Your five-point plan (and a few tricks you're missing) when it comes to gaining - and keeping - the loyalty and trust of your customers.

1. THE
CUSTOMER
TRUST
CHECKLIST
(and what to avoid)
THE TRICKS YOU’RE MISSING
WHEN IT COMES TO EARNING THE
TRUST OF YOUR CUSTOMERS

2. TRUST
IS THE ENGINE OF COMMERCE.
Without it, no commerce happens.
With it, anything is possible.

3. The
problem is,
you can’t DEMAND trust!

4. You have to demonstrate
that you’re worthy of trust,
and hope your customers
see you in the act.
(Luckily, that’s easy enough to achieve).

5. The first step is to
harness the power of
the Voice of the
Customer with ratings
and reviews.

6. Done right,
it builds a deep
connection between
your business and
your customers.

7. consistently,
Done right,
it builds a deep
connection between
your business and
your customers.

8. But done wrong,
it can be disastrous to your
reputation and leave you way
behind.
The difference is TRUST.

9. We’ve put together a five
step
plan
for building trust
through ratings and reviews.

10. STEP ONE

11. Ask ALL purchasers for a review.

12. Bias is the enemy of trust.
Manipulating the sample group misleads
consumers, damages your brand and costs
you sales.
40% of people are
less likely to trust reviews if they
know they are only from a
selected range of people.
(Reevoo research 2013)

13. Asking everyone who buys from you
to write a review means:
VOLUME.
Volume is vital. Not just to paint an
accurate picture – it also helps your
bottom line.

14. conversion rate (%)
Here’s a graph of conversion rates for people who read reviews while shopping online.
number of reviews per product
Reevoo stats 2014
The more reviews, the more likely people browsing your site are to buy – and
there’s no plateau. Once you have trust, the sky is the limit.

15. STEP TWO

16. make sure your
reviews are...
...real!

17. AVOID THOSE
three little words
THAT ARE CRIPPLING
PUBLIC TRUST IN
CONSUMER REVIEWS:

18. write a review

19. It only takes a sniff of a fake and
your customers will lose trust in
ALL your reviews.
Don’t become another news story only show reviews from people you
can prove are verified purchasers.

20. Review systems that work collect
proactively, by contacting people who have
actually bought the product.
Don’t just let anyone turn up and write a
review. You work hard to give your customers
good experiences - you should reap the rewards
without worrying about fakes or fraudulent reviews.

21. STEP THREE

22. DON’T offer incentives.

23. 26% of people
are more likely to write a
positive review if offered
an incentive.
(Reevoo research 2013)

24. If your heart started racing at that stat,
take a deep breath and think again.
Offering incentives for good reviews is
junk food for your business.
Short term gain, long
term problems.... But
oh so tempting!
Even a hint of bribery will destroy any
brand integrity that your reviews gain.

25. Authentic reviews are nutritious.
They build brand advocates and
trusting customers for life.

26. STEP FOUR

27. Show ALL reviews – warts and all.

28. Negative reviews can help your business.
It might go against your marketer’s instinct
but consumers spend more than five times
as long on site when they interact with bad
reviews, trust the reviews they see far more
and convert nearly 85% more often.
(Reevoo research 2013)

29. 95% of people suspect
censorship or faked reviews
when they don’t see bad scores.
(Reevoo research 2013)

30. To display all your reviews most effectively,
you’ll need moderation in place. A language
filter will ensure unusable content doesn’t
slip through, but it won’t do the whole job...
You’ll also need human moderation
on every review you receive.

31. STEP FIVE

32. Show WHERE your reviews
have come from.

33. Trust is all about transparency.
People writing reviews need to know exactly
how the reviews got there, or they just won’t trust them.
If you’re using a third party service to collect and
display your reviews, perfect! This step (and hopefully
all the rest) will be done for you. Display the third-party
Trustmark or logo and you’re in the clear.
if NOT...

34. You’ll have a hard time explaining to your potential
customers that you didn’t manipulate any of the
reviews...
even though you have the power (and a motive) to.
80% of online shoppers feel more
trusting of reviews displayed by a
neutral, credible third party.
The Wall St Journal, Dec 9 2013 – US & UK

35. By implementing all these steps,
you’ll have built your engine.
Think of this as your five-point safety check for building trust.
Tick them all, and keep them ticked consistently, and you’ll see
the results in your reputation and your sales.

36. “The impartiality of content is extremely important
to our marketing strategy.
Providing customers a
platform to exchange independent views and opinions on our products
allows them to share their
knowledge and experiences, and help each other
with buying decisions.”
Mike Simpson
Marketing
Director, Black &
Decker Europe,
Australia & New
Zealand
“We wanted to make sure
we worked with a company
that was completely
independent and where
reviews are never
incentivised, and therefore
true and authentic.”
“It’s very easy to find fake
reviews on some
e-commerce sites. Our
consumers are more
informed now so it’s
important for us to provide
impartial reviews.”
George Mead
Brand Marketing
Manager, Beko
Marco Titi
Marketing
Director,
Marcopoloshop
Group

37. HAVING TRUST ISSUES?
LET’S TALK.
reevoo.com
e: info@reevoo.com