More reviews !

 

25-10-2015
By: Denise Berkeveld
Source: CBS, Trendwatching.com, Dimensional Research, Marketingland.com
 

 

You are probably checking reviews before you are travelling, aren’t you? Using a review website (for example Tripadvisor.com) before travelling is getting more popular. In past only friends, family or other relationships could influence you, but now you can read the reviews of unknown people on review websites as well.

 

The review website Tripadvisor.com has 44 websites in 27 languages and more than 260 million visitors per month in 2014. This website has more than 105 million reviews and opinions and more than a third from the online travellers is influenced by those reviews (CBS, 2014). Similar websites are Trivago.com, HolidayCheck.com and Iens.nl (this is a website where people can read the reviews about restaurants). Futhermore on Google streetview people can already walk virtually true the Efteling (theme park) in the Netherlands. It is already so normal now that you, as customer, are checking reviews before you go somewhere (on holiday, to a restaurant or a themepark for example). I am also doing it, within two weeks I am going to the WTM in London and I checked before I booked my ticket reviews about the hostel.

 

A sub trend are real-time reviews, people want to see  what real people are saying about real products in real-time. As a customer you don’t want to see outdated reviews and also not reviews that are posted by the company self. Because I would not trust those reviews, it can be that the company wrote the reviews by themselves.

 

Travel companies should react on comments of their customers. The customer decides which media channels he or she is using and how he or she is using those. Travel companies are also deciding by their selves which channels they are using. I think companies should push customer opinions into the conversational space of social media. The company KLM is already doing this, they are very active on Twitter and I think it is good. Also brands like Walmart and Best Buy are doing this well, they encouraging the discussions about their products on Facebook and Twitter. Those companies can draw their customers back into the purchase path through these conversations. But  it’s also possible to gain new customers by doing this.

 

I can understand that you as buyer will be influenced by reviews. According to a survey (held in 2013) sponsored by Zendesk, conducted by Dimensional Research: “an overwhelming 90 percent of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews”. There were included responses from 1,046 participants from the United States and those participants had to have experienced a recent customer service issue with a midsized company, either as a consumer or in a business context (Marketingland, 2013).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Marketingland.com

 

The original marketing has changed and companies need to acknowledge that they are not longer 100% in charge of the brand message. For travel companies it’s all about interaction with the customer and I think they should also react on the comments people are posting. Because when I am reacting on a page of a company, I expect that they will do something with my reacting.