In this day and age, when consumers don’t order a meal without having read a bunch of reviews about the restaurant, reputation can literally make or break a business. Luckily, reputation management gives companies the option to find out what their customers really want so they can adjust the necessary changes and improvements in their organization to influence how customers think of their brand when viewed on the internet. Check out these eye-opening reputation management statistics to bring your business to the next level.
Reputation Management Statistics (Editor’s Choice)
- 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. (BrightLocal)
- 89% of consumers read some reviews online before making a purchase. (TrustPilot)
- 42% of all reviews left on Amazon are unreliable. (Fakespot)
- Reviews older than a month are not relevant, according to 73% of consumers. (BrightLocal)
- Customer reviews are getting shorter as consumer expectations change. (Reviewtrackers)
- 88% of all consumer reviews on the internet come from only four review sites. (Reviewtrackers)
Reputation Management Stats
1. 79% of consumers value online reviews as much as friends’ opinions.
It appears that people nowadays trust strangers on the internet and their recommendations as much as they do those of family members or close friends. This signals that nowadays, word-of-mouth is no longer limited to one’s social circle, meaning a positive (or a negative) opinion has a much bigger impact.
(BrightLocal)
2. 89% of customers read reviews before making a purchase.
Online reputation management statistics show that reviews these days are a very important part of consumers’ buying process and that almost nine out of 10 customers won’t take any action to purchase some product or service before reading a few reviews on the internet. This is a pretty good reason for companies to display reviews close to their product listings online.
(TrustPilot)
3. Google is the most popular channel for customer reviews, online reputation management stats show.
Bizrate Insights’ 2021 survey of 1,200 online shoppers reveals that Google is the most popular destination for online reviews, with approximately 59% of customers using it, followed by Amazon with 57%.
(Bizrate Insights)
4. 31% of customers read at least four reviews before purchasing a product.
According to the most recent statistics by Bizrate Insights, 31% of consumers read at least four reviews on the internet before buying some product. 9.1 % need to check between seven and nine reviews before taking action, while 14.6% need to read more than 10 reviews to make a decision.
(Bizrate Insights)
5. More than half of customers have seen a fake review over the past year.
2022 statistics about online reputation management reveal that 62% of consumers think they’ve seen at least one fake review for a local business over the past year, 29% of the respondents are not sure if they have seen one, while the remaining 9% of consumers admit they haven’t seen any fake review online.
(BrightLocal)
6. 32% of consumers have written a review for a positive experience in the last 12 months.
Just under a third of the respondents in a survey have written at least one positive review about some product or local business over the last 12 months, stats on reputation management suggest. On the flip side, only 7% of all respondents have written a review for a negative experience, while 33% have left some comments on the internet for both positive and negative experiences.
(BrightLocal)
7. It takes about 40 positive consumer experiences to fix the damage of a single negative review.
A customer with a bad experience is highly likely to leave a bad review. By contrast, only one out of 10 customers with a positive experience will do so. Statistics about online reputation management meanwhile show that for a five-star rating system, you would need four five-star reviews to offset one one-star review to keep your four-star rating. This means that you need 40 positive customer experiences which will result in four positive reviews, reversing the impact of a single bad review.
(Inc.)
8. Nearly 42% of all Amazon reviews are fake.
While many Amazon customer reviews are still legitimate and real, according to a Fakespot monitoring assessment, approximately 42% of the 720 million customer reviews on Amazon from March to September 2020 were not trustworthy. This marks a rise from the previous year when 36% of all reviews left on Amazon were fake.
(Fakespot)
9. Reputation management stats show that 53% of consumers expect a reply to their negative review within seven days.
It seems like online customers have no patience when waiting for a response about their negative reviews, with more than half expecting a reply to their negative review within a week. Stats further show that 63% of businesses never reply back to negative online reviews, missing an opportunity to fix their reputation since 45% of consumers are more likely to visit a business that responds to negative feedback.
(Review Trackers)
10. Online reputation management trends show that consumers are ready to spend about 31% more on a business that has excellent reviews.
This translates to higher revenue and more profits, meaning, investment in online reputation marketing or even PR firms to fix your online image will pay off. Not convinced? Stats further show that 57% of customers won’t even use a business that has a rating of below four stars.
(BrightLocal)
11. 73% of consumers believe that online reviews older than a month are not relevant.
When it comes to how recent reviews need to be, the latest reputation management statistics for local businesses show that you should aim for about a month old (or less). 86% of customers only read the reviews left in the past three months, while half of the customers are interested only in reviews written over the past two weeks. The recency of reviews has no impact only for 3% of consumers.
(BrightLocal)
12. 73% of customers in 2020 were asked to write a review for a local business.
This is hardly a surprise, given the impact of online reviews and the cutthroat competition in almost every sector, exacerbated by the pandemic. BrightLocal’s online reputation management stats show that a whopping 72% of consumers agreed to the request for feedback.
(BrightLocal)
13. Four review sites only are responsible for 88% of all reviews on the internet.
Online reputation reports suggest that 88% of customer reviews online come from just four review sites. With 73% of all reviews on the internet, Google is the most preferred site among consumers. Yelp came in second with 6%, and Facebook and TripAdvisor are sharing third place, each with 3% of reviews.
(Reviewtrackers)
14. Customer reviews nowadays are much shorter, online reputation management statistics reveal.
When it comes to the length of customer reviews, thanks to Google and Facebook and their own review platforms, they are much shorter these days. Digital reputation facts show that compared to 2010, when the average customer review was comprised of 600 characters, nowadays reviews have gotten a 65% shorter and their length is pretty much the same as an expanded tweet.
(Reviewtrackers)
15. Only two negative customer reviews online are enough to impact 44% of the company’s business.
Bad customer reviews can seriously impact your business and have the power to destroy the reputation of your company just like that. According to the most recent reputation management statistics, a single negative consumer review posted on the internet can result in the loss of 22% of the business. Three bad reviews are enough to impact 60% of a company’s business, while four negative consumer reviews are responsible for approximately 70% loss of business.
(Massive Alliance)
Conclusion
Reputation is a very easy thing to lose, and with the power of the internet and social networks, the impact of a single bad review can spread like wildfire. Reputation management statistics conclusively show that any business worth its salt should invest time and money to provide stellar products and services and when slips do happen, not shy away from negative feedback but offset it by responding to it and ensuring that positive reviews are overwhelmingly more.
Sources: BrightLocal, TrustPilot, Bizrate Insights, BrightLocal, Inc., Fakespot, Review Trackers, BrightLocal, Reviewtrackers, Massive Alliance