The Validity Of Online Reviews Older Than Three Months

Introduction

In a recent study by BrightLocal, they reveal the importance that consumers place on local reviews from other customers. Particularly reviews that have been submitted recently. As the title implies, a vast majority of customers, and top reputation management companies, do not even care about reviews that were left more than three months ago. A substantial number of consumers (approximately 40%) only take into account reviews written within the last two weeks. That number has grown considerably and is up 18% from last year. The study also breaks down the segment that places the most importance on reviews, the number of reviews consumers read on average, and how many reviews they have written themselves. Here is the summary of the main findings from the study.

Results

More and more consumers are regularly searching for local businesses this year in comparison to last year:

• 27% of people searched online daily for a local business (more than double the percentage in 2017)
• 69% of consumers searched online for local businesses monthly (up sharply from 54%)
• 56% of customers searched for local businesses weekly (an increase of 41% since last year)

The same study found that 18-34-year-olds are doing the most searching for local businesses. More than half of this age group search every day, and 81% search every single week. That demographic is also responsible for reading the most reviews – 50% of 18-34-year-olds always and only read online reviews. By comparison, just 6% of people aged 55+ even read consumer reviews. Overall, 86% of all consumers read reviews for local businesses at least occasionally prior to doing business with a company. Across all demographics, the same study found that customers are more likely to read reviews for restaurants and cafes than any other business interaction. Reviews for clothing stores, grocery stores, and hotels are also frequently read by all demographics, prior to doing business. Many consumers read 4 or more reviews per week. On average, consumers will read 10 reviews of a local business per month. This means, if you are in the business world, it is imperative that you maintain a healthy online reputation. If your customer has a complaint, you need to address it immediately or customers will be making posts and others will be reading about their displeasure.

Moving Forward

As the online review writing and reading increases, you will need to take those into account when doing market research. As the older generations pass on, the new generation will learn from their parents to check online reviews prior to doing business. This means that top reputation management companies will have a harder time than ever trying to maintain your reputation. If there is a silver lining, for now at least, it can be said that at least the people will not be reading reviews from more than three months ago. So, if you do have a negative review, the effects will not be long-lasting. This is being mirrored by Google searches, where we have found that most customers do not even bother clicking on the second page. Slowly, we are finding a lot of customers are not even bothering to scroll past the first images displayed on their screen. That being said, take care of your customers and your online reputation, and they will take care of you.