Everything you might want to know about online reviews, opinions, ratings, local search and more

Online Review Stats - 2

With the increasing importance of online reviews and how they can affect local search along with business, we decided to create a small reference. The following includes many of the more important statistics related to online reviews, along with local search, customer experience, and will be updated periodically.

Online Review Statistics

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88% trust reviews as much as personal recommendations

Search Engine Land

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72% of buyers will take action only after reading a positive review.

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86% say buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews

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54% of Americans who read online reviews indicate that they pay more attention to extremely negative reviews when trying to make decisions

Pew Research Center

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87% say a business needs a rating of 3-5 stars before they will use them

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68% say positive opinions and reviews make them trust a local business more

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94% of consumers would use a business with a four star rating

64% of marketing executives indicated that they believe word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing.

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95% of consumers suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see bad scores

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90% of consumers read fewer than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business

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Every star a business receives increases business revenue by an average of 5% to 9%

Harvard Business School

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Customers spend 31% more with a business that has “excellent” reviews.

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73% of consumers believe reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant

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90% of consumers think reviews are more important than any information provided by a salesperson.

Influence Central

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Four or more negative reviews can push 70% of your potential customers to your competitors.

Search Engine Land

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‍Customer Experience

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74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.

‍Google, Ogilvy and TNS

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‍High satisfaction rates result in 2-12 times higher recommendation ratings.

Market Force‍

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One happy customer can equal as many as 9 referrals‍

‍American Express

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Loyal customers are 5x as likely to repurchase, 5x as likely to forgive, 7x as likely to try a new offering, and 4x as likely to refer.

Temkin Group‍

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Local Search

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56% of consumers select a business if it has positive ratings/reviews displayed in Google Local Pack

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Local listings that had at least 3+ star reviews took 41 out of 47 clicks

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72% of consumers who searched for local info on a smartphone visited a store within 5 miles