Don’t Fear the Reviewer

Does the idea of allowing your customers to rate your products on your website make you uneasy? If so, it’s time to reverse your thinking: don’t fear the reviews; fear what their absence is costing you. Here are four reasons why encouraging your customers to post product ratings will not only strengthen their allegiance to you but also help you capture more sales:

Break through the trust barrier

As we established previously in our article on the culture of the Web, the Internet collective harbors an inherent mistrust toward all corporate entities, and unfortunately for you, retailers are no exception to that rule. On the other hand, peer validation is everything. No matter what you do or what you sell, if people love it and vouch for you, you’ll be strongly positioned for success. In the absence of this corroboration, you face a significant burden of proof to overcome the natural skepticism of the collective. What does this mean for you? You can spend hours meticulously crafting eloquent descriptions for each and every product you sell, but they will never carry the weight of a review that one of your customers spends five minutes to dash off. Reviews demonstrate that you stand behind your products and you have nothing to hide.Fair? Perhaps not. True? Absolutely. It’s all about trust. However, when it comes to trust, you actually get extra credit for the very fact that you do empower your customers to publish their feedback on your site. For new visitors who may not be familiar with your brand or your reputation, these reviews are a badge of transparency that demonstrate that you stand behind your products and you have nothing to hide.

Tip the scales in your favor

Online shopping is a fact of life in today’s world. However, as commonplace as the act of buying on the Web has become, there is always still a lingering hint of uncertainty that resides with customers because they cannot see, hold and judge an item for themselves before committing to the purchase and paying the associated shipping costs. This effect is multiplied for certain types of merchandise like clothing and shoes. I may know that I generally wear a size 11 running shoe, but when deciding between different brands and styles, how can I tell whether my chosen shoe will run true to size, offer the level of cushioning I desire and be comfortable for a five-mile jog? The last thing you want in this situation is for me to give up and go to a bricks-and-mortar store where I can try before I buy, even if it means paying a bit more for that luxury. This is where customer reviews can save the sale by providing the reassurance I need to feel confident that the particular shoe I have selected will meet my expectations.

Turn your customers into salespeople

Returning once again to the qualities that define the culture of the Web, one of the fundamental characteristics of the Internet collective is their compulsive need to share. As a result, when someone buys something that they love, it’s practically second nature for them to talk up their purchase on sites like Facebook and Twitter. This tendency is all the greater when they can boast about a particularly unique find or an especially good bargain, as they seek the approbation of those in their social networks. It’s the virtual equivalent of taking a girlfriend along on a shopping excursion and having her ooh and ah in approval over your selections. Why not give your customers a soapbox to exercise their habitual need to share on your own site, where their opinions can help persuade other shoppers to purchase the same product when it is right there in front of them, just one click away from landing in their cart? One of the most effective customer review systems we’ve encountered is on gap.com. Not only does Gap allow customers to provide thorough evaluations of each item in their own words, but each product can be rated on several different criteria, including overall sizing, fit through the arms, chest and shoulders as well as the type of occasion for which the item is best suited (i.e. work, going out, etc.). If the prevailing sentiment among reviewers indicates that a shirt runs small or tends to shrink in the wash, I know right away to order a size larger than usual, and I can feel certain that I won’t regret this decision when my order arrives at my doorstep. Furthermore, let’s say I’m a little iffy on whether or not to buy a pair of pants based on how they look in the photographs. Rave reviews from those who have already purchased and worn the same item can provide the tipping point that will persuade me to add them to my cart. Detailed and informative reviews give shoppers the confidence boost they need to complete the transaction.As these examples demonstrate, not only will detailed and informative reviews give shoppers the confidence boost they need to complete the transaction, they can also provide enticement to splurge on additional unplanned items. As a result, chances are good that you will yield a greater number of conversions as well as an increase in the total amount of each sale.

Do your own market research

Your customers buy products from you. Inevitably, those customers have opinions about their purchases. If only you could benefit from knowing what their opinions might be. It just so happens that you can, and you don’t have to spend a boatload of cash on a consumer research study to do it. When you invite your customers to post their reviews of your products on your site, you not only open a direct line of communication, but you also send a clear message that you care about what they have to say. Open a direct line of communication with your customers.Better yet, because it is up to the customer to take the initiative to provide their feedback and they can do so with relative anonymity, you can be confident that you are receiving their honest and unfiltered opinion – much more so than if you tried to solicit a response face-to-face or with a formal survey. Although these reviews do not represent a statistically accurate sampling of all your customers, they can be instrumental in revealing insights that can be invaluable in helping you shape your product offering to better meet their needs. Even when you’ve done your homework and made your best effort to provide a great selection of high-quality products that align with your customers’ interests and concerns, there’s nothing like the candid reassurance of those customers to let you know that your instincts were right. You might even find an unexpectedly strong preference for a certain type of item over another, in which case you can consider expanding your offerings in that category. But wait! What if the feedback you receive is negative? You should be equally appreciative of the opportunity this creates to go back to the drawing board and figure out better ways to give the people what they want. Maybe the response is “I like this, but I really wish it had more of that.” Without reviews, this sentiment might never have come to light, and your customers might have just silently drifted away, leaving you wondering where they went and why. Or perhaps your reviews alert you to a problem that emerges when a product is used over a prolonged period of time or in a particular set of real-world conditions. Even the best quality control efforts can’t forecast and circumvent every potential pitfall, but armed with this knowledge, you can take proactive measures to address the issue and make it right.

Open the door to greater success

If you’ve made the investment in creating a smart, user-friendly e-commerce store, why not seize the opportunity to yield the most from that investment by adding functionality that can multiply your sales? If you’re not sure where to begin, let Fame Foundry’s expert web development team help you develop a customer feedback module that is custom-tailored to fit your brand, your product line and – most importantly – your customers.

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20 Questions to Determine If It’s Time to Redesign Your Website, Part 1

Your website should be your number one salesman 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If that’s not the case, then you need to find out why it’s not performing as it should. If your answer is “no” to any of these questions, a redesign might be just the right prescription to boost your site’s ability to attract new leads and cure what’s ailing your conversion rate.

1. Is the design beautiful?

Once upon a time, it was enough to simply have a website as the online outpost for your business – a virtual Yellow Pages ad of sorts. In today’s culture of the Web, that’s no longer the case. Just as design principles, interface conventions and programming languages have evolved, user expectations have become more sophisticated right along with them. Potential customers make no differentiation between the quality of your website and the quality of your brand. If your site is ugly and outdated, your brand will be headed for extinction right along with it.

2. Is the content beautiful?

The text on your website is just as much a part of its design as other ostensibly visual elements such as the color palette, typography, images and layout. If this seems like an oxymoron, it’s not. In fact, design is the packaging for the delivery your content. If a visitor to your site lands on a page and sees nothing but a disorganized sea of text, they’ll be immediately overwhelmed, and they won’t even begin to try to make sense of it. Good design applies content to the canvas of your site with the finesse of an artist. By augmenting your text with beautiful photography, illustrations, diagrams, infographics and pull-quotes, you’ll create a more pleasing user experience every time.

3. Does it reflect the personality of your brand?

In the age of social media, the walls that once existed between companies and their customers have been torn down. People want to do business with people, even when the actual exchange occurs between computer screens. It’s easy to let your corporate guard down on Facebook and Twitter. But what happens when your fans and followers land on your site and find it completely devoid of personality? The discrepancy will be off-putting. It will make your social media engagements feel phony and make the user experience on your website feel cold and empty. There are any number of ways to infuse personality into your website – blog articles, powerful images, video content, interaction with customers through reviews and comments...the list goes on and on. Make sure that your website has a pulse.

4. Is it built for your target audience?

A site that tries to serve the needs of every imaginable user will effectively serve the needs of none of them. Think about your typical sales prospect. How sophisticated are they? Where are they in their decision-making process? What are their questions and concerns? Do they know what they need buy not who they want to buy it from? If so, the most important objective your site needs to accomplish is establishing credibility and trust. Do they not know what they need? Or are you bringing something new to the market? Then your website must first lay a foundation of education while also building trust.

5. Is it user-driven?

Does your site serve you or your visitors? Before you answer, realize that’s a more complex question than it seems on the surface. A site that serves you goes straight for the kill with its sales pitch. It’s all about you, you, you, and how absolutely, indisputably awesome you are. A site that serves your visitors is built around utility. It speaks their language. It answers the questions and concerns that are on their minds. It helps them make decisions they feel confident in. It makes their lives easier or more fun. It gives them reasons to come back again and again. It offers them opportunities to interact with your brand and with other customers like them. It creates a place where the members of your tribe want to be. And, yes, it does sell. But it does so based on a foundation of trust and relationship-building.

6. Is the content-to-framework ratio in check?

Many websites devote far too much real estate to the framework, letting supersized logos and tag lines, multiple tiers of navigation, log-in and search fields, mammoth masthead images and trendy social media widgets become the dominant visual elements of the site. Remember that the framework of your website represents nothing more than a set of branding and navigational tools that literally frame the canvas on which your content lives. And just as a frame shouldn’t steal focus from a painting, the framework of your site shouldn’t steal the spotlight from the content you depend on to achieve conversions. Instead, it should remain as streamlined and unobtrusive as possible. If your visitors spend enough time on your site, they should all but forget it’s even there. If more than 20 percent of the screen is devoted to the framework, the only cure is to apply good principals of architecture and organization to rebalance the design.

7. Is there engaging content front and center throughout?

In today’s Web marketing universe, content is the catalyst of organic business growth. High quality, unique content that is updated regularly elevates you perceived authority with search engines, which improves your ranking in searches pertaining to your core offering, which brings more qualified visitors to your site. And when those prospects land on your site, your content builds trust, vets your expertise and motivates buying decisions. But remember, content is not just your brochure copy, nor is it just your blog. It’s your product descriptions, videos, images, customer reviews and reader comments. All of these elements must work in conjunction to allow your customers to connect with your company and your brand on a more intimate level.

8. Is it a slave to the fold?

For years, everyone obsessed over making sure every ounce of important content was squeezed into the limited real estate that falls above the mythical “fold.” Unfortunately, this is nothing more than a wide-spread fallacy of good website design and architecture. Think about it: which would you rather do – dig through page after page of content or simply scroll down? That’s right. Scrolling down the page is a perfectly acceptable method of scanning and seeking through content. This is all the more true now that touch-based interfaces have gone mainstream and scrolling involves the mere swipe of a finger. By contrast, pagination introduces a wait state which requires visitors to reset their viewpoint and mentally realign with your interface. This is a jarring and disruptive experience, and with every click-and-reset, you run the risk of losing their patience or attention. Simply put, give your content room to breathe and let your pages scroll.

9. Are your customers’ voices being represented?

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: in today’s consumer-driven marketplace, nothing holds greater sway than word-of-mouth. If you want to build instant trust and credibility through your website, find ways to let your customers do the talking for you, whether it’s through testimonials, case studies, ratings or reviews.

10. Does it stack up to the competition?

As we’ve established previously, you shouldn’t fall into the trap of including unnecessary bells and whistles on your site simply because your competitors do. Your site should be designed to serve your business growth objectives and no one else’s. But make no mistake: today’s consumer will shop around. You’ll will be compared to the competition. However, it’s important to scrutinize the fundamental elements of the user experience your competitors’ sites provide. If they’ve set the bar, you must raise it higher.

Did you pass?

If you’ve answered “no” to several of these questions, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You can’t afford to let another day go by with a website that’s not only underperforming but actually sending customers to your competitors. If you’re 10 for 10 in the “yes” column, don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. You’ve only passed the first half of the test. Next, we’ll take a closer look to uncover the insidious, silent killers that are harder to detect but equally deadly to your site’s performance.

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