As a customer, the first thing you’ll probably do before you press that “Buy Now” button is to check online reviews…
…and you’re not alone.
In fact, 95% of customers read online reviews before buying a product.
B2B buyers considering an investment into SaaS products aren’t any different – since most SaaS solutions can have a hefty price tag. Unfortunately, you don’t have complete control over what customers say about you.
Sure, you can encourage your customers to leave positive reviews, but you can’t really tell what they’re going to say – and not everyone will be 100% satisfied.
However, there is still a way to gain some control, and achieve a positive reputation.
In this post, you’ll discover everything about customer reviews, how to earn and manage them, and what the best customer review sites for SaaS businesses are.
How Can SaaS Customer Reviews Help Your Business?
Review sites can be tremendously helpful for any SaaS business looking to gain exposure and maximize their sales.
Here are the four ways in which SaaS customer reviews supercharge your business.
1. Exposure
Getting reviews from customers will greatly improve your visibility since it will help you:
- Appear on sites such as Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, FinancesOnline, and TrustRadius – all of which users visit to find the best software solutions for their needs
- Increase the number of backlinks to your site, which has a huge impact on your rankings in the SERPs
- Improve your credibility, and appear as a really trusted SaaS company due to having many reviews from happy customers
Plus, you will gain an edge over your competitors in the SERPs. That’s a fact: reviews affect your SEO rankings by over 15%.
The flip side is that negative sentiment can harm your SEO ranking though.
However, if you can leverage even the negative reviews in the right way, you can gain valuable insights that can help you further improve your business.
For instance, consider the review of the HubSpot tool below:
Even though it’s harsh, you can still utilize the feedback, improve your product, and be more competitive within the market.
2. Conversions
Customer reviews will help your sales and conversions as well. This is because they add credibility to your business, which drives sales.
Plus, 88% of customers trust online testimonials as much as personal recommendations.
Also, as we said earlier, reviews are one of the things that potential customers check before they decide to purchase something.
3. Lead Generation
If people intentionally look at reviews about your product, that indicates that they are already interested in it – or at the very least, they’re curious about it.
This makes them highly-qualified leads at the bottom of the funnel.
You can leverage review sites for lead generation and get high-quality leads that are ready to convert into your sales funnel – maximizing your profitability.
You can do that by incorporating CTAs and links to your website directly on the review sites.
4. Product Improvement
Negative reviews may seem like a big deal – and they can have a fatal impact on your business if you don’t handle them properly.
But you can also leverage them, learn from your mistakes, and improve your product.
If you spot a negative review, you can take advantage of the suggestions and make the necessary changes. This allows you to continually improve your product or service and get ahead of the competition.
We’ll talk more in-depth about strategies for handling negative reviews later in the article.
The 4 Best SaaS Customer Review Sites
We suggest getting to as many review sites as possible.
You want to be everywhere, so you give your customers an option to leave a review on their favorite review site. This will also help you get as many reviews as possible (which is vital for conversions).
Here are the 4 most popular review sites you must be on.
#1: G2
G2 is one of the most popular SaaS review sites – with a large database of SaaS products and an audience of more than 5 million SaaS buyers. G2 also offers a whole arsenal of marketing solutions.
These tools allow you to identify potential buyers and add call-to-action buttons to your profile. Plus, your customers can submit a review in video form.
If one of your customers does this, it can be a great way to show off your product and how it works in the real world.
The key to getting video reviews is making sure the whole process is straightforward.
The first step is directly asking customers to shoot a video review – since almost no one will do so before any previous encouragement.
After that, it’s time to decide what customer review video you want.
- Testimonial video. Talking about how great your product is.
- Interview. Asking questions or doing Q&A with your customers.
Lastly, you want to provide video guidelines to make it as easy as possible for your customers. You can show them some previous videos, create an outline, or chat with them about what you’re both looking for.
Doing so will maximize the chances of getting a video review which will have a great impact on your sales.
#2: Capterra
Capterra is another popular site that specializes in SaaS reviews.
This website is a part of the Gartner Digital Markets family of SaaS review sites. So, along with Capterra, you can get to the other popular sites such as GetApp and Software Advice that also belong to this group.
By upgrading to a Premium account, you can have access to various features such as:
- Competitor analysis
- Campaign analytics
- Buyer insight
#3: FinancesOnline
FinancesOnline offers both expert and user reviews.
This gives you a more balanced view of how your product fares. The FinancesOnline platform uses two methods in rating SaaS solutions:
- the SmartScore system
- The customer satisfaction algorithm
SmartScore System: The SmartScore system seeks to create an unbiased rating of how useful a SaaS solution is. With this system, FinancesOnline’s team of B2B and finance experts take into account varying levels of importance on different aspects of a SaaS solution.
With main functionalities contributing to 20% of the final score, it also considers:
- Collaboration features
- Customizability
- Integrations
Customer Satisfaction Algorithm: This system provides a holistic view of how happy users are with the SaaS product. It scans all of a product’s reviews on social media, blog sites, and other review sites. Then it puts all of that feedback into one database where it processes the scores and assigns a positive, neutral, or negative level of satisfaction for each of them.
Finally, it calculates the final Customer Satisfaction Rating based on the ratio of positive and neutral reviews to negative reviews.
To get the highest score, we recommend getting as many reviews as possible. Also, you should consider using various review sources such as social media, blog, or other review sites, since FinancesOnline scans reviews across the whole Internet.
Doing this will greatly enhance your score, which will have a direct impact on your sales.
#4: TrustRadius
TrustRadius is a site that specializes in B2B SaaS product reviews.
Just like FinancesOnline, TrustRadius has its own proprietary system for rating SaaS solutions. This system is called the trScore and considers several factors, including:
- Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
- Ratings for usability and support
- Scores for features specific to the SaaS solution
The goal of the trScore is to generate an accurate overall rating for each SaaS solution being reviewed on the TrustRadius website. The trScore, along with TrustRadius’ other verifications and badges, fosters a lot of trust with its readers.
That’s why a lot of buyers see this site as a reliable source of user reviews.
Think Beyond SaaS Review Sites
SaaS review sites are a great place for collecting and showcasing reviews.
However, we highly suggest expanding your horizon and adding more places where your customers can leave reviews, such as:
- Facebook page reviews
- Blog sites
That way, you can allow your customers to leave a review in their preferred way.
Plus, no matter where your potential customers look, whether it’s social media, your blog, or review sites – there will always be some reviews for them to come across easily.
4 Tips to Maximize Your Results from SaaS Review Sites
Improving your reputation and online review profile can do wonders for your business.
In this section, you’ll learn about our top tips for maximizing your review score across all SaaS review sites.
#1: Respond to All Reviews
It’s critical to respond to all reviews as quickly as possible – even to negative ones. This is because customer churn will increase if you don’t respond to feedback. In fact, 55% of consumers said if a business owner responds to their review, they would feel positive about the business.
Even if they left a negative review…
That’s why we highly recommend monitoring these review sites regularly, and ensuring you respond to all reviews in a timely manner.
#2: Ask Happy Customers to Leave a Review
For some customers, all you need to do is to ask for a review – it makes a huge difference. Ideally, you want to ask reviews of your happy customers. You can easily do that by reaching out to loyal customers or subscribers on your email list who always engage with your emails.
However, sometimes they don’t know where to leave a review…
…and that’s why you must be proactive.
Make it as easy as possible for customers to leave a review.
Give them all options they need, such as websites or social media, so they can choose their favorite place to leave a review. Also, provide them with every detail, or show them previous reviews to make this process straightforward.
#3: ALWAYS Address Negative Reviews
You have to understand that negative reviews will help you with improving your product the most. Don’t take it personally or attack the person on the other end. It will only harm your business in the long run.
Negative reviews also make your review profile more believable. 4 to 4.5 stars are the best. Having a 5-star rating seems too good to be true.
Source: FinancesOnline
Here are a few do’s when it comes to negative reviews.
- Be Polite
Always respond to negative reviews politely – no matter what.
We suggest starting by thanking the other person for their feedback, and apologizing for the inconvenience.
This shows customers that you listen to them and care about them.
Also, remember that your potential buyers are watching, and your response to negative comments gives them a glimpse of how you handle customer complaints.
Source: Loop
- Respond Quickly
Don’t take too long to answer negative comments.
These people have a problem with your product, and they want to hear from you NOW. The sooner you respond, the better.
If it takes too long for you to answer, it may seem that you don’t care about customers.
- Try to Resolve Issues
Don’t focus on winning the argument – that’s never a good idea with reviews. Instead, try to resolve the issue and help your customers.
It doesn’t matter who’s going to win the argument – it’s not about that at all!
BONUS: Check Competitors’ Negative Reviews Too!
We also suggest looking into competitors’ negative reviews, which can help you gain valuable insights that you can use to improve your SaaS business.
Competitors’ reviews can help you in at least three main ways:
- Positioning based on competitor weaknesses. Using customer reviews to identify weak points of competitors – and then leveraging them to position your own product or service more effectively.
- Identifying common trends. Identify common trends potential customers either dislike or look for, and make sure you’re not repeating the same mistakes.
- Generating more content ideas. Find out what the pain points and problems of your competitors’ customers are, and create relevant content to directly address these issues.
#4: Feature Reviews on Your Website
Encourage customers to make their purchase by showing positive reviews, which can spark the fear of missing out. We suggest displaying them directly on your landing page.
For instance, here is an example of Jarvis using testimonials on their landing page:
Ideally, you want to include reviews throughout your whole landing page.
That way, your customers can see that you’re not just making big claims – but that you also deliver on your promises – simply by reading testimonials from happy customers. Positive reviews reinforce the potential customer’s belief that they are making the right choice, and make buying of your products a lot easier.
BONUS: Get Video Testimonials
Video testimonials can be a complete game changer for your revenue.
This is because they are extremely trustworthy, allowing potential customers to see a real person talking about your product.
As a result, they drive sales like crazy.
In fact, when you replace your landing page reviews with video reviews, your conversion rate can increase by 80%. Therefore, it’s essential that you make every effort to reach out to your existing customers and shoot a video with them.
Ready to Maximize Conversions With Reviews?
Customer reviews will make your product irresistible.
They will reinforce customers’ buying decisions and lead to measurably improved profitability for your SaaS business.
We hope you’ve found this guide useful as an overview of customer reviews and their importance for SaaS businesses. Feel free to connect with us by joining our email list (form at the bottom of this page and our homepage) or by Tweeting @alexjpanagis!