A study by Rubicon Consulting has been released confirming that word of mouth and online reviews have become two of the factors with the most impact on consumer purchasing decisions. The Internet has also become an important source of customer support.
Online reviews are now checked by millions of shoppers daily to aid them in deciding which products will serve them best. News sites and online financial sites get some of the highest usage scores, but social communities like MySpace and Facebook are close behind. In the retail world, nearly all sites now offer reviews, with Amazon being one of the most widely used to research products and customer satisfaction.
The survey told us a few things we already knew and a revealed a few surprises:
The Web edges out calling the manufacturer or dealer for information on a product, coming in #2 as a resource for customer support information right behind the user manual.
The websites Americans consider the most valuable are Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook – in that order.
Although Twitter and SecondLife are widely publicized, they only reach an estimated 2-4% of internet users.
People under the age of 23 are responsible for nearly half of all the content and comments posted in the online world.
Consumers will continue to turn to the web more and more for all of their needs, which is why it is so important for any company to have an online presence whether the bulk of their business is online or not.
Online reputations can be made or broken on a single bad review, and business owners should always be aware of what is being said about them online. In some cases, hiring an outside firm to handle PR online may be a viable option, as any bad press could be picked up and rapidly spread, destroying trust for your brand and causing you major loss of revenue.
Only a small percentage of internet users may actually contribute heavily to social sites – but millions more read the information submitted there and rely heavily on that information when making purchasing decision. Ensuring that honest, accurate, favorable reviews are being posted, and providing the correct information in order to counteract any negative or false allegations is paramount.
Tags: Amazon, customer service, reviews