Your company’s best marketeers aren’t your employees or your trending campaign, it’s your existing pool of customers. 

Think about it, when you decide to buy something, the first thing you do is speak to family and friends about their experience. The same goes when buying something online but instead you put your faith in the hundreds of different buyers who are in the end like you and with 86% of consumers reading online reviews before making an online purchase, delivering a superb customer experience is the name of the game. 

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Now that we’ve established their importance, let’s discuss the rationale behind it: 

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Building trust and credibility 

People are becoming more and more cautious especially when it comes to online payments, where there’s no one to blame if something went wrong, and as a business having that first line of defense from your loyal customers are beyond important since it acts as an unbiased insight. 

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They give you an open line with your customer 

If you put yourself in the customer’s shoes, you’ll know that when he’s writing a review whether positive or negative, he’s expecting a reply and being swift about poor reviews will help you rectify a wrong perception or experience. 

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Which brings us to 

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Negative Reviews 

Logically speaking, people are more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one and according to Small Business Trends one negative review has the potential to lose 22% of potential customers, three negative reviews will lose 59%, and four negative reviews could turn away 70% of your potential customers. 

But in all cases it’s crucial that you do not neglect the negative ones as according to a study by Harvard Business Review, business responding to negative reviews online result in better ratings overall 

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Be smart about it 

Ask at the right time: if you’re asking at the wrong time it might backfire, so how do you know if it’s the right time? 

- If he used a customized code to refer a friend - If he purchased from your website more than once - If they spent a lot of time on your website 

You might also want to send them emails asking for their feedback or even providing them with an incentive to leave a review, such as giving them coupons. 

Share your customers' reviews and be proud of it, social proof is a major drive for sales and building trust, besides if your customers see other customers sharing reviews, they’ll likely do the same.