Whether good or bad, online reviews are a critical factor in the consumer’s path to purchase, across various industries. This presentation reviews the importance of online reviews, who writes them and why, the nature of them etc.Enjoy reading!

1. Online Reviews and Reputation
Management
Hamutal Schieber | March, 2015

2. Introduction
• Whether good or bad, online reviews are a critical factor in the consumer’s path to purchase,
across various industries.
• In this presentation, we shall review:
– Why do online reviews matter?
– Who writes online reviews, and why?
– What is the nature of those reviews?
– What are the common / innovative forms of reviews?
– How should companies cope with the rise of reviews?

3. Table of Contents
Online Review Statistics
Trends and Innovations
Company Strategies

4. Table of Contents
Online Review Statistics
Trends and Innovations
Company Strategies

5. Why do Online Reviews Matter?
• A recent YouGov survey found that 87% of US adults who read online reviews, say that
the overall ratings of products / services are very important or somewhat important to
them, when deciding whether to purchase a product or a service.
Marketing Charts, Data
by YouGov, Dec. 2014

6. Why Do Consumers Read Reviews?
• According to YouGov, the main reasons given for
accessing reviews are:
– to ensure the product or service is of good
quality (79%)
– that the product works (61%)
– to make sure they don't get ripped off (53%)
The Star rating is almost as important as the
written content (87% say star rating is important,
compared to 90% for written content).
Source: YouGov, Base: American adults who read online reviews

7. Why Do Consumers Write Reviews?
• Motivations to post online reviews,
are:
– help others make better
purchasing decisions (62%)
– it is polite to leave feedback
(35%)
– want to share positive
experiences (27%)
– to help good vendors get
business (25%)
• Only 12% are trying to expose
poor vendors.
YouGov 2014

8. Do Consumers TRUST Reviews?
• According to 2014 YouGov survey, most
consumers find reviews trustworthy, but
only 13% believe they are "very
trustworthy" and a full 90% believe that
some people review products and services
without trying them.
• Indeed, the YouGov survey found that
21% of consumers have written
reviews for products /services they had
never actually tried.
• A similar proportion (91%) believe
companies write their own positive reviews
and 89% think businesses write negative
reviews about their competitors.

9. Brand Reviews Across Industries
• The importance of reviews and advocacy is
evident in every industry.
• On a BCG survey, it was found that across
all the industries studied, at least 47
percent of consumers cared enough about
a brand either to recommend or to criticize
it.

10. Brand Reviews Across Industries
• Online reviews are especially important for
the hotel / travel industry, where over 80%
of consumers find user reviews important
(Olery).
• A 2013 PhoCusWright poll, conducted on
behalf of TripAdvisor, found that more than
half of consumers do not make a booking
decision without reading reviews from
others (source: Skyft, 2015)
• If prices are the same, users are 3.9 times
more likely to choose a hotel with higher
review scores – and 76% of customers are
willing to pay more for a hotel with higher
review scores
TripAdvisor, Jan, 2015

11. Brand Reviews Across Industries
• Generally, American reviewers tend to write
positive (74%) or neutral (32%) reviews. 22%
write bad reviews as well (source: YouGov
2014)
Neutral, 32%
Positive,
74%
Bad, 22%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
AxisTitle
• According to a BCG survey, positive
advocacy tends to be higher in industries
whose products or services evoke
consumers’ greater emotional involvement,
such as smartphones, or in aspirational
categories such as luxury cars.
• In contrast, negative advocacy tends to be
much higher in service businesses, such as
retail banking and mobile
telecommunications: the reason is that any
consumer facing interaction might lead to a
negative experience, whereas a good
product will usually remain satisfying.

12. Brand Reviews – Local Businesses
• A BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2014, conducted in North America, found that:
– 88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business
– 72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
– 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
– 72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review
Reliability (27%), expertise (21%) & professionalism (18%) are the most important
reputation traits for a local business.

13. The Importance of Your Overall Rating
• According to the BrightLocal 2014 survey, the biggest
differential for North American consumers is between 2
Stars & 3 Stars, with 72% of consumers willing to
consider a local business with a 3 star rating vs. 27%
who would look at a local business with a 2 star rating.
• The jump from 3 star to 4 star is also sizable, with 20%
more consumers willing to look at a 4 star business vs
3 star.
Source: BrightLocal

14. Table of Contents
Online Review Statistics
Trends and Innovations
Company Strategies

15. Trend Map
• From industry-specific aggregators, to all-industries aggregators
• Scanning products to instantly review ratingsConvenience
• Integrating the user’s social network to view friends’ recommendations
• Reviews “from people like you” based on previous searches and ratingsPersonalization
• Third-party reviews are integrated into company sites
• Regulators worldwide ban fake reviews and anti-competitive reviews
• Everything is reviewable – reviews enter food & beverage
Trust
• Instant feedback to allow for real-time improvement
• Sellers begin to rate customers
• Reputation management through conversation
Interaction
• Review aggregators, mobile apps, and YouTube channels are all used to
access reviews
• Media integration – photos, videos, badges
Multi Channel / Format

16. Convenience | Ultra-Aggregation
• Comparaboo collects data from customer reviews, expert
consumer blogs, sales data and social media signals and
compiles the information into a shopper-friendly display. It
sorts the results into a “Top 10” list with a 1-10 value rating,
indicating the overall score of the product based on reviews,
popular trends, average price, and the brand’s reputation. It
shows which website offers the best price with a one-click
link that goes straight to the respective site’s purchase page.
• The Consumr app offers:
– Reviews from everywhere in one place
– Reviews from people “like you” and your Facebook friends
– Scanning barcodes to instantly see ratings
Aggregators - sites which gather reviews on various businesses and/or industries

17. Convenience | Meta-Reviews
• Innovative tools offer companies to monitor reviews
from all over the web, while providing meta-data which
analyzes authentic reviews, for the end-user.
• According to TrustYou, “Meta-Reviews are a trusted
summary of relevant reviews worldwide, showing the
most talked about and most relevant attributes of a
particular hotel, along with some special, important-to-
know ‘nuggets’ of information that are unique to the
particular hotel.”
TrustYou offers a structured review data API that
allows travelers to make “the best possible informed
decisions based on a summary of all verified
reviews across the web”.

18. Convenience | Search Integration
• Shoppers usually use reviews as part of their shopping journey, as they search for information which
would help them decide whether or not to purchase a certain product or service.
• As such, it is no surprise that search engines strive to integrate reviews through the search engine, to
appeal to consumers through a more convenient, time-saving offer.
Yahoo, Google feature Yelp reviews of local merchants

19. Personalization
In 2012, TripAdvisor launched an app for
Facebook, a way for hotel owners to pad
their Facebook Pages with reviews,
ratings, photos, and other content.
• Amazon offers a “Shop With the Help of Your
Friends” program. Users connect their
Amazon account with their Facebook account
to join. This unites the power of online reviews
with friends’ WOM influence, and provides a
more compelling tool for shoppers.

20. Trust | Everything is Reviewable
• Grocery retailers and hypermarkets, are also incorporating online reviews, in order to drive
sales and reduce online shopping barriers.
.target.com
www.nestle-marktplatz.de

21. Interaction | Real-Time Feedback
• Mobile tools provide a way to post a review immediately upon receiving the service.
Expedia, a prominent hotel reservation and review aggregation
site, encourages visitors to review the hotels with which they
had stayed. After guests arrive at a hotel they receive an email
or app notification asking them three questions: “How was your
check in?;” “How is your room?” and “Are you happy with the
location?”. The instant feedback tool gives hoteliers an
opportunity to correct the service or make up for it, and
thus prevent a potential negative review.

22. Multi-Channel / Format
• Online reviews take many forms, and marketers should try and
monitor those most important to their category, whether social
platforms, YouTube or various aggregators.

23. Multi-Channel / Format
• Review aggregators have evolved over the years:
– All sites offer star / rating systems, along with a written review
– Many sites offer badges such as ““recommended on” and “rated on”, as well as photo
uploading options
– Many sites also offer users to upload video reviews.
Rating
systems
Badges
Photo &
Video
• In 2014, review
aggregator Yelp updated
its iPhone app, which
hosts 67.9 million unique
visitors per month to its
mobile site and its apps,
to enable users to add 3-
12 second videos to their
reviews.

24. Table of Contents
Online Review Statistics
Trends and Innovations
Company Strategies

25. Reputation Management Strategy
• Companies can’t control the conversation or block it. They
can either ignore, fight, or – encourage the conversation.
• Fighting consumers’ feedback has never proved to be a
good idea. Ignoring bad reviews could work in some
cases. But the real winners are the brands that have
embraced the reality of online reviews, and which
encourage the consumers to leave a feedback on their
own site/ app or through an aggregator.
• This gives brands the opportunity to receive authentic
feedback, and monitor the conversation more closely.
• This restaurant turned a negative Yelp
review into a point of difference… (source:
The Wire)

26. Reputation Management Strategy
Establish social media presence, so
your customers can talk to YOU
directly
Monitor your reputation through
alerts, or through tools such as
Trackur, Tweetbeep, BrandsEye,
TrustYou, etc.
Respond to feedback and don’t try to
fight it. Attempts to remove a
conversation, usually result in extra
publicity.
• JCPenney's launched a virtual apology tour on Facebook,
YouTube (watch below) and Twitter to get the message out to
customers— "It's no secret. We've made some changes. Some
you've liked and others you didn't. We've heard you—and
we're listening. Let us know what you think."
• The brand launched a dedicated hashtag on
Twitter: #jcpListens.

27. Leveraging Online Reviews
• Today, companies acknowledge that shoppers share and read online reviews, and instead of
viewing that fact as a threat – they try and turn it into an opportunity, by:
– Hosting the reviews in their own websites
– Encouraging the user to a review aggregator for reading / writing a review
– Using positive reviews in their marketing communications
It is important to view reviews as an opportunity: it enables marketers to get consumer
feedback, to improve, and to encourage word of mouth. Let’s not forget that over 90% of brand
conversations take place in the actual world – where marketers cannot participate - and not
online.

28. Embracing Reviews
• Domino’s Pizza: the “Pizza Tracker” gets a Yelp
button, to leave an instant feedback which will be
featured on Yelp
• Marriott displays “Marriott Verified
Reviews”, ratings and reviews from
confirmed “stayed and paid” guests for
a hotel as long as there are a minimum
of five reviews.

29. Embracing Reviews
Four Seasons began running
TripAdvisor reviews on its properties’
pages in 2013, following a website
relaunch, noting that the guests will
check the reviews on TripAdvisor
anyway.
This is a smart strategy, as it allows the
website to take control over the
messages which the visitor is exposed
to, as well as to keep more visitors on
their sites, resulting in better chances for
direct order / purchase.
The company also features Twitter and
Facebook reviews.

30. Embracing Reviews
• Kia and Hyundai
publish Revoo
reviews of their
cars by
customers
directly onto their
sites.
Kia
Hyundai

31. Embracing Reviews
• Online bank Ally.com includes reviews for it’s products on the website.

32. Thank You
The research was conducted by:
Hamutal Schieber
Schieber Research | Market Research & Competitive Intelligence
www.researchci.com | hamutal@researchci.com
Executive Summary. For the full research - please contact
Carmelon Digital Marketing
http://www.carmelon-digital.com