PowerReviews Insider

A posting on VKI Studios’ official company blog today, discussed the value that a “customer-facing, independently-moderated [customer review] system” brings to the online shopping experience.

A joint client of ours – PetWellBeing.com – had an in-house testimonials engine on their site and decided to enhance their system by implementing the PowerReviews customer reviews solution in an attempt to overcome two challenges:

1. Adding new testimonials was a lot of work, and therefore didn’t get done frequently enough
2. Some customers probably doubted how representative or authentic the testimonials were, as they were clearly hand selected by internal staff

Here’s an example of a past product testimonial:

Conversion Rate Increase:

After just a few months of launching reviews on PetWellBeing.com, “The results exceeded even our wildest expectations, ” writes Michael S. from VKI Studios. PetWellBeing.com has collected dozens of (overwhelmingly positive) reviews for many of their products in that time, but what’s even more notable is that fact that, “conversion rates of all products have increased…even those products that have received some negative reviews,” adds Michael.

Handling Negative Reviews:

VKI Studios offered a final tip in their posting: “Embrace the occasional negative review. Consider it a wonderful opportunity to improve your credibility and gain customer trust.”

PetWellBeing.com received a negative review from a “Verified Reviewer” (one who has entered his/her email address but is not verified to have actually made a purchase) saying that the product didn’t work well for him/her and doubting that any of the “testimonials” on the site were real.

Despite initial fears that such a review might be from a competitor trying to tarnish the company’s reputation, that it might plant seeds of distrust in the minds of other shoppers, or that it could decrease sales for that product, PetWellBeing.com expertly decided to allow the review to stay up on their site. By allowing the review to stay, they effectively discounted the accusations in the review and showed the reviewer (and all others) that these are in fact real reviews, written by real people and that they are not unfairly filtered to only display positive comments. With this simple act of transparency, the company has shown its customers that they encourage honest feedback, regardless of the star rating, and they have reaped the benefits as a result.

As we’ve discussed on numerous past occasions, negative reviews tend to elevate both credibility and resulting sales for entire product offerings, and PetWellBeing.com is a perfect example.

Our hat goes off to VKI Studios and PetWellBeing.com for overcoming those “surfacy” fears that many companies face when implementing and maintaining customer reviews. And a much deserved “congratulations” for increasing conversion rates through fair and honest business practices.