Why Are Product Reviews Important to Seller and Buyers?
Long ago when there was no internet, there was no chance to communicate through anything but a phone or mail. People would provide reviews of products through word of mouth. The older companies like Sears, Kmart and others grew leaps and bounds, because they cornered the market through word of mouth, radio and TV. If you needed to buy something you would go to a neighbor, friend, member of the family or stop someone on the street to ask them how they liked the item they were using.
The person would give their idea of how the product worked and whether the brand was worth pursuing. Craftsman tools were a perfect example of this kind of communication. Back in 70's if you weren't using Craftsman tools, you weren't using the right brand. It all had to do with word of mouth, TV, radio and such.
The internet eliminated all verbal social proof and put it in a place where millions of people could easily find the performance of a brand or product with just a few clicks of a mouse. Now you may think that this is a harmful thing to a seller.
A bad review could easily harm a business and drive sales down, but in truth it can help a business. Reviews give immediate feedback on how a product is doing and where it can be improved. A company, who is engaged in their business and customers, will take that feedback and make changes to improve the customer experience.
They will also take responsibility for the limitation or errors and communicate to their customer base what they plan to do to fix the problem. In most situations that's all a customer wants to hear to remain a loyal customer.
If you remember a ways back Foster Farms had a large quality problem with their chicken. People were getting sick. Yet, rather than hiding from the fact that something was wrong with their quality controls, they too control, addressed their customers through radio and other media and assured the community that they would do what was needed to ensure every piece of chicken coming out of their company was as fresh and safe as possible. They avoided major issues by listen to their customer and addressing the problem.
Now for customers, product reviews are like gold. When a person finds a product they would like to buy and have the ability to review how others are using it, they are more likely to buy this product than a product that has zero customer reviews.
Long ago when there was no internet, there was no chance to communicate through anything but a phone or mail. People would provide reviews of products through word of mouth. The older companies like Sears, Kmart and others grew leaps and bounds, because they cornered the market through word of mouth, radio and TV. If you needed to buy something you would go to a neighbor, friend, member of the family or stop someone on the street to ask them how they liked the item they were using.
The person would give their idea of how the product worked and whether the brand was worth pursuing. Craftsman tools were a perfect example of this kind of communication. Back in 70's if you weren't using Craftsman tools, you weren't using the right brand. It all had to do with word of mouth, TV, radio and such.
The internet eliminated all verbal social proof and put it in a place where millions of people could easily find the performance of a brand or product with just a few clicks of a mouse. Now you may think that this is a harmful thing to a seller.
A bad review could easily harm a business and drive sales down, but in truth it can help a business. Reviews give immediate feedback on how a product is doing and where it can be improved. A company, who is engaged in their business and customers, will take that feedback and make changes to improve the customer experience.
They will also take responsibility for the limitation or errors and communicate to their customer base what they plan to do to fix the problem. In most situations that's all a customer wants to hear to remain a loyal customer.
If you remember a ways back Foster Farms had a large quality problem with their chicken. People were getting sick. Yet, rather than hiding from the fact that something was wrong with their quality controls, they too control, addressed their customers through radio and other media and assured the community that they would do what was needed to ensure every piece of chicken coming out of their company was as fresh and safe as possible. They avoided major issues by listen to their customer and addressing the problem.
Now for customers, product reviews are like gold. When a person finds a product they would like to buy and have the ability to review how others are using it, they are more likely to buy this product than a product that has zero customer reviews.