Ratings and reviews have been a staple of good online experiences for years, yet many organizations still resist the onslaught of user opinions on their own sites. Are ratings and reviews right for my business? How much do my users want them? What\'s the ROI? How do I deal with negative reviews? And if I go ahead with ratings and reviews, what are best practices for designing and implementing them? How do I make them useful and usable? Learn the answers in a session jam-packed with strategies and data for the business folk and practical tips and examples for the design folk. Presentation by Steve Mulder.

1. Steve Mulder Why and how to implement ratings and reviews Your users trust each other, not you

2. Why implement ratings & reviews?

3. People don’t trust you

4. 76% of American consumers believe companies don’t tell the truth in advertising Yankelovich (2005)

6. 60% have a much more negative opinion of marketing & advertising than a few years ago Yankelovich (2004)

7. People do trust each other

8. 78% say consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising Nielsen (2007)

9. 83% say online evaluations and reviews influence their purchasing decisions Opinion Research Corporation (2008)

10. 84% trust user reviews more than critics’ reviews MarketingSherpa (2007)

11. Trust in “person like me” tripled to 68% from 2004-2006 – biggest influencer to consumers Edelman Trust Barometer (2006, 2007)

12. Think beyond products Content Topics Features People Places Companies Events

13. 76% use online reviews to help make purchase decisions Forrester Research (2007)

14. 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site offering ratings/reviews eVOC Insights / RelevantView (2006)

15. 69% of those who read online reviews share them with friends, family, or colleagues Deloitte & Touche (2007)

16. What about B2B?

17. 93% consider ratings and reviews valuable or very valuable for the business user Christian C Carlsson dissertation research (08)

18. 58% have removed a supplier as an option because of a negative rating/review Christian C Carlsson dissertation research (08)

19. What do the adopters think?

20. Although only 25% of top ecommerce sites have ratings and reviews so far… Forrester Research (2007)

21. 96% of those sites rate them as an effective or very effective merchandising tactic Forrester Research (2007)

23. What’s the ROI?

25. NetShops found that reviewed products experience a 26% lift in sales College of Information Science, University of Nebraska (2007) Product with no review Product with reviews

26. Petco let users sort products by rating and saw sales increase 41% per visitor Petco (2007) Before rating sort After rating sort

27. Bass Pro Shops users who viewed Top Rated Products had a 59% higher conversion rate Bass Pro Shops (2007) Average visitors Viewers of Top Rated Products

29. SEO

30. Customer support

31. 200% ROI in one year Forrester’s calculated ROI for ebags.com implementation of ratings/reviews

32. Benefits beyond the Web

33. Petco saw a 500% increase in email clickthrough after including ratings/reviews Petco (2008) Before ratings After ratings

34. 93% of adults research products online before purchasing in a store BIGresearch (2007)

35. 24% of those online have used online reviews before buying a service delivered offline comScore / The Kelsey Group (2007)

38. The challenge of negative reviews

39. “ People only write reviews when they’re mad or disappointed”

40. 80% of reviews are positive Forrester (2007)

41. Breakdown of ratings submitted on all Bazaarvoice client sites 1 2 3 4 5 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Bazaarvoice (2006)

42. “ Negative reviews scare others away”

44. Negative reviews can lead to product improvements

45. Turning a negative into a positive

46. Best Practices

47. Best Practices Item Page

48. Make ratings & reviews discoverable: location, context, prominence

50. Stick to what’s familiar: stars

52. Use the familiar 1-5 scale

53. Consider ratings by attribute

56. Show date of review

57. … and reviewer info

60. Reviewer actually owns it

62. Respond to negative reviews

63. Average rating and number of ratings

64. Distribution of ratings

65. Trend over time

66. Sort reviews (also by helpful)

67. Friends’ reviews

68. Summary of reviews

70. Parsing by attribute

71. Cross-selling / merchandising

72. Best Practices Beyond the Item Page

73. Show ratings on listing pages

75. Search results pages too

76. No ratings shown???

77. No way to filter or sort by rating???

79. Sort by highest rating

80. Filter by rating

81. Filter by rating

82. Give users more control

83. Show ratings from people like me

84. Promote using ratings

85. Merchandise/promote using “top” lists

86. Cross-sell using “top” lists

87. Best Practices Eliciting Reviews

88. 19% of US online adults write an online review at least monthly Forrester Research (2008)

89. Step 1: Ask!

90. Step 2: Invite reviews via email follow-up

91. Step 3: Invite reviews via your site

92. Incentives can help, but rarely needed

93. Recognize top reviewers

94. The easier the better

95. Clean design, few distractions, helpful tips

96. Keep registration barrier low

97. Encourage detail, prod with questions

98. Don’t go insane

100. Let people preview their review

101. Set expectations for posting

102. Moderate lightly

103. Implementation options

104. [email_address] Let your customers talk slideshare.net/MolecularInc