One word – Everywhere!
Customer reviews are gradually becoming the center of control for the businesses. The phrase “Customer is king” is now getting hold of its true meanings. In the past, customers were fascinated by “what’s new”, whatever seemed new and useful to them – was meant to be sold without any hassle. But today, the customers have more consolidated power due to a limitless access to information (the internet) and a vast choice of goods and services. In addition to that, social media gave people the chance to share their experiences more widely. Consequently, customers have now total control over the goodwill of a brand in the market.
If we compare the buying behaviors of the consumers today with those of the past ones – it can be seen that in the past, consumers were dependent on the information that brands themselves used to broadcast (push) but today, consumers proactively collect (pull) information about brands from other consumers by visiting their social media profiles and most importantly “The Reviews”.
If we talk about the future of customer reviews, we can say that businesses would have to learn to harness them for good because ignoring their importance would only cause loss. Customer reviews, 1 year from now, would be the backbone of whole business structures. Because smart businesses of today are redesigning their strategies in a way that they could align perfectly with their customer reviews.
Here are the three main ways in which businesses have already started using customer reviews to build up their “competitive advantages” and they might hold great virtues within the coming 1 or 2 years;
Keeping an eye on what your customers say
Today, social media has become a platform much more important for achieving commercial goals rather than for making personal interactions. As a business, you should establish a prominent social media presence where you could run social listening posts to keep a track of what the customers have to say about your products or services and then engage accordingly. Listening to your customers is the key, you should know where you went wrong and where you amazed them.
Promoting customer advocacy in your strategies
As the corporate world is becoming more and more customer-centric, developing the trend of customer advocacy in your business strategies won’t be a bad idea. The focus should be of creating such an image in front of the customers that they should be encouraged to promote your products or services on social media platforms themselves via positive reviews & recommendations. It includes working end to end with the customers in order to solve their problems with a view to creating a long-lasting customer delight.
Making what they want
The ultimate form of using customer reviews in your strategy is to co-create with your customers. This could happen when you ask your active customers to give reviews for your products or services and instead of making minor amendments or justifying your shortcomings, you completely transform your products or services according to their needs.
To sum it all, Customer Reviews have been of great importance to businesses for a long time now and as we approach nearer to the future, we can say that customer reviews are what is going to define a brand or a business. So, businesses need to work harder on developing skills that could nurture stronger and sustainable “customer-centric” business structures.