Consumers positively influenced by negative reviews, survey finds

It should be of interest to those in media sales jobs that negative business reviews can positively impact consumers’ opinion of a company.

That is according to social commerce solutions provider Reevoo, which found 68 per cent of consumers have more faith in reviews when they see a mix of good and bad scores.

A further 30 per cent of respondents to the survey suspected reviews were faked or censored if only positive reports were made about the firm.

Founder and chief executive office of Reevoo Richard Anson explained: “Consumers who seek out negative reviews outperform the average visitor to a website: we see a 67 per cent bump in conversion rates for those shoppers.

“Counter-intuitive as it may seem, negative user-generated content is actually one of the most effective conversion tools.”

Consumers who deliberately unearth negative reviews view almost four times as many products as the average visitor to the site, increasing their exposure to the company.

A recent study by ACI Worldwide showed 84 per cent of Americans are enrolled in a brand loyalty scheme, all of whom would choose that brand over its nearest competitors.

Posted by Jake Cantrell

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