Stats stats stats.. the bane of all Business Owners. In the field of a Customer’s Experience they tell the story of how a review, or lack of one, will impact the buying habits of both your current and potential Customers.

Reading this article (link) from Womply, I noticed some interesting stats that are relevant to a place we all visit, the local Coffee Shop!

The simplest stat I like is one that states a Coffee Shop that has 9 fresh reviews, posted within the past 90 days, should be considered an “average business”. Now if they can increase their number of reviews to 25, the Coffee Shop will earn 41% more than the average business. Wow!

So what about these Reviews? As we know they can be both Positive and Negative; so what happens if the review is positive? Well one of 2 things will happen. Firstly, 77% of the customers that had the positive experience will recommend the business to their friends (= free marketing) while Secondly the actual review will impact even more customers, as a further 59.2% of all customers will read the review when choosing a Coffee Shop (this is also = free marketing).

But what of a negative review? They are not great but it is not as bad as you think, honest! To start with, a Business needs to realize that irrespective of what they do 19% of all reviews will be Negative in nature while, more importantly, 89% of customers polled said a thoughtful response to a negative review improved their impression of a business.

In summary a business, to survive, needs to plan for a way to harness reviews and they must expect them to be both positive and negative in nature. Customers expect to not only see them but they use them when deciding which business they will spend their money at. Make that business yours by harnessing the power of reviews in your online presence.