Word on the street is… the word’s gone online

You probably like reading reviews before you purchase a product or service, right? They’re our most trusted source of, well, whether to trust something. Reviews are an essential marketing tool – drawing traffic, creating leads, and making conversions.

People sometimes put off signing up to review sites for fear of receiving negative online reviews, or even none at all. However, you need business reputation to drive traffic, and there are ways to cope with negative online reviews should they arise. Indeed, even negative customer reviews are important because they can help you to see where you might need to improve your customer service.

Maybe you want to be on all the review sites to get the most exposure as possible, or maybe you want to start with just one.  Either way, we’ve put together some of the most popular review platforms out there. These cover the biggest B2C and B2B review sites, but of course there are many more out there for particular service and target consumer niches.

B2C review platforms

Amazon Customer Reviews

• A go-to for consumers looking for information on a product before buying.
• Open an Amazon Seller Account and encourage people to review your product.
• You pay a referral fee from every sale you make through Amazon.

Feefo

• Obtain verified customer feedback.
• Insight tools to improve customer retention.

Google Customer Reviews

• Sign your business up for a Google Merchant Account.
• Buyers are verified and can rate and review your services.

Influenster

• Customer reviews and news about consumer products
• The best choice for you if you sell health and beauty products – skincare, beauty, makeup, hair…

Tripadvisor

• The world’s biggest and most trusted travel website.
• Ubiquitous in the hospitality sector.
• Array of widgets to show your score on your site.

Trustpilot

• Community-driven consumer review platform from Denmark.
• Helps businesses collect customer reviews.
• Basic company-review version is free.

Which?

• A top independent platform in the UK
• Provides impartial and reliable reviews on all types of business
• You send in information about your product, and the Which? team will test and review the products themselves, and then write their own reviews.

Yelp

• Highly popular, especially for local business reviews.
• Free listings for your business.
• Yelp profile information includes opening hours and location, which shows up on search engines to customers who search for your business.

For B2B

G2

• Authentic reviews on business software and services
• Reliable product reviews
• Highly engaged G2 users
• Turn your best reviews into social media posts
• Free profile

TrustRadius

• Software reviews -best for enterprise-level SaaS tools (web-based software).
• Helps you gather feedback from your most active customers and use it to inform your product development.

For B2B and B2C 

GlassDoor

• Where potential job candidates check out other people’s work experiences before they apply to or accept a job.
• Employees can rate a company on everything from the employment process itself, to everyday working life.
• Glassdoor is one of the world’s biggest jobseeker’s websites.
• Make a free account.
• You can quickly track reviews and respond to feedback.

YellowPages

• It still exists (!) but online…
• A directory and local marketing solutions provider that focuses on helping local businesses grow.
• List for free.

Don’t forget about your own website…

Whether you’re business can be found on lots of reviewing platforms or not, don’t forget to include some of those all important testimonials you receive on your own website.  If you don’t wish to use a 3rd party like Feefo or Trustpilot then many website platforms such as WordPress or Shopify have their own on-site review systems you can use to get valuable customer feedback automatically.

Business reviews can appear in search results

Business reviews and ratings are now often included in search results. Google, for instance, will often directly display online business reviews and consumer ratings following a search, as shown below.

How can businesses get more reviews?

• Emailing consumers directly.
• Leave requests for reviews with codes and review sites on their receipts.
• Apply automated business review processes to your site.