Does what people say about you really matter?

I was chatting with a friend of mine this week, and she told me a little story. She’s a business owner too, and next weekend she’s got an exhibition stand at a big conference. They do this expo every year, but this time she’s launching a new service, so she needed some new banners and a new cover printing for her podium. The banners were easy. But the podium was a little trickier to find as it had to be the exact dimensions and the right material, or it wouldn’t work. 

After a little digging online, she found a print supplier who could help. She had a quick conversation with them in their website chat, the quote seemed fair and they could deliver within the time frames needed. All good. 

Now, this friend is an experienced online buyer, so she did what many of us do before we buy something, and she Googled for reviews. What she found was pretty shocking. The company she was about to buy from had over 500 reviews on Trustpilot, with an average rating of 1 star! 

Not one to be unfair, she read through some of the reviews to see if there was something specific that was triggering this bad reputation. But the writing was on the wall… poor quality products, bad customer service, refusal to refund… Needless to say, she didn’t place an order and went somewhere else instead. 

This got us thinking though, how important are customer reviews in our businesses? It can be easy to think that they don’t really matter that much – especially in the freight industry where we’re not selling online but in a personal, one-to-one way. But that’s quite simply not the case. In fact, research shows that…

79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. 91% of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews before making a purchase. And businesses with positive reviews experience a 31% increase in sales compared to those with negative or no reviews.

The thing is, people who have a bad experience are more likely to leave a review than someone who had a good experience, which tips the balance. It sucks, but it’s true. 

So here’s a question for you… are you doing enough to encourage your customers to leave you a positive review? Do you ask them to, or do you just wait hope some do? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts? And if you’ve worked with us before and you fancy leaving a little review for us here at Millennium, we’d sure appreciate it 🙂