you write brilliant product descriptions, use SEO, and add visuals to help them decide. But, it’s very important that you give them a reason more to be actively engaged and e-commerce reviews can help you do just that.
If you want to engage your customers more but aren’t sure how to use e-commerce reviews, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading for some of the best tips you can apply to boost customer engagement.
Let’s take a closer look together.
1. Give Social Proof
Let’s start from scratch and think about the main idea behind publishing a customer reviews section on your e-commerce website.
Social proof is what most people are looking for before they decide whether or not to make a purchase.
That means that you need customer reviews available on your website to:
- give social proof
- add credibility
- show you’re trustworthy
- show you’ve got nothing to hide
You’ll come across as professional and credible, so don’t make the mistake of underestimating customer reviews.
As a result, customer reviews will give other customers a reason more to stay tuned, keep reading about your product, and trust you to be worth their time and money.
2. Show You Care
It’s important for a brand to develop a closer relationship with their customers. Creating emotional bonds is important and it helps brands with customer retention.
As e-commerce, you don’t get to communicate with your customers that much. Direct contact is almost completely eliminated since they do most of their shopping on their own.
However, once they leave a review, you have a chance to step in.
Show your customers that you care by:
- replying every review
- thanking them for their time
- showing appreciation for their time
Use the reviews section as common grounds and give your customers a confirmation you care about their opinion.
This will inspire them to leave more reviews and show other potential customers what kind of a relationship you’re building with all your customers.
This will boost their engagement and help you create an ongoing conversation between the brand and the buyers.
3. Respond to Negative Reviews
When you open the reviews section, there’s bound to be some negative comments. And when you run into an unsatisfied customer, you can still turn it to your advantage.
So, negative reviews open a whole new window of opportunity for you.
This is why you should never ignore or delete them. Instead, you should:
- read the reviews carefully
- understand what caused the negative review
- respond with a friendly tone and thank the customer
- offer an apology
- think of a way to remove this problem in the future
So, not only will you appreciate the negative reviews, but you’ll be able to learn a valuable lesson and not allow it to happen again.
This will show your customer you genuinely care about their opinion and you take it into account.
This will inspire them to engage with you more and invest their effort into providing accurate feedback.
4. User-Generated Content
When it comes to buying things online, people love a good visual representation of what they’re about to buy.
However, your professional images and videos often aren’t going to do the trick. This is because they’re clearly designed to convince the customer to buy the product instead of showing it as it actually is.
Luckily, customer reviews create room for user-generated content.
UGC will allow a real-life customer who’s already purchased the product in question, to:
- post homemade images of the product
- provide a more realistic insight into the product
- support their written comment with visuals
This way, potential customers will have a reason more to trust your brand and rest assured that what they see is what the get.
This will engage both current and potential customers.
5. Boost SEO
When you’re thinking about customer engagement, you need to look at the bigger picture. Potential customers first need to find your website and then continue with their shopping journey.
The best way to get more people to learn about your website is to improve your SEO. And believe it or not, customer reviews can help you do this.
Customer reviews are great for boosting SEO because they allow you to:
- insert keywords into your answers
- have your brand mentioned
You can use the comment section to subtly insert the right keywords and ensure the algorithms locate your content and mark it as suitable for the right searches.
This way, you’ll raise brand awareness and have more people visit your website. Your engagement rate will skyrocket thanks to this technique.
6. Show Brand Personality
From blog posts and social media to the comment section on your product pages, every word that you publish counts.
Everything you say and write is directly connected to your brand and helps the customers form an opinion about you.
This is why you have to be very careful about the answer you write on your customer reviews. They need to:
- show off brand personality
- show consistency and originality
- be written in a conversational manner
You can’t have one answer written formally and the other completely the opposite. If you need help with writing, check out these best sites for writing papers, and see if they can help.
Use the customer reviews section to repeatedly show off who your brand is and what you stand for. This consistency will give you the credibility you need and will motivate your customers to stay engaged.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the e-commerce reviews section has a more meaningful purpose than you might suppose. It helps you promote your brand, earn customers’ trust, and learn about their honest opinions.
Use the advice listed above and to create your own strategy and start working on improving your customer engagement.
