Should retailers respond to every consumer review?


Retailers closely monitor reviews posted by consumers online, but should they respond to them? According to a recently completed survey of U.S. consumers, the overwhelming response to that question was, “Yes!”
The study of 1,000 consumers conducted by Uberall, a location marketing supplier, found that 65 percent of consumers believe retailers should respond to every review, both positive and negative. Another 18 percent think retailers should respond in the case of negative reviews, while six percent believe responses are only warranted in cases of positive reviews. Only 10 percent said that no response is ever needed.
“It’s critical for brands to have a proactive voice in these conversations,” said Josha Benner, Uberall co-founder, in a statement. “Ready-to-buy shoppers aren’t just looking for positive online reviews — they’re actually evaluating the quality of an in-store experience based on online responsiveness.”
Eighty-six percent of the survey respondents said they were more likely to shop at stores when the retailer responded to reviews and 47 percent said they were “somewhat more likely.” Thirty-nine percent answered they were “more likely” to shop in stores where responses to reviews were posted.
While it’s important to respond to reviews, based on the study’s findings, it’s also necessary to avoid boilerplate responses. Seventy-eight of percent of respondents believe that responses should be “somewhat” or “very personalized.”
“Consumers prefer businesses who care about them, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that personal responses to reviews show just that to consumers who research a business,” said Mr. Benner. “Responding to reviews is great for brand perception which leads to more new customers and repeat business from existing ones.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What role do you think online reviews of a retailer play in traffic to its stores? What criteria should merchants establish when it comes to when and how to respond to online reviews of their businesses?
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25 Comments on "Should retailers respond to every consumer review?"
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Vice President of Marketing, OrderDynamics
Reviews are an exceptional opportunity to create a preference for your brand above and beyond Amazon. From the research it seems clear that if consumers feel there is a human, who is genuinely interested, then this will get them engaged, and can drive the sale.
Great point about boilerplate. If you want to infuriate customers, give them boilerplate responses. That’s definitely the recipe for losing shoppers.
Retailers – let your respondents be genuine, positive, and REAL.
Co-founder, CART
I couldn’t agree more with Charles on this one. As retailers and brands we’re always on the hunt for engagement! What better kind of engagement is there than when a customer is proactively making a review? Positive or negative, it’s a chance for the retailer to personalize a response and humanize the experience for that customer and anyone else reading it.
Chief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
VP of Strategy, Aptos
“Consumers prefer businesses who care about them” – that says it all in my book! As to how to do it, I’m sure Emily Post has some advice on writing thank you notes: Thank them. Make sure to add to or relate to detail they shared. Tell them what you’re going to do with their feedback. For example:
“Thank you so much for sharing your experience with Product A. We love how it does Key Feature B too – it’s one of the things our buyers loved when they selected it for our assortment. You might also like Product X too.”
If you can do it with personality, like a trusted in-the-know friend, then bonus points! The challenge is, this is hard to execute at scale and the benefits are hard to pin down directly back to this effort. If brand loyalty was increased and a shopper made one more incremental trip to a store as a result, how would you ever know? And so the effort and investment does not get made…
Chief Executive Officer, Progress Retail
Retailers responding to online reviews (good or bad) are an indicator of the level at which they are engaged with the consumer post-visit. Personally, if I see several recent reviews (particularly negative ones) with no response I immediately question what must be going on in that store, and if it’s worth my time. The next frontier is for retailers to be training in-store team members on the skills and etiquette involved in handling customer reviews. After all, if foot traffic is down — they have the time.
Managing Partner, Advanced Simulations
The reviews are only going to affect traffic in one of two ways. Either the reviews are plentiful and extreme – all 5 stars or all 1 stars and lots of them – or the shopper is unfamiliar with the store but has been sent there by a search engine. At the point of limited knowledge, reviews can make a difference. How the retailer responds is dependent on any number of factors. One or two reviews a day – write a “thanks” or “I’m sorry – how can we fix that” note. If you’re getting a lot, get an automation program to do it for you, but a good one, one with a sufficient variety of responses. Be sure it flags serious problems for personal attention.
President, Global Collaborations, Inc.
Social media allows for two-way communication with consumers. This is a significant departure from the old model of creating a message and sending it out to the masses. Consumers want a conversation with retailers and brands. That is why 90 percent of consumers in the survey expected some kind of response. Companies need to change their expectations, reorganize, take this form of communication seriously, ensure that messages sent are consistent with other company messages, and that information gleaned from consumers is sent to appropriate places within the company.
Founder, CEO, Black Monk Consulting
President/CEO, The Retail Doctor
Every review. Every point of view. Every time. Dean Shulman, SVP of Brother talked on my podcast recently about how as a manufacturer he was more inclined to want to read the negative reviews to learn what could be better and respond. Smart thinking for any product or service when it comes to reviews.
Principal, Retailing In Focus LLC
It takes an effort (and therefore it takes staffing and payroll), but retailers and service providers should try to respond to online reviews, both positive and negative. The best responses to positive reviews are the ones avoiding boilerplate responses, and the best replies to negative comments reflect a genuine desire to address the issues where possible. Consumers are absolutely attuned to retailers’ level of engagement with anyone who bothers to post a review.
Co-founder, RSR Research
Well, we have just touched on the essential paradox of retail, right here. On the one hand, we are literally drowning in data, which led to the old axiom “Retail Is Detail” but on the other hand, we are exhorted by the media to deal with “Big Data” and use aggregation to get a sense of sentiment.
I would prefer to see retailers use some level of NLP to call out the best and worst of user reviews. I just think we’re asking the impossible of retailers.
Founding Partner, Merchandising Metrics
The customer is engaging you, so you better engage in return. Most importantly — LEARN. My guess is that reviews fall into some kind of bell curve. Admonishing for mistakes made, reinforcing good attributes, and encouraging for new and improved. Take notes. Take action. Evolve. This is invaluable feedback.
Founder & Chairman, International TCG Retail Summit
There is no doubt about it! Yes, customer reviews have to be answered in cases where they indicate that feedback is being requested or appropriate. Here comes the Golden Rule: If a retailer gives a feedback, it has to clearly refer to the reviewer’s comment and it needs to meaningful and solution-oriented (in terms of a negative review). If the feedback only contains automated statements, then it is not only of no value but it will damage the retail brand.
Principal, KIZER & BENDER Speaking
A retailer NOT responding to every review is asking for disaster. I love this quote that we use frequently in social media presentations: “A lie unchallenged becomes true.” There is much truth in that quote. We know that customers read reviews, and unfortunately believe them to be true except in outrageous statements, if there is no retailer response. The best businesses reply is to respond with at least a thank you for a nice review and attempt to address, apologize and then resolve any issue by inviting the complainant to call them to clarify and hopefully rectify the issue. Everyone who reads the review will also read the response. So retailers, respond!
Consumer Advocate, finder.com
Hardly anyone makes a purchase these days without consulting third-party experiences, meaning online reviews are critical for retailers. Should they respond to them? Absolutely. Every single one? I don’t believe so.
While it’s important to address a negative review, either to offer to fix the problem and provide context if it’s just a wrong product fit for that person, as with any user-generated content you get outliers that are obvious to all that read them that can be ignored.
While customer service is best positioned to respond to these, overall management should be in collaboration with marketing teams to ensure brand voice is consistent.
Head of Trends, Insider Trends
CEO, The Customer Service Rainmaker, Rainmaker Solutions
How can the answer be anything but yes? They should respond to every consumer review. The customer wants and needs to know their comments are important. Moreso, they want to know their business is important. There was an expression that I will not get right but it goes something like “treat me nice and I will tell seven people. Treat me bad and I will tell twenty one.” Close enough to get the understanding of how loud the voice of a customer can be. Treat them with the respect they and their business deserve.
Chief Amazement Officer, Shepard Presentations, LLC
Retail Tech Marketing Strategist | B2B Expert Storytelling™ Guru | President, VSN Media LLC
Online reviews certainly demand individual responses from brand owners. Ideally each should be uniquely composed, but let’s get real. I can think of no job more mind-numbing than sitting in a cubicle monitoring online reviews and formulating replies. It’s a task better suited for ‘bots, 98% of the time.
So I envision a solution that uses AI to respond to the vast majority of reviews while referring outlier comments to humans for special attention. All reviews should be dumped into a sentiment analysis engine to search for meaningful patterns.
A lone criticism is easy to discount, but a theme demands management involvement.
President, Protonik
I look at this more like a conversation. A wise retailer will respond as appropriate to interact with their customers. That means definitely responding to some of each.
But this is also an area to be careful with resources. Responding to every review either requires bots (a clear downer for customers) or requires cheap interactions (not going to build brand value).
It takes wisdom to make the right choices and I’m not going to suggest hard and fast rules. This is, after all, an area of complexity instead of being “complicated” (read Rick Nason’s excellent book on complexity).
Founder, Grey Space Matters
Responding to customer reviews is an obvious opportunity for retailers to explicitly demonstrate that they care — and are loyal — to customers. It’s why we define loyalty marketing simply as “paying attention to customers and acting accordingly.” That means when a customer says something, such as a review, you look and respond appropriately.
It’s fundamentals like these, among many others it’s worth noting, that separate leaders from laggards. And as we al know, there are many fewer of the former than the latter.
CFO, Weisner Steel
I’m ambivalent about these findings. Yes, in cases where people make factually inaccurate/defamatory remarks, it might be helpful if a response brings some clarity (while, of course, being careful to avowing inflaming the situation further) and in cases of very positive reviews some kind of acknowledgement would probably be appreciated (though personally, I wouldn’t expect or even want that).
But it’s very easy to get into a flaming war, and perhaps as a result, instead we usually see a parade of canned responses (“so sorry you didn’t like anything about your “experience,” please let us know how we can serve you better”).
And I think any response, however handled, tends to detract from what reviews are — IMHO — supposed to be about: impartial comments shared between customers.
Senior Marketing Manager, RW3
For retailers to get the most value out of a review response strategy personalization is key. Also, responses don’t necessarily need to be immediate, rather shout outs, later on, that tie into their reviews that show you’re listening and appreciating their input.
Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM
Although we are all aware of the abuses from shoppers and customers of online reviews, in the public’s eye, retailers are still, of course, guilty until proven innocent. Yes, you do need to respond appropriately to online reviews.
CEO, President- American Retail Consultants
Yes, retailers should keep consumer reviews, consumer feedback and customer service as one of their mainstays of business. Ignoring this great opportunity to address issues, satisfy customers and correct business performance is a wasted chance for any retailer to win higher customer satisfaction, win more customers and correct customer performance issues. Which retailer wants to ignore upset customers? In today’s online and omnichannel environment, this is even more important. Great communication means great business.