Use Reviews to Improve Your Product
July 22, 2009 by Becky Scott
Filed under Marketing
Reviews are important to many consumers. We all want to know if a product is worth our time and money. Right now I’m in the market for an airline car seat cover. I’ll be flying next month and will need to take my son’s car seat. We all know that airlines are infamous for damaging baggage and the last thing I need is an expensive car seat rendered unusable. So I need a cover that will protect the car seat en route.
What do you think was the first thing I did? I looked at reviews on a few sites. And from there, based on price and feedback, I’m going to have to choose which product I think will work best. And I can tell you it won’t be the seat covers that fell apart after one use. I need something durable, not a $30-50 one-time use product. It would be even better if a company would take a close look at those reviews and market a heavy duty cover that has strong carry handles or wheels, yet doesn’t make the seat more awkward than it already is.
Reviews from customers are a perfect opportunity for you to improve. It’s free feedback and you hear from people who are already familiar with your product. If enough people mention that your product breaks after the first use, why aren’t you fixing it? It’s an excellent focus group if used well.
Even better, if you let customers know that you heard them and fixed the problems they pointed out, you gain points with them. And that makes for a perfect marketing opportunity. We all want return customers, but do you want them to return out of frustration due to a cheap or faulty product? Or do you want them to return to you because they know you offer a quality product? Which will it be?
image: sxc.hu
I agree with this. And even though it can be scary to have your product reviewed with content published, it’s still good either way because it helps to spread the word. Sometimes it pays to get reviewed by famous bloggers, such as John Chow and Michael Arrington, even though those can be costly.
-Jack
I’m referring more to organic reviews, though, not something targeted to a big blogger. Something that occurs naturally after someone uses the product and likes or doesn’t like it. Reviews that are on sites such as Amazon, Target, and other retail sites where average users leave feedback.