Online reviews play an essential role in building a brand’s online reputation. Of course, marketing and advertising can only do so much to attract your audience, but the consensus of customer testimony can make or break your business. While this is often the case for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies and their consumer base, the same can be said for business-to-business (B2B) enterprises that cater to other companies.
Studies show that around 92 percent of B2B buyers use online reviews to get information and recommendations from business to business reviews. Additionally, companies that share multiple B2B customer reviews for a product are more likely to increase their conversion rates up to 270 percent compared to businesses with similar products without any B2B reviews.
These factors mean that, for B2Bs, business to business reviews are still essential for a good B2B customer experience. So, for B2Bs that want to improve customer retention, improve customer experience, get more reviews and build an effective B2B marketing strategy, here’s what you should know about the importance of generating and managing B2B reviews and customer feedback.
Why Are Business to Business Reviews Important?
B2B reviews are valuable for attracting potential customers, similar to the way B2C reviews do. Some of the reasons reviews are essential for your B2B marketing strategy include:
- The B2B buying process isn’t that different from B2Cs. Like consumers, businesses are also looking for companies online. And just like consumers, having glowing reviews can drive potential leads to reach out to your business.
- B2B customers are making financially significant investments. The companies a business works with to supply their products and services can affect their own operations and their own goods and services they provide their customers. These businesses will want to work with companies that have delivered positive results to other businesses like theirs.
- Building trust from your customer base. Your website can paint a pretty picture of your company’s products and services, but if your reviews tell a different story, you’re likely to turn away potential B2B opportunities.
- Positive reviews greatly influence decisions. One market study found that 90 percent of positive reviews influenced their decision. From a B2B standpoint, this means B2B customer reviews can have an impact on your return on investment.
- Negative reviews provide the opportunity to improve B2B customer experience. Many businesses are hesitant to use reviews as a negative review can turn up. However, it’s best to look at it as an opportunity to improve customer retention by addressing the issue, which can improve customer experience. It also shows potential customers that your business listens to customer testimony and takes steps that can improve business reputation.
Adding B2B Reviews into the B2B Buying Experience
We recommend displaying at least five reviews on your website. A study from Northwestern University found that products or services with at least five reviews had a 270 percent chance of sales compared to similar listings without reviews.
If it’s negative reviews you’re worried about, here’s something interesting the study found: The likelihood of conversions is at its highest when your ratings range from 4.2 to 4.5 stars. Anything above that and the chance of sales drop.
This phenomenon in a B2B buying experience can be attributed to negative reviews establishing authenticity and credibility. Of course, most customers know they’re not going to find the perfect business. But how you respond to negative B2B customer reviews can speak volumes about how you care about B2B customer experience and listen to customer feedback, which can improve business reputation.
How To Get More Reviews from Your B2B Clients
While some of your customers may take the initiative to provide a review, it’s best to assume that not all of them will. One way to get more reviews is to ask for feedback at the end of their B2B buying process. Northwestern University found that 80 percent of reviews come from follow-up emails asking for feedback.
However, depending on the scope and how many B2B clients you receive, it may not be a feasible solution to ask every single business for a review. Some ways to generate more reviews include:
- Automated emails sent after the customer’s B2B buying experience ends
- In-app pop-up surveys
- A third-party platform where businesses can post reviews
A good tip to ensure clients leave a review is to make the process fast, easy and convenient. Given that this is part of the customer experience and that your customers are making the effort to provide feedback, it should be a quick and easy process, otherwise they’re likely to abandon long and time-consuming feedback forms.
Not all clients will actively send a positive or negative review unless you request for one. Through different methods of review generation, you can reach out to customers after they’ve received your products and services.
Once they’ve provided their reviews, you can use these to your advantage based on where they send their B2B reviews. If you’re using a third-party platform, these can be managed either on the platform itself or with review widgets that can be added to your website.
What You Shouldn’t Do for Reviews
As much as possible, you should avoid these tactics when generating reviews. These can leave a negative impression on your customers and make your reviews insincere for new customers.
- Offer incentives for reviews. Reviews should feel honest and organic. Dangling a carrot in front of your customers can result in half-hearted reviews because they made one just to receive the incentive.
- Ask for reviews like it’s a formality. Customers want to know that you’re taking reviews as areas for improvement. Asking for reviews as if it’s just part of your business process can come across as disingenuous, demotivating them into leaving positive reviews.
- Avoid asking customers to post reviews everywhere. You might have a lot of profiles on review platforms, but you shouldn’t burden customers with the responsibility of posting their reviews everywhere.
- Ignore the negative reviews. Only acknowledging the positive reviews can give customers the impression that you’re not open to constructive criticism and are only responding to positive comments. This means new customers are likely to experience similar negative experiences because you’re not acknowledging and improving from them.
Why Your Business Needs Rize Reviews’ Review Management Services
Reviews play a crucial role in all buyers’ journeys, including the B2B buying process. As a business, you’ll want to take advantage of the benefits that reviews can provide your business by adding them to your B2B marketing strategy. With Rize Reviews, you’ll have reliable B2B review management services that can help your monitor and respond to both positive and negative reviews.
Dealing with reviews can be a time-consuming process. It also needs to be done right, especially when handling negative reviews and turning them into opportunities to improve brand trust. With our services, you can reach out to your B2B clients for feedback and use it for your own marketing strategy to attract new leads.
Boost Your B2B Business’s Reputation With Rize Reviews
B2B reviews are here to stay. If your business hasn’t taken advantage of reviews from your business clients, now is a good time to add B2B review management services to your digital marketing strategy. Adding this can influence leads to reach out to your brand, improve customer relations, and improve your online reputation as a business that listens to feedback.
At Rize Reviews, we can help you stay on top of your online reputation with our B2B review management services. Let our team handle around-the-clock monitoring across various review platforms and harness the benefits of generating, responding and sharing reviews to gain those valuable leads.
Contact Rize Reviews today to schedule your free demo of our services.
Leave a Reply