Customer Reviews, A Perpetual Gift For Businesses This Festive

The holiday season is quickly approaching. While people rush to buy gifts, food, and decorations during this time of year, businesses tend to experience a sharp increase in their profits. With no doubt, Christmas has been marked by its commercialization for more than a century, and this trend shows no signs of declining. So how does this, however, affect online businesses? Consequently, in this post, eKomi explores how customer reviews can benefit businesses this festive season.

Industry Overview

Contrary to Statista report, a Christmas survey conducted in SA in the previous year (2021), business analysts have estimated that South Africans are expected to spend more than R226bn over the festive season, decreasing by 11% this year when compared to 2021. It’s believed that consumers are budgeting an average of R5,968 each for unforeseen costs over this time period. (Retail Brief Africa:2022)

Even if the spending is a small portion of the budgeted average figure, if your company is able to participate this year, your business will soon be flooded with new clients who are clamouring for your goods and services in time for their celebrations.

Fortunately, the holiday season presents you with a fantastic opportunity to boost your number of favourable reviews. Customers are eager to share their goodwill during the holiday season. It’s still unlikely, though, that they’ll do so without some encouragement. You must have a plan in place for requesting testimonials from pleased clients. 

The Key Aspects of Customer Reviews 

• Share Reviews

Pick your favourite holiday reviews and feature them on your website or social media pages. You can even explicitly say that you will be sharing the most inspiring stories; this should encourage more users to write reviews and ultimately purchase from you.

• Reviews are prominent

Remember, utilizing customer reviews at every stage of the customer journey will serve to reassure them that you take your business seriously. With numerous shops emerging, a rich snippet with your star rating must appear when someone searches for your business online. This is their first indication that you are a legitimate and non-scam company. Customers will know you care about their experience when they see you actively soliciting reviews as they complete their purchase.

• Use festive holiday signage and ads

Customers trust reviews because, as was already mentioned, they read them. Only price has a greater influence on buying choices. Think about incorporating reviews and star ratings when featuring products in holiday advertisements and signage to improve their ads with the voice of the consumer. Marketers can even use the information they have gathered to produce holiday shopping guides that highlight the best-rated products, making it simple for customers to find the ideal present for everyone on their list. This holiday season, innovative marketing campaigns like these can boost sales. 

• Customer experience is paramount

Speaking of experience, your top priority should be customer experience (CX). The overall CX is more than just the service they receive. During periods of increased activity, many businesses find it difficult to maintain a high level of support. The goal of holiday CX service is to give customers a top-notch experience during the hectic, high-volume, high-pressure holiday season. 

Holiday customer service shouldn’t be any different if you’re already providing excellent customer service all year long, right? As such, it’s crucial to understand what customers are expecting for CX this holiday season and how to prepare your company to handle the seasonal rush without breaking the bank or disappointing customers. 

In final review

In light of the above analysis, search engines increasingly rely on factors like local citations and customer reviews to decide who should rank where and to provide social proof to potential customers. People are overly eager to buy now that the holiday season is here. Do your part and encourage others to review.

You can help your company rank higher on search engines by employing eKomi’s services to actively manage your customer feedback and solicit customer reviews. The ideal holiday present for you and your brand is to gather reviews of your company. Please contact our team if you require any additional information. It’s one way to get 2023 off to a great start.