There are many things that can contribute towards an increased revenue, but for businesses with an online presence one of the most important factors is keeping customers on the website long enough to solidify their purchasing decision, as there is often a point of doubt that can make or break a sale.
A study of 1.2 billion shoppers completed by Salesforce actually found that the global abandonment rate on mobile devices was 93%, and this reflects exactly how difficult it is capturing users’ attention for long enough to complete the purchase.
Reviews are an amazing tool for increasing revenue, and they can be used at multiple different stages of the customer journey to help boost the chances of each user becoming a client.
Why are Reviews Important for Businesses?
Reviews have been increasing in importance for businesses over the last few years and recent studies from BrightLocal have even found that 79% of people trust online reviews as much as they would trust a personal recommendation. The same survey found that 87% of users read reviews before they make a purchase – in fact, 72% of customers wouldn’t make any buying actions without reading the business’ reviews first (Testimonial Engine)!
With this in mind, it becomes crucial to ensure that your reviews are being shown to all prospective customers as soon as possible (and as often as possible!). Using the feedback you’ve collected to bring more traffic to your website is also possible through Trustist, as we help by getting you stars in your Google organic search results using your reviews from all review sites! This makes you stand out from your competition, and grabs users’ attention right there in the search results to ensure they choose your website before any others.
How can Having Reviews on Your Website Increase Revenue?
Having your reviews on your website can keep users on your pages after they land, decreasing your bounce rate and giving you more opportunities to convince them that you’re the right choice. Studies by Reevoo also found that just including your reviews on your website can boost your revenue by 18%!
They’re not the only ones to have found this either – Northwestern University have published statistics showing that having at least 5 good quality reviews on your website can increase the likelihood of sale by 270%. This suggests that the amount of reviews being displayed can lead to even higher revenue!
With this in mind, we looked at other studies which have found that exact correlation. Having 9 recent reviews on your website could increase revenue by 52% but having 25+ reviews on the website increases revenue of around 108% instead (Womply).
It’s important to note that having plenty of reviews is vital not only on your own website, but on other review sites too. Womply discovered that businesses with listings on 4 or more review sites can earn an average of 46% more revenue!
Does Average Rating Influence Revenue?
There are multiple statistics to suggest that users are willing to overlook the occasional bad review – businesses rated 4.9/5.0 actually have a higher conversion rate than those with a perfect rating! However, that doesn’t exactly mean that anyone should be striving for negative reviews.
Broadly found that customers spend around 31% more when a business has some positive reviews, so it’s important to make sure you’re giving every customer the opportunity to leave a review to maximise the potential positive feedback.
The proportion of good vs bad reviews must be taken into account though, as there is always the opportunity to improve on your rating and increase your revenue in the process. A 1-star increase in rating can boost revenue by 5-9% according to a Harvard study, which can lead to even bigger increases when the earlier statistics about the number of reviews are taken into account.
The rating and number of reviews are dependent on each other, as customers won’t always believe that a business can have hundreds of perfect reviews, but they also won’t trust a business’ average star rating until it has at least 40 reviews (BrightLocal).