ONLINE REVIEWS CAN INCREASE THE NUMBER OF LEADS THAT YOU CAN TURN – OR CONVERT – INTO PAYING CUSTOMERS.
Conversion rates are key to business success; only by increasing them can your payment processing and merchant services business thrive.
The conversion rate is the number of people who take a desired action divided by the number of people requested to take that action. So, if you get five new customers – five people who signed on the dotted line – out of 100 leads, that’s a conversion rate of 5%.
Your business can define “conversion” any way that it wishes. A sale or business agreement may be the bottom-line conversion, but you could also
designate filling out a web form as a conversion, for example. For payment processors, conversions might include signing up for ongoing services, purchasing or leasing related equipment, or any other behavior that is important to your business.
Here’s the good news: you have a lot of options when it comes to improving conversion rates over time. One of the most effective is leveraging online reviews.
Because online reviews play an incredibly weighty role in the conversion process – almost all prospective customers check reviews before
committing to a purchase – optimizing your review portfolio can have a disproportionately heavy impact on maximizing conversions.
And increasing conversions even just a little can yield huge rewards.
Companies in the financial services sector tend to see average conversion rates around 5%. By optimizing conversion rates through online reviews and other tactics, your business can potentially increase its conversions dramatically. Top-performing companies in financial services can achieve conversion rates near 25%.1
But how? Why are reviews so effective in optimizing conversion rates, and what exactly can your business do with reviews to increase conversions?
Those are the questions this paper will address.
In This Paper...
1: Why do reviews affect conversions?
2: How do reviews affect conversions?
3: What can you do to optimize reviews to maximize conversions?
Why do reviews affect conversion rates?
What is it about reviews that makes them such a pivotal piece of the conversion question?
Answer: it’s all about trust factors.
Making a purchase or entering into a new service agreement is a risky move for any customer, and it’s especially risky in the financial services sector.
As a credit card processor or vendor, you are asking your customers to commit a significant amount of money to you, often on an ongoing basis. And this is an intensely competitive industry with more than its fair share of companies that, to be frank, are not trustworthy. In fact, many of your customers may have already been burned in previous vendor relationships that did not live up to their promises or meet their customers’ expectations.
So, in closing the deal – and landing that coveted conversion – your business needs to cultivate the customer’s trust. This is simply a key element in the conversion process.
This is where reviews come in. People tend to trust “user- generated content” (UGC) – or content produced by your customers rather than by your own organization – more than corporate content. Specifically, consumers trust user generated reviews 12 times more than corporate service or product descriptions.2 In part, that’s because UGC like user reviews often provides a perspective and details about the service or transaction that is pivotal to making a buying decision. In other words, as Harvard Business School puts it, reviews “fill in the gaps by providing a tremendous amount of information on which to base decisions.”3
Even more specifically, glowing reviews send positive signals to potential buyers that your business is the real deal.
These types of reviews indicate that your business has generated successful outcomes your previous and existing customers. The prospective customer doesn’t
have to risk their money on unproven promises because your other customers testify on your behalf through their reviews. Thus, reviews serve as “social proof” that new customers can trust your organization to deliver successful outcomes because they prove you’ve already done so.
That is incredibly powerful in convincing people to actually making a purchase decision. And that’s why reviews are one of the most impactful trust factors (though there are many others – see sidebar above) that companies can leverage to increase their conversions.
REVIEWS SERVE AS “SOCIAL PROOF” THAT NEW CUSTOMERS CAN TRUST YOUR ORGANIZATION TO DELIVER SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES BECAUSE THEY PROVE YOU’VE ALREADY DONE SO.
Trust Factors
- User reviews
- Testimonials
- Case studies
- Client lists
- Third-party badges
- Milestones
- Independent certifications
- Awards
- Reputable payment options
- Industry association logos
- Partnerships
- Social media references
How do reviews affect conversion rates?
- The ideal review rating
Just having reviews is beneficial. According to customer engagement firm Reevoo, reviews in general produce an 18% increase in sales. Potential customers who interact with reviews are simply much more likely to actually make a purchase.
That said, the specific ratings your business receives from its customers will have a tremendous impact on conversions.
The ideal aggregate review rating falls between 4.0 and 4.7 on a 5-point scale.4 To be clear, that’s the average rating across all reviews. If multiple reviewers score your business under 4 stars, prospective customers will worry about the potential relationship and look for other providers with higher ratings. But if your rating exceeds 4.7, skeptical customers will doubt the authenticity of the reviews; they’ll worry that the score is “too good to be true.”
So, unless your current review rating falls exactly at 4.7, you will want to try to improve it. For every 0.1-star rating increase, businesses see an average increase of 25% in conversions. Even increasing just from 4.6 to 4.7 stars can noticeably improve your conversion rate. The increase can be even more dramatic at lower ratings, however.
According to research, the difference between 3.5 and 3.7 stars is an astounding 120% lift in conversions.5 - The visibility of the reviews
This item is foundational: if prospective customers never see your reviews, they’ll have no impact at all.
Review sites are like mini-Googles, and business listings can appear higher or lower on review pages. If your business appears too low on the list – due to too few reviews, too low a score, or the page may simply be intensely competitive – your first priority should be boosting visibility. Increase the number of reviews by actively requesting them from existing and previous customers. Then, try to get the review rating as high as possible. If customers have any issues, resolve them so that they’ll be likely to rate your firm higher.
In the meantime, many review sites also offer the ability to promote your business listing – much like Google offers paid search listings – to get your business front-and- center. - The recency of the reviews
Buyers begin to distrust the applicability of reviews as they age. Specifically, 85% of consumers say that online reviews older than three months are no longer relevant to them.6 In fact, 48% of consumers only pay attention to recent reviews, according to local SEO specialists at BrightLocal. The good news: even just a few recent reviews can make an impact. Businesses with more than 9 reviews posted within the last 90 days earn 52% more than average. - The number of reviews
The number of reviews makes a difference as well. Having more reviews produces a stronger effect on conversion rates. In general, most organizations should aim to generate as many reviews as they can, but it’s worth noting that as the number of reviews increase, businesses can pass certain thresholds that yield improved outcomes.
- The number of review sites
Potential business buyers will typically look at more than one review site before making a decision (see chart below).13 This means your review management process will need to incorporate multiple review sites. That should include the big Number of review sites considered before making a buying decision Source: BrightLocal ones, like Google and Facebook, but you’ll also want to focus on niche- specific sites. Also make sure that within individual review sites, that your business listing shows up for every applicable category, e.g. “best credit card processing companies”, “best mobile credit card processing services”, “best equipment leasing companies”, and “best electronic check processing services” if all categories apply to your offerings.
What can you do to optimize your reviews and boost conversion rate?
- Deliver outstanding service that effortlessly invites glowing reviews.
- Proactively request reviews, especially from your best and most satisfied customers.
- If you don’t know if the customer is satisfied, ask for feedback before asking for a review.
- Make it easy for the recipient to take immediate action by including links and all necessary info.
- Personalize the request so that it doesn’t come across as an automated, generic ask
- Make the request mobile-friendly so customers can do everything from a mobile device.
- Respond to reviews quickly, especially negative reviews – do not let them fester.
- If the customer leaves critical comments, respond but take the conversation offline to resolve.
- Never get defensive; always try to understand the reviewer’s perspective.
- Don’t falsify or pay for reviews; advertising regulations in the financial sectors are stringent.
- Monitor all applicable review sites, including third-party, niche-specific review sites.
- Ask for help. From review curation services to merchant-friendly options on review sites, you don’t have to go it alone when managing and optimizing reviews.
References
1 https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/03/17/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate
2 https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Role-of-Customer-Product-Reviews/1008019
3 https://cxl.com/blog/user-generated-reviews/
4 http://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/online-reviews/
5 https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/10/23/roi-of-improving-online-reviews-0-1-stars-can-boost-conversion-25/
6 https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/
7 https://blog.3dcart.com/blog/product-reviews-increase-sales
8 https://www.revlocal.com/blog/reviews/how-many-reviews-does-your-business-actually-need-
9 https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
10 http://www.economist.com/node/13174365 via https://www.veeqo.com/us/blog/turn-your-customer-reviews- into-ecommerce-sales
11 https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/
12 https://econsultancy.com/ecommerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them-and-how-to-use-them/
13https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
