If you don’t already allow – or rather, invite — customer reviews on your web site, drop everything and get to work. Reviews are arguably the single easiest means of significantly boosting your conversion rate. I’ve heard one garden company owner call them “transformative” and I couldn’t agree more.
While you’re at it, there are a number of ways to beef up a review system to make it even more useful. For a terrific example, take a look at the reviews on Burpee’s site. The useful features of their reviews include:
Information at a Glance. In addition to comments from users, Burpee’s rating system makes it easy to get a lot of information quickly. Using a graphic representation of one to five leaves (instead of stars), products are rated for specific attributes such as plant performance, taste, and yield, as well as overall.
Who’s Talking? Regional variations and gardening skill levels play a huge role in the results gardeners achieve. Burpee makes it easy for potential buyers to evaluate how applicable a review is by providing lots of information on each reviewer: their geographic location, type of garden (large or small), gardening skill level, number of years gardening and types of plants grown (flowers, vegetables, bulbs).
Customer Photos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Burpee’s reviews speak volumes. They allow reviewers to upload their own images, which further enhances the credibility of the reviews.
Don’t feel you have to incorporate every bell and whistle in your customer reviews. Burpee’s reviews may be the gold standard, a level to strive for. What’s important is to get some kind of review system in place before your main selling season arrives, and to start encouraging users to post reviews. For more on that subject, see our blog post on How to Encourage Customer Reviews.
