At the time of writing this article Reassured’s Google My Business listing had generated an impressive 2,011 customer reviews with an average rating of 5-stars.

No mean feat in this day and age, when a negative online opinion is never far away. But why is this such a good thing for Reassured, now the UK’s largest life insurance broker?

SEO manager Ben Bendall explains how and why they have harnessed Google reviews to grow their brokerage business and enhance their digital presence.

Google Reviews for Local Ranking

We know that when companies deliver good service they are often rewarded with positive reviews from their customers.

The more positive reviews a business obtains, the more confident Google is that you are a credible business, and Google only wants to serve up trusted results to users. Improving our local ranking and featuring in Google’s 3-pack map results helps generate free and high qualified organic web traffic.

Showing Appreciation for the Customer

As a business we always respond to a customer review on Google, whether it be a 5-stars or a 1-star review. We also have a target of responding within 3 days to ensure the customer feels both appreciated and acknowledged, (although often we reply the same day).

Our responses are always unique, addressing the customer directly and are not a generic blanket reply – which we believe is somewhat insincere and impersonal.

When a customer reviews Reassured online and for example states they would recommend us to their friends and family, this is genuinely the ultimate compliment we can be paid. Especially when you consider we operate in the financial services sector, where authority and trust are vital to people’s financial wellbeing.

Like any business, we do receive the occasional negative customer review. When we receive these on Google we try and get to the bottom of the negative experience, so that we can further improve our customer experience. We ask that the customer in question contacts our dedicated customer service team directly to explain in detail the nature of the compliant.

This is not a cliché response from a corporate organisation, but a genuine attempt to further improve our service.

In fact, sales agents are targeted not just on selling suitable life insurance policies but also hitting quality assurance levels and so a negative Google review could be very damaging.

This is all about making sure the customer is always front and centre at everything we do. We operate the same incentive on Trustpilot too, where we have over 37,000 customer reviews with an average rating of Excellent.

Give the Customer What They Need

Google My Business listings, and to a lesser extent Bing Places listings, provide a great, fast and free way for any business to give their customers’ key information. For example, a website address, phone number, office location and opening times.

During times such as public holidays and especially now during the Convid-19 pandemic, this provides a great platform in which to display an important change in opening times to customers.

Don’t Take It From Us, Take It From Our Customers

Let’s face it, we will always suggest to prospective customers that they should come to Reassured to arrange their life insurance policy. However, this is a much more compelling and powerful marketing message when it is coming direct from independent customer reviews on Google.

About the Author

Ben Bendall is an SEO specialist with 17 years’ experience working within digital marketing. He currently manages the SEO team at Reassured Ltd in their Portsmouth office.

Reassured are an award-winning, FCA regulated life insurance broker. They have sold more than 400,000 life insurance policies since launching in 2009 and are now the UK’s largest life insurance brokerage.

The current retail crisis has created a real demand for speed, convenience and optimization in e-commerce, and in response, retailers are increasingly leveraging tech capabilities to create new ways to engage with consumers and boost satisfaction levels. However, one crucial feature that stands to be improved by online retailers across industries is the checkout process—the last and arguably most important step in the online customer journey.

But which tools and features are best for increasing conversion rates, decreasing cart abandonment, and attracting more customers? A recent guide authored by Addressy outlines the essentials.

Avoid the dreaded cart abandonment

According to the guide, the third biggest driver of cart abandonment is page-loading time, site errors, and crashes. Studies show that a one second delay in page response can result in a seven percent reduction in conversion—meaning every second a site spends loading, businesses lose customers and revenue.

What you can do: Ensure your checkout page is coded to load quickly on both desktops and mobile devices. Faster loading times will help enhance mobile conversion rates—only 16 percent of carts on mobile devices translate to a successful order—and increase company revenue. Additionally, cutting down the number of checkout pages means fewer pages that need to load as a shopper nears the end of their shopping journey. Finally, only request data that is absolutely necessary, that way checkout takes less time overall.

Show shoppers you’re trustworthy

Since online shopping requires customers to provide their personal information and credit card details, retailers need to ensure customers trust them. An online site—particularly the checkout page—is an important tool for building credibility. Shoppers want to feel like their personal and payment information are secure. If they don’t, they’re more likely to abandon their carts.

What you can do: Make product and customer service reviews visible to establish trust and highlight your business’ transparency. When it comes to the checkout page, make sure you promote all security measures and include the logos for payment options—this may seem trivial, but it makes a site appear more legitimate to consumers. Last, always link to customer support pages and FAQs so shoppers know you’re available to answer security questions. This may address concerns before customers end up abandoning their carts.

Mobile optimization

Form fields are a recognizable and necessary part of every online checkout page. Shoppers expect to see spaces to enter their names, addresses, and credit card information. Yet, these fields can often be a major source of customer frustration for a number of reasons. According to Baymard study a “too long/complicated checkout process” is the number two reason shoppers abandon their carts.

What you can do: Cut down the amount of manual typing a customer needs to do at checkout. Businesses that use address verification technology will have no problem doing this—the technology auto-populates forms and provides address options that narrow down with each keystroke. Ensuring all forms are visible and easy to navigate will also optimize the checkout process on a mobile device. Mobile shoppers often waste time zooming in and realigning their screens to view forms.

Make it personalized

Your shopping cart page offers a key opportunity to engage and connect with your customers. Every customer that makes an online purchase, no matter who they are, where they’re located, or what they’re purchasing, must navigate their way through the checkout page. Therefore, including personalized messages and offers at this point is a good way to increase sales and customer satisfaction.

What you can do: Use your checkout page as more than just a place to finalize a sale. Remind customers of products they previously viewed but did not add to their carts. You can also make personalized product recommendations based on search and purchase history. Aside from taking steps to increase the likelihood of a customer purchasing additional items, the checkout page also offers an opportunity to connect with consumers through personalized offers and coupons—increasing customer satisfaction.

Ensuring your checkout page is a seamless, streamlined process can take a significant amount of time and energy. With so many features to choose from and customer preferences constantly changing, it can be difficult to know which tools will translate to a better online experience. Retailers who invest in their checkout pages and keep up with the latest tech capabilities will prosper—improving the customer experience enhances conversion rates and results in a larger, happier customer base.

About the Author

Tom Mucklow leads the Addressy team in offering comprehensive and effective solutions to online shopping and delivery frustrations in the U.S. The cutting-edge address verification platform optimizes and streamlines the checkout process for online retailers and their customers by auto-populating address information, narrowing results with each keystroke, and verifying accurate address data for over 240 countries worldwide. As the leader of Addressy, Tom works to convey the cost-saving, user-experience, and data quality benefits of predictive address verification technology to businesses across the U.S.

He goes..

It’s not ‘unfair’ everyone has the same issues!

If you get it right it’s free worldwide advertising for a little bit of effort, what on earth is anyone moaning about?

Customer feedback is a FACT: this is the new age of the empowered customer: Trip Advisor is just the tip of the iceberg: get used to it,

it’s only going to get more and more!

Trying to fight it is like copying King Cnut … C’nuts!

Accept it, learn how to use it well and you can cut out all your other advertising and watch the money roll in. Fight it and go out of business … it’s that simple, you make the choice.

If people don’t tell you they were upset, but tell Trip Advisor instead, then what they’re telling you actually is: ‘I didn’t trust you enough to tell you: you didn’t encourage me to let you know about any issues, but I’m going to tell someone’: in the old days they’d just tell their mates: today they can tell the world in an instant: you HAVE TO ENCOURAGE feedback to you passionately and effectively.

Some people are crooks (but VERY few): don’t play their game, and don’t let them make you miss the HUGE opportunity here.

If you get a good review: say thanks privately and give them an offer to return at a great rate.

If you get a bad review, say sorry and tell the world what you’ve done about it: we can all understand that you can make mistakes, what we’ll NEVER forgive is you being grumpy and difficult about it.

If you get an unfair review: tell it how it is with courage and courtesy, and inform Trip Advisor.

The more reviews you get, the higher up the rankings you will go.

The more you welcome feedback the more loyal and returning customers you’ll get.

The more you value feedback, the more motivated your staff will be.

It’s not rocket science!

Please note: I don’t work for TA, I don’t get paid by them: this is just my knowledge from extensive research in this area.

About the Author

Guy Arnold is the developer of the “Sales Through Service” system.