Online reviews

Almost 90% of consumers trust online reviews similarly to personal recommendations from their family and friends. The fact proves that taking care of a positive online image has a crucial role not only in online reputation management (ORM) but also in sales in general.

Online reputation management

The fact is that if a company that doesn't exist online, is simply invisible to a modern customer. More and more often it applies to local business as well, that need to attract a broad spectrum of clients. Of course, apart from the online appearance, it is important what kind of reviews can be found on various review sites.

Online reputation management statistics for 2020

Online review statistics

• 85% of clients trust online reviews similarly to personal recommendations and that is why we should care about every tiny review appearing online
• 75% of consumers trust a company more if it has a positive opinion on review sites, which we should monitor every day
• 60% of users won't use a product or service after reading negative reviews, simply because they don't trust them and don't want to experience anything bad
• the last 7 reviews matter most – this is the average checked by consumers before purchase, which means that not always the average rating matters, but the last comments are read thoroughly as well
• almost 50% of consumers will trust a company only if it has at least 4-star rating (out of 5), which means that online review management is a constant, everyday work to keep the score.

Online reputation management statistics

• almost all consumers (97%) search online for information on local businesses, which proves the importance of ORM
• consumers are more willing to tell about poor service or product than about a positive experience (15 vs 11)
• when SEO is considered, the minority od Internet users (5%) go to the second Google search results page
• consumers look for best offers, nearly 90% of them compare prices before making a decision (comparative shopping)
• over 50 percent of consumers search for products in social media, which proves how crucial it is to run that channels
• over 75% of global search traffic happens via Google (Bing is number two), so if you operate in a country other than Asian, Google and Google My Business is the first place you should consider when building your reputation consciously.

To sum up, all the statistics shown prove that consumers read online reviews, use search engines looking for the best product or service, and believe online reviews that are left on sites such as Yelp, Google, or Facebook. Consumer trust can be built by the online presence – and this is the technique we always recommend businesses to apply.