Research: The Pros and Cons of Soliciting Customer Reviews
Many companies chase customers for online reviews by sending them solicitation emails. These emails aren’t always a good idea, according to new research. Solicitation will push your ratings from the extremes to the average. This could be good or bad. Email prompts disproportionally triggers moderate reviews as the passionate reviewers are more likely to leave reviews of their own accord. Thus, for those products with generally-high average ratings, reminders will lower the average rating. In contrast, products with generally-low average ratings might benefit from reminders. The exception is platform companies such as Amazon or Booking.com–they should always send out reminders as all that matters to them is volume. Also, the research found that companies that do solicit reviews don’t need to offer financial rewards–a reminder email is equally effective.
Online reviews have substantial value for businesses. Ninety-eight-percent of customers read reviews before they shop, making it one of the most important sources of information about products and services; for 2021, online reviews were predicted to affect $3.8 trillion revenues worldwide.
By Leif Brandes, David Godes, and Dina Mayzlin via Harvard Business Review