Last week we visited Internet World and surveyed many of the attendees to understand what people currently think about customer reviews and customer feedback. Ciao has been enabling customer reviews online for over 10 years, so we thought most people would understand that online feedback is vital for successful products.
We were surprised by how many brands still aren't making the most of customer feedback.
Many organisations are not engaging correctly with criticism of their brand online. 14% of those surveyed choose to either moderate or delete online criticism of their organisation or product, while 4% ignore it.
The importance of community engagement was highlighted as a key topic, with over half (52%) naming peer recommendation as the most important influence on their customer or end user.
Some more statistics we learned from the event:
• 69% believe that user generated
content (personal reviews, video footage etc) helps improve sales
• 71% believe input from customers on online forums is of benefit to their business
• 73% think peer recommendations are very important to their customer/end user
• 87% consider the rising popularity of consumer review sites a positive development for brands and retailers
• Three quarters respond to online criticism of their product or organisation, but only half do so in a public forum
We asked Tom Hyde, our E-Commerce teamleader at Ciao UK, to comment: “Finding the cheapest price is not enough for today’s consumer. They are looking out for much more than just the way they spend their money: it’s about where they spend it, on what products, the value their purchase offers and more. In this sense, comparison shopping has enormous responsibility in providing the best information and prices to a more eager and savvy user”.
“Innovative companies, especially retailers, need to have the courage to address their end user’s comments directly instead of adopting an instinctively defensive demeanour. This kind of online community offers a great opportunity to interact and engage directly with consumers and the things that matter most to them.
Tom highlights the way that HP is using customer feedback as a constructive model for new products: “On our German platform HP is currently running a pre-testing campaign where they directly get helpful user's opinions by a product test among a selected pool of members before market launch of HP’s latest printer. This is an excellent way marketers can and should use UGC rather than ignoring its potential. Consumers increasingly count on the opinions of other consumers as an ideal supplement to articles and tests among professional media. HP took a step forward in gaining direct contact with their target group and benefit from the multiplier's effect of these test results which will be then published as reviews”.
Have you seen any other evidence of brands ignoring customer feedback and then feeling the effects?
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