Igniyte’s Research Reveals UK Businesses Are Spending Thousands to Deal With Online Reviews

Google’s 2011 ZMOT research found that 37% of shoppers find online social sources to be an influential driver when making decisions – meaning online reviews and forum comments are more important than ever to the financial and reputational status of a business.

Sometimes, some of the reviews and comments posted about a business are unsubstantiated or malicious, which can be very harmful to the company – especially if they’re a small to medium sized business.

Without the necessary skills or training, this problem can often be made worse when trying to deal with a complaint or negativity online.

It’s becoming much more difficult for businesses to avoid negative reviews with people able to directly communicate with a company in seconds. Google recently introduced a new feature allowing tweets to be shown in real time in its search results, making it even more important to have an effective online review and social media strategy in place.

Igniyte commissioned a survey of 1,000 business owners and higher managers to find out the true impact of online reviews and forum posts to companies in the UK.

The new findings are compiled in the Business of Reviews report which you can download for free on the Igniyte website here.

Some of the key findings include:

• 51% of UK businesses have been directly affected by malicious online content in the past year, with one in eight believing the problem is getting worse.
• 75% say that online reviews, comments and forum posts are extremely important to the financial status of their business.
• 76% are concerned about the influence of malicious postings on third-party review sites.
• One in five spent more than £30,000 last year trying to deal with online reviews, whilst 30% spent up to £20,000.

For an overview of the findings from the research, take a look at Igniyte’s Business of Reviews infographic.

For more information on the study or if you’d like some advice on implementing your own online review strategy, get in touch with me at simon@igniyte.co.uk or give me a call on +44 (0) 203 542 8689.