The importance of business reviews
Upperly saw the correlation between online reviews and the success of a business. 91% of young consumers (between 18-34) trust online reviews nearly as much as personal recommendations. Similarly, many people may not purchase a product with too many negative reviews or no reviews at all.
Public, online reviews have 4 main benefits to your business:
- Builds trust: People want to trust you and they feel safer purchasing from a business with positive reviews.
- Increases sales: When 63% of customers are more likely to buy from you after reading a review, it’s crucial to have real customer reviews posted on your site or on Google. Businesses with 50 or more reviews per product could increase their conversion rates by 4.6% or more!
- Boosts search engine ranking: Google will often rank local businesses higher when they have more (and positive) Google reviews.
- Increases paid search conversions: Google reports that ads with consumer ratings have their click-through rates increased by an average of 10%. The higher your Google star rating, the higher your potential conversion rate.
How the platform was made
One of the first questions our clients ask us is “how long until we can launch our app or platform?” In the case of Upperly, we got the product conceptualized in about two weeks, with the first version of the product launching about 3 months later.
After testing the new platform, and receiving feedback from the business, we added two additional features to the product:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): a metric used in customer experience programs
- The ability to assign clients to employees to calculate the NPS for individual employees
These additions will help business owners better understand and support employees who receive lower scores, rather than re-training an entire team when it may not be necessary. This feature could also be used to support employee bonus and incentive programs.
The roadblocks we solved
As with any development project, there were issues or bugs we had to solve before launch of the final product:
- Emails going to spam: We found that emails sent from the platform ended up in spam folders so our team reconfigured the code and content to minimize the chances of being marked as spam.
- Customer privacy concerns: Users need to be signed into Google to leave a review, but we found that some reviewers didn’t want to have their name associated with a public review (especially when it was related to reviewing a personal services or medical business). For customers who felt uneasy about it, we added the ability to more anonymously submit their review through NPS, where it gets quantified and the business can benefit from sharing the total score.
- Unopened emails: In our tests, we found lower than expected open rates for emails to customers. To boost open rates, we added automation to send a reminder email if no answer is submitted within 2 days. This increased open rates significantly.
Upperly’s results
Since launching the app in March 2018, over 200 businesses have used their platform for their business. Here are some of the successes Upperly’s clients have had:
- 65 Google reviews for Thuja Wellness Clinic
- 157 Google reviews for Artel Salon Headquarters
- 164 Google reviews for Artel Salon Cambie
- 21 Google reviews for It’s Your Time Business Services
- 28 Google reviews for Victoria Skin Cancer Screening Clinic
- 23 Google reviews for Pearl Boutique Dental Hygiene Clinic
- 21 Google reviews for Instarise Marketing
- 23 Google reviews for Dr. Robert Oliveros
Do you see a need in the market for a new or improved platform or app? We can help you turn your ideas into business. Whether you need a web or mobile app, a native IOS/Android App, or a website, Twelfth Dream can be your development partner.
We helped many clients, including Upperly, fill a gap in the marketplace and we can help you do the same in your market. Talk to us today about your new endeavour.
What’s your business dream?
If your business is looking to provide an educational app or membership program and need a website and app to support it, talk to Mahdi and his team at Twelfth Dream. We can help you develop your course content and get the infrastructure set-up to accept payments and deliver your digital product.
Contact our team today about your ideas and we can help you turn it into reality!
Do you see a gap in the marketplace? Upperly Technologies saw that micro and small businesses needed a better way to get and use customer reviews to grow their business so they developed a new platform. Learn more about how we build a new software product, whether it’s a web application or a mobile app or get a free estimate.
Google reviews play a huge role in conversion rates. We helped Upperly Technologies create a platform to help micro and small businesses harness the power of customer reviews : Upperly