Williams Commerce take a look at the features offered by two of the top independent review platforms available on the market along with Google certified shops.
Knowing who we can trust online is a key part of any buying journey. Businesses are constantly looking at ways to inspire customer confidence and one way to achieve this is through online reviews.
When arriving on a website, potential customers are unconsciously looking for a few conventional usability practises along with trust signals to reassure themselves this is a credible, professional website that they can trust. Some stats suggest up to 70% of online customers will be influenced by opinions of others.
Trust signals include physical addresses and phone numbers displayed clearly, secure shopping logo and awards and customer reviews. One credible way to earn a shopper’s trust is to use a reputable independent third party review system, who collects reviews on a retailer’s behalf and then displays them on a dashboard. These reviews can be integrated visually on the website main pages and on the product page.
These independent reviews can make powerful reading for prospective customers and will give insights into the way the business handles problems and deals with situations. A true measure of a business’s customer service is how they approach a negative situation. So even if there are some negative reviews, a retailer providing a thoughtful response together with a proposed solution can inspire confidence for potential buyers. Smart businesses will welcome negative reviews as the most useful, because they give insights into what a shopper wants and can challenge the business status quo.
We took a look at some of the players in the market that many of our own clients use such as Trust Pilot and Feefo and we also took a look at the totally free Google Certified Shops and discovered a few insights around what each have to offer.
Trust Pilot
Here’s what it says on Trust Pilot’s home page: “Your Customers are talking. Are you Listening? Consumers everywhere are embracing reviews and smart businesses are quickly following suit. It’s a fact, reviews help you make your customers happy and win sales. Are you ready to find out what makes your customers tick, improve your service and build lasting relationships?”
Here’s a round-up of what Trust Pilot is offering;
– Around 12 million company reviews worldwide.
– Anyone can sign up to be a reviewer by using their email or Facebook account to identify them on the Trustpilot platform.
– The site’s paid options allow companies to unlock various benefits such as branding their own company profile page and employ consumer-generated advertising, as well as using the automatic feedback service, widgets and badges on their website or the application programming interface for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other enterprise integrations.
– Trustpilot has a license agreement with Google allowing Trustpilot reviews to be listed as Google Seller Ratings or Google Stars.
– The free version available may be of interest to some smaller merchants and is easily accessible.
– Data sent by hidden BCC (easy set up for merchants) and there are no set up costs.
– Open platform, your reviews never get deleted.
– Claims to be the largest and fastest growing consumer review platform in Europe.
– They also get fake reviews, however out of 500,000 reviews each month the business mention only less than 1% are fake.
Feefo
“Feefo is an easy to use platform for generating genuine feedback.”
Feefo is a ratings and reviews service that invites customers to leave feedback and this can then be integrated into a retailer’s website. Feefo markets itself as a business intelligence tool and just like the other sites of the same type it can be used as a benchmark of performance as it requests feedback from genuine users resulting in improved service ratings.
What Feefo offers;
– Google Seller Ratings via stars for AdWords campaigns.
– Can collect Service & Product reviews for any merchant.
– Seller Rating and Product Listing Ad partnership with Google.
– Google licensed content partner.
– Compatible with many e-commerce platforms.
– High response rate.
– Retailer Feefo page for anyone to view.
– Go to great lengths to avoid fake reviews. Only genuine customers with instant “match back to actual order”.
– Feefo has a strong privacy policy as you would expect.
– Third party brand on website increase consumers trust in merchants and drive conversion.
– Offers a free trial and packages based on volume of emails.
– Feefo version 2 is being rolled out and is optimised for SEO.
– In depth reporting tools by product, region and department.
Google Certified Shops
Google Certified Shops aims to help shoppers shop online with confidence, knowing that they will receive reliable service, delivery and free purchase protection from Google Certified Shops. The ‘free’ service gives clients a certified shops badge with the aim to inspire confidence in new shoppers.
Here is what we know so far:
– You have to pass Google a huge amount of data (name of goods, prices, total shipments, total delivery times, discounts, email addresses and details of returns).
– The benefit for shoppers is they have the option to select free purchase protection from Google. In the rare event there is a problem, a shopper can request help from Google and Google will work with both retailer and shopper to resolve the issue and as part of this, Google offers up to £1000 lifetime protection for eligible purchases.
– Enrich AdWords ads with Google Certified Shop status with review extensions, which are displayed on a separate line in an AdWords ad and can help increase click through scores.
– Certified shops can help you qualify for seller ratings in AdWords
– AdWords ads can stand out with featuring Google Certified Shopping Badge.
– Will deliver Seller Ratings for free if you qualify as a Certified Shop.
– Consumers can track their delivery through their Google account
– Certified Shop logo will also appear in Google Shopping
– The process to gain access includes;Creating a Google Certified Shops account – 30 minutes
– Technical integration – a few days and it involves adding two pieces of code to your website and specifying where the badge will appear
– A Google monitoring period lasting for 30-90 days after which Google will advise on if you have qualified to become a Google certified shop.
– Big brands like GHD, River Island, Schuh and Online Golf are participating in the Google Certified Shops program.
From what we understand the Google Certified Shop badge will be awarded to those online stores that can demonstrate reliable service and on time deliveries.
If you’re interested in integrating reviews from a third party like Feefo or Trust Pilot with your Magento website, please give Williams Commerce a call to discuss the options for your business.
Call our marketing team on 116 326 1116 or email [email protected].
