These infographics show how critical online reviews are to prospects

Are you tapped into this field of PR?

Users love online reviews

Online reviews have become a crucial part of the shopping experience for everything from toaster ovens to cruises to professional accounting services. Where once you might ask a friend or consult a guidebook, now you can have the entire customer base telling you whether a product or service is amazing or meh.

For PR pros, this poses both opportunity and risk.

 

 

By encouraging and even incentivizing customers to leave honest reviews, you add to the social proof prospects will find when doing their initial information gathering. By responding to good and bad reviews, you have a chance to showcase customer service skills and potentially retain even unhappy customers.

These infographics show just how powerful reviews have become. If you haven’t yet started formulating a strategy for getting and responding to reviews, it’s time to get started.

An inforgraphic on online reviews

Via WebsiteBuilderExpert and Digital Information World

 

The second infographic deals with the choice to book hotels, but the same principles follow through to other kinds of purchases. The old-fashioned star ratings don’t give you a personal, qualitative look at what a hotel stay experience will be like, but a review from a real human does.

Infographic on online hotel reviews

Via Statista.

Don’t overlook this area of PR.

Allison Carter is executive editor of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Topics: PR

COMMENT

One Response to “These infographics show how critical online reviews are to prospects”

    Ronald N Levy says:

    PR wisdom is to reply to bad reviews in the name of the PUBLIC, that the public deserves and loves what you are doing well for them.

    The congressman who lied about his background should say not that HE deserves to serve but that his VOTERS deserve to have what he stands for–lower taxes, better schools, more street safety and more fairness to
    causes his voters care about.

    “We deserve FAIRNESS” a CEO may wail like an underdog when attacked but savvy PR experts know that a boss looks like an overdog. He should say that the PUBLIC deserves fairness and that what the activists want would be UNfair to the public in three ways he should enumerate. When you’re up against activists who want your scalp, always look for the peril of the altrnateive.

    CEOs who wail to the media are like a drunk on the bus talking about an allegedly unreasonable wife or neighbor. Look how much more attention goes to a complainer if his beef is about consumer prices or real estate taxes that hit everyone. You’re on target if online you talk about how deserving the PUBLIC is, not just a company.

    Critical online reviews should elicit online replies that are positive, prompt
    and PUBLIC-oriented. Is a political liar deserving? NO, but if you accept pay for doing PR, judge whether you should guide the client into PR that’s more likely to succeed. Does a congressman who lied deserve skilled PR? Probably not but don’t say no with certainty unless you know the honesty level of the candidate who was defeated.

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