Review Monitoring for Salesforce Users

As a consumer, you probably depend on ratings and reviews to make informed purchase decisions. If so, you’re in good company. According to Bazaarvoice, 89% of consumers consult ratings and reviews before making a purchase.

89% of consumers consult ratings and reviews prior to making a purchase.

Source: Bazaarvoice, What’s in a review? 

As a brand, it’s essential to monitor your ratings and reviews. If your brand runs on Salesforce, that’s the best place to monitor this content. 

Read on to explore why it’s essential to start monitoring your brand’s reviews – and how to start doing so in Salesforce.

Why Monitor Reviews? 

By now, most brands understand the importance of generating reviews – and then showcasing that content for shoppers to see. Failure to do so is a guaranteed way to lose sales. According to PowerReviews, nearly half of consumers simply won’t purchase a product if there are no reviews available for it. 

45% of consumers won’t purchase a product if there are no reviews available for it. 

Source: PowerReviews, The Ever-Growing Power of Reviews (2023 Edition)

Brands must also make it a priority to monitor ratings and reviews. But why monitor reviews? There are a few key reasons why it’s worth the time and effort. 

Consumers Make Decisions Based on Reviews

The vast majority of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. The feedback they uncover in those reviews has a big impact on whether or not they purchase a given item.

Per Bazaarvoice, 82% of consumers say a product needs to have an average star rating between four and five before they’ll even consider purchasing it. Clearly, the goal should be to boost your average star ratings (and review sentiment). Monitoring your reviews is the foundational first step. 

Reviews are Full of Insights That Can Help You Improve Products and Experiences

Today, consumers have more choices than ever before. They expect great products, services, and experiences. And if you fail to deliver, they won’t hesitate to go elsewhere. Salesforce research found that seven in 10 (71%) of consumers have switched brands at least once in the past year.

71% of consumers have switched brands at least once in the past year.

Source: Salesforce State of the Connected Consumer Fifth Edition

Collecting customer feedback is essential to understanding how your consumers feel about your offerings. Ratings and reviews are a particularly powerful form of feedback.

By monitoring reviews, you’ll better understand what customers love about your products and experiences. These are things you’re doing right – and you’ll want to highlight them your product pages and marketing initiatives.

Monitoring reviews also provides insight on what your customers don’t love. These insights can help fuel improvements. For example, you might find out about a product flaw you didn’t know about. You can then work with the manufacturer to fix that flaw. 

Or, perhaps you find that customers are disappointed that one of your products doesn’t come in a particular color. This is an opportunity to develop a new product offering that’ll meet their needs. 

Consumers Expect Responses to Their Reviews

Reviewers take the time to share their feedback. And many want brands to respond to that feedback. 

A recent survey found that 81% of consumers expect brands to respond to 1, 2 and 3 star reviews at least sometimes. By doing so, you can turn bad situations around and regain customers’ trust. 

A thoughtful response to a negative review can also boost the confidence of a future shopper. Per 1440 research, 78% of consumers have changed their mind about making a purchase after reading a negative review. However, 73% would reconsider a product with a negative review if there was a sufficient response from the brand or manufacturer.

73% of consumers would reconsider a product with a negative review if there was a sufficient response from the brand or manufacturer. 

Source: 1440, The Growing Role of UGC in the Purchase Journey 

But consumers don’t just want responses to negative reviews. 70% also expect brands to respond to four- and five-star reviews at least sometimes. Doing so is a great way to engage with a happy customer, foster loyalty, and increase the likelihood of a repeat purchase. 

It may seem obvious, but you can’t respond to reviews – either positive or negative – if you’re not actively monitoring this content on an ongoing basis.

Monitoring Reviews is Essential – But It’s Not Always Easy 

In theory, monitoring reviews seems simple enough. But often, that’s not the case.

If you’re like most brands, you collect a lot of different types of reviews in a lot of different locations. You may collect product reviews for your own ecommerce site using technology from Bazaarvoice, PowerReviews, or Yotpo. You may also collect product reviews through other channels you sell – like Amazon and other retailers. In addition, you might have reviews pouring in for your store locations, your mobile app, or even your company itself.

Each review type is managed (and monitored) on a separate platform. 

Manually monitoring your reviews through multiple platforms is time consuming. Who has the time to learn the ins and outs of each platform – and then flip between them throughout the day? 

Another challenge with manually monitoring reviews is that the data (and actionable insights) are siloed.  Sure – you can understand product or brand sentiment for a specific platform. But it’s nearly impossible to get a holistic view of customer sentiment across all review channels.

In other words, managing your reviews through disparate platforms can be utter chaos.

Review Monitoring Belongs in Salesforce 

For many brands, Salesforce serves as their command center. It’s the hub that powers the outstanding customer experiences they deliver throughout the purchase journey.

If Salesforce is where you manage other service channels, it should also be where you monitor all of your reviews. Reputation Studio from 1440 makes that possible. 

Reputation Studio enables businesses to consolidate reviews from just about anywhere. That means you can manage reviews from channels including PowerReviews, Bazaarvoice, Yotpo, Amazon, Trustpilot, Google, and a ton of others – all within Salesforce Service Cloud. There’s no longer a need to log into a dozen different platforms.

With Reputation Studio, review management across all your key platforms is easy. That way, you can always keep a pulse on what consumers are saying about your brand.

Reputation Studio also makes it easy to engage with reviews (when the platform allows it). Your customer support reps can respond to both positive and negative reviews right within Salesforce.

By using Reputation Studio, you can get a holistic picture of customer sentiment – both at the product and brand level. You can also dig deeper into your review data to identify opportunities to improve your products, services and experiences.

With Reputation Studio, you don’t have to sink a ton of time and resources into monitoring reviews. That means you’ll have more time to focus on delivering outstanding experiences that win and retain customers.

1440 Makes Monitoring Reviews a Breeze

Collecting and displaying reviews is essential. Consumers depend on this content to make informed purchase decisions.

It’s also important to monitor the reviews you’re generating across different platforms across the internet. But often, it’s easier said than done.

With Reputation Studio from 1440, you can manage reviews alongside other support channels – right within Salesforce. 

Ready to see how Reputation Studio from 1440 is simplifying review management for some of the best brands in the world? Request a demo to see our solution in action.