In today's digital era, where information is just a few clicks away, reviews play a crucial role in making decisions. Whether you are looking for a new restaurant to try, buying a book or looking for a new plumber, reviews provide valuable insights that help consumers make informed choices. Even within the B2B market, the importance of reviews should not be overlooked. A good image and good reviews within your industry create trust and can more easily generate new collaborations. 

But how can your business take concrete advantage of this trend and use reviews to boost your business? 

4 reasons why reviews are important

1. Building trust: reviews act as testimonials from satisfied (or dissatisfied) customers. Potential customers often trust the experiences of others more than company marketing material.  
2. Transparency: reviews provide transparency about the quality of products and services. They help customers make better-informed choices.  
3. Search engine optimisation (SEO): search engines like Google value user-generated content, including reviews! Reviews therefore improve your ranking in search results!  
4. Feedback and Improvement: reviews offer valuable feedback. Even negative reviews can help you grow and improve your products or services! 

How reviews can boost your business

Reviews can boost your business in a lot of ways. First of all, it is important to actively collect reviews and work out a strategy around this. Encourage customers to share their feedback on platforms such as Google and social media. Make sure you make this process as easy as possible, for example by sharing links to review pages via email or your website. By making the process as easy as possible, you also give satisfied customers in particular the push they need to write a positive review. 

Moreover, it is essential to respond to both positive and negative reviews. Thanking customers for their positive feedback is often overlooked. It is precisely these customers you need to show your appreciation to as they are potential ambassadors of your business. Word of mouth is still the best advertising and it is often the people who find their way to writing a positive review that can ensure this. 

With negative reviews, it is important to respond proactively, solve the problem and show that you care about customer satisfaction. This can restore your company's image. So keep a close eye on your reviews so that you can respond to negative reviews quickly, especially. Responding to reviews within 48 hours is an absolute must. Be sure not to respond in an aggressive or offensive way, even if you feel the customer is wrong. Google reviews cannot be deleted and your response is also visible to millions of users so be careful how you handle this! Therefore, try to avoid a discussion and ask to be contacted via e-mail so that you can discuss the problem further via a private channel.  

Extra tip! Make the response as personal as possible and write your name at the bottom of your response. This shows that you are taking the feedback seriously and not just giving standard responses.