The state of online reviews
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- The impact of COVID-19 on customer reviews
- Which industries are getting the most positive and negative reviews
- What channels businesses are using to send review requests
- Where customers are writing reviews
- Which sites are getting the most reviews by industry
- ...and much more!
Interested? Here’s a Sneak Peek
Introduction
Are online reviews of your business important? Yes. Why? Because 95% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase.
As a marketer, you’re likely already familiar with the incredible impact these online reviews can have on your business and on their ability to bring in new customers. However, the world has entered into uncharted territory as consumer behavior rapidly evolved due to the pandemic. Which begs the question: how have online reviews been impacted?
With this in mind, we’ve analyzed our pool of customer data made up of 60,000+ businesses of all sizes to identify how review management has changed, and what that means going forward. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s dive right in.
Key findings !
• 67% of all customer reviews are written on Google
• 45% of review requests were sent through text messaging in 2020
• Retail businesses more review requests than any other industry in 2020
• In 2020, the average open rate for review request emails was 69%
• The conversion rate of emailed review requests is 21%, and the SMS conversion rate is 30%
• On average, businesses have just over 2 review sites configured within their review requests
• Only 28% of reviews are responded to by businesses, across all industries
How did the pandemic impact review requests?
At the onset of the pandemic, thousands of businesses were forced to temporarily close. This, of course, meant that review requests were halted for a period of time, which resulted in lower review request volumes for 2020 in comparison to 2019.
In 2020, an average business location sent out 1.2% fewer review request emails and 4.6% fewer requests via SMS per business location than they did in 2019.
Even though businesses were closed for some months in 2020 across most industries, the overall review request numbers only decreased slightly. This reflects that once businesses reopened, they generally picked right back up where they’d left off, which showcases the value of online reviews for businesses - especially as society has been spending more time online than ever...
Download this guide for more invaluable insights
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