Do we need reviews anymore?

 Reviews, Do we even need them?

Are customer reviews something that we should spend a lot of time trying to acquire?  Let's talk about it.

 Remember when getting that 5 star review made us feel like we finally had made it?   It gave us a littler pep in our step, made us feel validated. T hose reviews were like gold in proving to the world that we were pretty darn good at what we did and that our clients loved us.   But have times changed when it comes to the importance of reviews?  I think they have.  A LOT.

Getting reviews is part of a strong business practice.  I still believe that they can be beneficial to small businesses but I do believe that they are becoming less impactful for a few reasons.

1.  There are simply so many places for people to leave reviews.  20 years ago we had limited ways to leave reviews.  And as Facebook and Amazon became popular they had an area for reviews and it made it much easier for every day people to leave their thoughts on products and services.  Believe it or not, when Amazon started allowing reviews critics we sure that this was going to be the doom of retailers.  How in the world were they going to let anyone just write anything they wanted about their products and services on the open internet?  Was Amazon crazy?  Well, yes they were but in a good way.  They set the tone for the importance of reviews back then.  But not so much anymore.  You can't stay a trailblazer forever.

 2.  Do we really trust the reviews now?  I think that consumers have become more cautious about trusting online reviews.  We know that there are many fake and manipulated reviews that are posted  specifically to drive you toward a certain product by the vendor.  Have you ever asked a friend or family member to leave you a positive review even though they have never hired you?  I know people have.  Or has your mom left you a review because she loves you but she has never hired you?  That is a manipulated review left on a website to entice people to hire you.  Vendors now hire people specifically to leave positive reviews on all the different sites, it makes reviews a bit sketchy.
Have you seen the ads on Tik Tok saying "Work from home and earn 2-3k a month just for reviewing products!"   Yup, that is a vendor who is trying to manipulate reviews in their favor.

3.  There are so many other sources of information available.   Online reviews used to be the only source of information about products unless you knew someone who actually owned the thing you wanted to purchase.  Now you have reviews, influencers, random people on the internet giving their opinion on their channels, affiliates, and so many other ways to discover and learn about products.  

4.  Small business have so many ways to promote their services.  There weren't targeted social media ads, influencers, or content marketing trends back in the day.  As our society evolves and social media plays a larger role in how people spend money, we are no longer stuck just trusting reviews. 

5.  Generous return policies.  We don't need to trust reviews as much because if we don't like it we send it back for a full refund.  That is also a crazy idea thanks to Amazon.  They changed the expectation of easy, no questions asked returns for everyone.  

There are so many other reasons why reviews are not the powerful marketing tool we once thought they were.  Now, I am not saying we don't need them as small businesses because I still believe we do but if you don't have them don't spend a ton of time worrying about it.   There are so many other ways you can show that your clients love what you do without a specific review.

• Take some behind the scenes footage at their session with smiling happy people, share it on social
• Show them opening their products and loving them, share in your newsletter
• Get a video testimonial at the session or at product delivery, you can use this many different ways
• and if you still want that online review, make it easy.  Give them the direct link, provide an outline of what you want them to say, reply to that review publicly and personally.

Reviews are great but in this world of over saturation the best way for you to gain business is to go out and meet as many people as possible.  People do business with people they know, like, and trust.  Be the kind of person that people know and like and trust.  I promise that will help your business more than any reviews.