Growth catalysts just waiting to be harvested.
For us feedback loop junkies, consumer reviews are just a treasure chest of insights and opportunities for improvements to continue driving revenue and profit. But we get busy and forget to read them on a regular basis. Forget to include them in our business planning. Forget to respond to consumers who have taken the time to write “to us” on their platform of choice about their experience.
Just like we try to regularly have an email inbox of zero, we should try to read, respond, and digest the consumer feedback we receive on all the major platforms our consumers choose. Amazon, Google, Yelp, our own websites, etc. And if we really want to leverage our consumer’s feedback, share it with our cross-department teams on a regular basis.
Something is Wrong Will Robinson…
Reviews can share when there is a fundamental problem with production or service in real-time. When I was working for a car wash conglomerate, we often learned when the minor equipment was not functioning properly from daily reviews or staffing issues at certain times of the day. A sprayer was only working on one angle, or issues you don’t find in daily maintenance, but they clearly impact our customer’s delight in washing their car. These reviews helped us fix the issue in real-time. Plus, when we responded to the customer on the review platform thanking them for the feedback and acknowledging we fixed the issue, our carwash volume did not take a negative hit.
Why didn’t we see that before we launched it?
I was recently reading reviews on Finish Jet Dry, a product I personally use. Found a great insight for their large-size package where the cap was not dispensing well. While cap molds are not cheap and I’m sure they have a universal neck, the bottle spilling with every application is negatively impacting the “value” the large-size offering. The product design team probably has several ideas now to improve this in real-time if they know about it. Then marketing has a great new value statement to share with customers!
Authenticity vs Paid Reviews
The number of reviews and the number of stars do impact AI search results, but human readers have now become experts at seeing through the paid reviews vs authentic buyer reviews. So much so that I’m amazed how my 22-year-old son immediately bullies me into NOT buying something when he informs me “their reviews are all fake Mom!” As a marketer that wants all the consumer feedback I can get, paid-for or organic, it is probably best to have paid reviews come to us as mini qualitative consumer immersions and only share reviews on our public profile from those that are authentic customers.
Unless of course it is a brand-new product and then we can authentically share – reviews were great from all 100 folks we sent free products to try before we made it available for purchase.
Firebird Branding 