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How Can Ecommerce Companies Turn Negative Comments to Their Own Advantage?

In ecommerce, building strong customer relations is essential. When people are doing online shopping, they aren’t going to buy just anything from a site without doing a little research first. That research has a singular goal: Can the company be trusted to satisfy the potential customer’s needs?

Companies who foster trust with their target audience will fare better in the long-run, benefiting from higher conversion rates with new visitors, and repeat business from their customer base. An integral aspect of building this trust is to show customer feedback on their site and social media channels. This social proof adds credibility and allows first-time shoppers to learn more about your products and services.

But what happens when you get negative reviews? Will this spell disaster for your business? It may surprise many to learn that it isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, negative feedback can be a great opportunity!

5 Major Benefits of Negative Reviews on Your Ecommerce Website

In some cases, a series of bad reviews can do significant damage to businesses. The power of social proof can even kill your business if enough people feel strongly enough about an issue. However, there is a silver lining. Negative comments actually have a way of working wonders for your bottom line. The trick is learning how to leverage negative comments to your advantage.

1. Gain Instant Credibility

While a product that only has glowing reviews may sound like the ideal item to buy, the reality is that people are distrusting of such encounters in online shopping. In these cases, 95% of people suspect the good reviews are fake.

People rely on the feedback from other users and customers before they make a purchase, with research suggesting that consumer reviews are trusted 12 times as much as the manufacturer description. Online shoppers value transparency and honesty. Therefore, it actually helps to have negative reviews, as it makes the good reviews seem more honest.

By choosing to display negative comments on your ecommerce store, your company will look more credible, fostering trust from prospective customers.

2. Increase Visit Time

When consumers are at the buying stage, they tend to more research into products, even going so far as to seek out bad reviews. Having bad reviews on your site will increase site traffic, as visitors spend longer on your pages reading bad reviews. This makes them more open to responding to CTAs as they move around the site. Over time, these micro-conversions add up, ultimately driving your overall conversions.

That’s right – bad reviews can lead to higher conversion rates!

3. Chance for Customer Engagement

When negative comments come in, it may be tempting to simply delete it. Instead of silently cursing the author and sliding the feedback under the carpet, or worse, going on a defensive counter, businesses should see this for what it really is: A golden opportunity to engage with their customers.

By taking the time to address the feedback and act to remedy the situation, acknowledging any faults by the company, you can turn the situation around. Customers who leave negative feedback may well be genuinely annoyed. However, by responding to their concerns, you can make them feel important.

Good customer service in the wake of a bad review has the power to breed loyalty and strengthen customer relations. It may even lead to future recommendations from the same customers who gave the bad review.

4. Learn from Your Mistakes

Ecommerce personalization is a powerful strategy in the digital age. Companies can glean valuable insights from reams of data on visitor behaviors and buying patterns. At the foundation of this strategy is the desire to cater your company offerings to the customer. Knowing how to deliver exactly what the people want is the key to successful personalized product recommendations. So, when customers take the time to tell you exactly where you’re going wrong, this is just as valuable as tracking their clicks and page visit time.

Understanding the shortcomings of your company, its products and services is essential for growth. A company can rarely discover these flaws all on their own. Customer feedback is crucial, especially the negative feedback. The companies who take negative comments on board and learn how to adjust and improve their services will benefit going forward, becoming better at serving their customers.

5. Bad Reviews Make a Buzz

It’s true, and everyone knows about it. Even bad publicity is good publicity. That assertion is far from an exact science, as companies would be recommended to find a balance of good and bad reviews if they want their ecommerce store to be both credible and profitable. However, with a bit of controversy or negative feedback, there is the potential to use the attention to actually create more brand awareness, which in turn leads to more sales.

A pizzeria in California worked this method fantastically, encouraging customers to leave them bad reviews in return for discounts on their next visit. While the online reviews have a landslide of 1-star ratings, business is booming as a result.

Negative Reviews Can Lead to Happier Customers

Online shopping presents a bewildering amount of options for consumers. From the numerous brands and companies offering similar products, it isn’t always easy to decipher which is the best. People are keen to get the best value for their money, and so user reviews count for a lot. While positive reviews that speak highly of the company and the products are desirable, they can work against the business.

Negative reviews are far from a disaster. They offer the company opportunities for growth, allowing them to engage customers and improve services. When site visitors can see the full unbridled truth about your company and its products, they know what to expect. Even if they have a negative experience, there is more opportunity for the company to work it to their advantage. In the end, handling bad reviews in the right way can help both the ecommerce business and consumers, building stronger customer relations that benefit both parties going forward.
 

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