
CUSTOMER REVIEWS: TYPES AND EXAMPLES OF HOW THEY APPEAR ON A PAGE
Customer reviews are an effective form of social proof of a product’s quality for any business. On one hand, information from customers helps to learn about the needs of the target audience and improve the product or service. On the other hand, customers’ opinions greatly influence potential clients’ perceptions of your company. Often, reviews are trusted more than expensive advertising and informative descriptions. However, for business success, it is important to regularly collect reviews and place them correctly.
What We Will Discuss
- Customer Reviews: Their Types and Examples of How They Appear on a Page
- Types of Reviews
- How to collect and process reviews?
- Website Section for Customer Reviews: Useful Tips for Presentation
- Services and Channels for Collecting Reviews
- Conclusions
Why All Customer Reviews Are Important
Customer reviews are information, ideas, positive impressions, and complaints about products or services. They are an integral part of the customer experience, helping to improve processes and increase customer satisfaction.

It’s a big mistake to ignore reviews about the company and to use template designs for fake comments on the site. Properly presented real reviews perform several important tasks.
- They reveal the flaws of products and services and the possibilities for quality improvement.
- They allow a better understanding of the target audience, refine products, services, website functionality, or app, etc.
- They increase brand recognition, promote the site through SEO, attracting free traffic, and allow potential customers to learn about the company from search engine results.
- They act like word-of-mouth, spreading information on social networks or through other channels. This applies to both positive and negative comments.
Although a comment about a product or service or even a scandalous review may not only be harmless but can even promote the brand, negative feedback should be carefully managed. Do not delete comments criticizing your product or service. Instead, provide a constructive response to each remark.
📌 Read the article: How to Work with Conflict Clients
If a customer points out a real mistake by the staff or the product was defective, offer a discount, a gift, or another pleasant bonus. This will increase the loyalty of the target audience, including those users who had not previously approached you but came across reviews about the company.
Reviews can be divided into two categories — passive and active. The first type includes those provided by customers without solicitation. The second type is feedback obtained, for example, by conducting surveys or questionnaires.
Collecting and processing reviews can be part of a business’s marketing strategy within SERM (Search Engine Reputation Management) — managing reputation in search engines. Do not limit yourself to monitoring existing company reviews online; encourage clients to leave text, video unboxing, or video testimonials about a product or service. In return, a discount on the next purchase can be offered.
“One of the biggest keys to business success in the 21st century is building an online reputation because if you don’t have an online presence, how will potential customers find you?”
Victoria Csiga, “11 Types of Customer Reviews and How to Get Them”
According to Zendesk research, 50% of consumers stated that after a poor experience with a particular company, they would switch to its competitor. You can prevent this by promptly responding to bad reviews and analyzing comments about your competitors, staying ahead in meeting customer needs.
Types of Reviews
Let’s look at the main types of customer reviews.
Customer Reviews on Social Networks
Publishing reviews on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social networks can expose your company to thousands of users. This includes quotes from clients and case studies on the business’s official page, as well as posts tagged in influencer profiles.
This is often where many entrepreneurs, especially owners of small shops, begin. They offer their products as gifts or with a significant discount to bloggers or people somehow related to their business field. This then leads to a series of reviews featuring unboxing, product presentations, before-and-after results, or other formats depending on the product’s specifics. Sometimes such promotions last several days, starting with a series of stories and ending with a giveaway on the blogger’s page.
To simplify the search for information about your business on social media, create a branded hashtag and ask every customer to tag your page and include it in their review.
Detailed Customer Reviews
A four-star review in which the customer thoroughly describes what they like and dislike can be more impactful than a five-star review where the customer simply states that your product is great without giving details. Firstly, a detailed story is more realistic and builds more trust with readers. Secondly, consumers find themselves in these detailed stories, recognizing their needs and finding answers to their questions.
On the other hand, detailed information from a customer helps the business improve and eliminate flaws, reflects the criteria for choosing products, and outlines the portrait of the target audience.
To receive informative reviews, create a questionnaire or a rough review template and ask customers to fill out the form or write a text or record a video following your plan.
Customer Stories
Storytelling in reviews attracts attention due to the interesting presentation of information and the presence of a narrative. Some businesses promote their websites exclusively through intermediary pages between contextual advertising and the landing page. They feature stories about how a product or service has improved a user’s life. Photographs enhance trust. This format is similar to reviews, for instance, texts describing various gadgets, software, etc.
Customer Quotes
Quoting is appropriate in social networks, case-study articles, and directly on the homepage of the website. Avoid something generic like “This is the best clothing store”. A more effective comment might be, “Here I found ready-made summer outfits that I wore for several years because the fabric is really quality. They also helped me choose an outfit for a holiday”.
Case Studies
The case study method is predominantly used in psychology and scientific research, but in some cases, it can serve as the basis for native advertising. Case studies are based on the analysis, resolution, and discussion of both hypothetical and real situations. In marketing, it’s important to focus the reader’s attention on an individual client’s experience to convince others of how your product or service can positively impact their lives.
Case studies describe a customer’s problem in detail and then how your product or service solved it. It’s not suitable for all business sectors. However, for example, in the skincare industry, a story about a facial serum detailing each ingredient with quotes and photos from the user appears more convincing than a simple review.
Photo Reviews
Only some consumers read long articles and trust text reviews. Others pay attention only to evidence in the form of photographs, for example, “before and after” formats. Photos from different angles are often used in reviews of clothing, shoes, accessories, and home goods. For services, such as marketing, images might be in the form of analytical graphs showing improvements in client results.
Video Reviews
A video where someone openly talks about a product or service they used is perhaps the most credible proof of product quality. Video reviews are often featured on websites, prominently on the main page. In social networks, this format is quite popular in stories tagged with the store.
Interviews with Customers
A conversation that discusses the qualities of a product can be presented in the form of a video or an article with photos.
Brand Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are people who enhance the popularity of a company online through their presence in social networks and providing social proof of the benefits of a product or service. Ambassadors defend the business’s reputation from defamation and “enliven” it.
Influencers are people with a large number of followers on social networks who can influence public opinion, thus they can be extremely useful as brand messengers. For a long time, only large companies chose “faces”, inviting stars to this role. But now, even emerging stores on social networks engage bloggers to popularize the brand among their followers. Unlike one-time advertising, the work of an ambassador involves “loyalty” to a particular company. For example, if an influencer promotes children’s clothing from a specific manufacturer, they may demonstrate only this brand, not advertising competitors.
📌 Read the article: Who is an Influencer?
Blog Posts as Customer Reviews
Spread and save in highlights posts and stories on Instagram about your products or services. A good method of brand popularization, which also improves SEO, is mentions of the company on thematic web resources. Hyperlinks to your site from authoritative sources enhance its rating in search engine results.
User Content
Funny memes, forum comments, and viral YouTube videos can all serve as unique reviews that also convey customers’ impressions of a product and the company overall.
Mobile App Ratings
For companies with a proprietary app, ratings or reviews in it are an integral part of the brand. Give customers the opportunity to leave ratings directly on the screen, selecting an option in a popup. An important advantage of an immediate feedback request is reducing the likelihood that a dissatisfied customer will leave a negative review on an external web resource.
How to Collect and Process Reviews?
You should ask every customer for feedback, individually clarifying whether they were satisfied with the outcome. For large companies, automatic email surveys are an ideal solution. If your customer base is small in size, personal communication with a manager or directly with the specialist will be the optimal solution to get an honest review.
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve”. These words belong to Bill Gates, and they apply to all spheres of our lives, including business. Without tracking customer reactions to our products or services, we cannot scale, remain competitive, and be interesting to our target audience.
“Feedback is information received directly from customers about your business, services, or products. Microsoft’s 2017 State of Global Customer Service report showed that 77% of consumers trust brands more that seek feedback from customers”.
David Campbell, “10 Types of Customer Feedback”
Before making a first order, potential customers might monitor information about your company online. Even if they find well-presented and exclusively positive reviews on the site, consumers are likely to search for negatives in other sources, analyzing information on Google. A skeptical attitude to what is read on the official site or specialized review resources is common among many people.
To ensure that a poor rating of your product or service does not repel new customers and does not hinder expanding the customer base, respond to consumer complaints by providing reasoned explanations for each comment. Show that you are trying to resolve your customers’ problems and improve the product. This will allow others to understand your customer orientation.
Website Section for Customer Reviews: Useful Design Tips
The design of the reviews section depends on the business field and type of website. However, there are several key elements that should be included in the reviews section in any case:
- Title and brief introduction.
- The reviews themselves, arranged either chronologically or by rating. The newest or highest-rated reviews can be placed first to make them more visible.
- Customer photos.
- Information about each review’s author, such as name, surname, and a link to their social media profile, should only be provided with the customer’s consent.
- A “Leave a Review” button and a form for submitting a review. If there is no option to submit one’s own comment on the page, visitors might doubt the authenticity of the information published in the section.
- Use of quotes. Select the most interesting or most positive statements from the reviews and visually highlight them. Quotes can also be used on the homepage or in the case studies or portfolio section.
- Links to social media or external platforms. If you have positive reviews on your company’s social media pages or other external platforms, you can link to them on your website.
Remember, it’s important to be open to a variety of reviews, both positive and negative. This gives you the opportunity to consider your customers’ feedback and improve your products or services. Do not limit yourself to just praise and publish only positive reviews — mix good reviews with detailed comments mentioning certain negative or neutral points.
Services and Channels for Collecting Reviews
Customer reviews can come from various channels, such as Instagram stories and direct messages, surveys, emails, interactions at exhibitions, fairs, and other offline events, interviews with users, app ratings, comments on social media, etc. Sometimes, a detailed review can be obtained by speaking with a customer over the phone. This is easier if you have a small company or a quality department.
There are many services that help collect reviews from clients and users. Here are a few popular services for collecting reviews:
- Google My Business. Suitable for local businesses with physical outlets, including restaurants. Customers can leave reviews directly on your Google page.
- Yelp. Particularly popular with restaurants, hotels, beauty salons, etc. This service allows users to leave ratings, comments, and photos.
- Facebook Reviews. If your business has a Facebook page, you can activate a feature that allows users to leave their ratings and reviews about your company.
- TripAdvisor. If you are involved in tourism or the hotel business, make sure to use one of the most popular platforms for collecting reviews.
- Clutch. Business representatives can find verified reviews from other entrepreneurs here. This is an ideal solution for finding B2B services, especially for choosing IT specialists, marketers, designers. The service allows conducting interviews and choosing the best candidates.
Depending on the industry, you can choose specialized platforms for collecting reviews. For instance, for restaurants, services like OpenTable or Zomato may be useful.
These services will help you collect reviews from clients and users, which will contribute to improving the reputation of your business and providing valuable information for potential customers.
What to Do with a Bad Review: Expert Comment
The first thought for a business owner might be to delete a bad review. However, this should not be done, especially if the review is justified and from a real user. Use it to your advantage, and learn from it if the review is fair.
Once, I was called “the worst HR in someone’s life”. It would have been fair to note that I was actually the first HR in that person’s life. Well, now this has become my go-to story when discussing hiring, because, as I am not HR and never have been, I point out that I am the best marketer and the worst HR. This defuses tension in conversations with clients and colleagues and has been beneficial to me more than once. So, in a way, I am even thankful for such a comment.
Collect all reviews and respond to each one because clients can find them in the most unexpected places.
For negative comments, provide a personal phone number or email so that the person can reach out if they didn’t leave their own contact details. Respond to anonymous comments as well, because your potential clients are watching how you handle negativity. I myself constantly look mostly at negative reviews and make a decision whether I would enjoy working with that business, even a rating of 3.5 out of 5 sometimes looks better in the best companies than refined fake fives from bots.
Examples of Review Presentation
The “Reviews” section is one of the most crucial components of a commercial website. Although many business owners neglect this and limit themselves to Google reviews or social media feedback, it’s advisable not to deprive your company of the opportunity to increase customer loyalty through well-presented reviews.
Marketing agencies often provide good examples of how customer reviews should be presented. Regardless of your business’s field of activity, you can model the structure of such websites and borrow ideas for design and content. After all, these pages are developed by professionals who understand consumer psychology well.
Metra Reviews Examples
Metra is a company involved in the production and sale of grain cleaning equipment worldwide. The reviews section begins with a telling headline: “Reviews from local farmers who recouped their investments in the very first season”.
Next, we see video reviews accompanied by textual descriptions.
At the bottom of the page, there are standard text reviews. The final block is a lead form with a call to action to get a consultation from a specialist.
How SEPHORA Collects and Displays Reviews
An optimal way to present reviews for an online store with a large assortment is to place them on each product page. You can see an example in SEPHORA’s catalog.
Reviews for a hydrating face primer start with the product rating and customer photos. Clicking on any of the images will show the textual review and more photos. After that, regular text reviews with the user rating for the product are published.
“See this in real life”, “Mention @sephora for a chance to be featured, or upload your photo”, invite the headline and descriptor at the bottom of the page. Here, you can view customer photos and add your own.
How HubSpot Handles Reviews
The review section about HubSpot begins with a description that mentions another form of social proof of product quality — platform awards: “We are customer-focused, so their word is everything to us. We are grateful to our customers whose voices have brought awards to the HubSpot platform on Gartner Peer Insights, G2, TrustRadius, and more”.
As you scroll down the page, you can learn more about the awards and other achievements of the company.
The reviews themselves are formatted as quotes with the logos of the client companies. Below each text block, there is an opportunity to reach out to HubSpot by filling out a lead form.
“How we rank among competitors on G2”, “We are in Gartner’s magic quadrant!”, “Service Hub — a leader in customer service” — reviews are interspersed with informative and persuasive visualizations of the company’s achievements.
Turning Negative Reviews into Positives: Humor
2. The text on the second image: “Come try the worst coffee one woman on TripAdvisor ever had in her life”.
Conclusions
- Customer reviews are one of the most effective marketing tools. They stimulate the interested audience to convert into clients. Detailed reviews and stories of customer experience show how well the product solves consumers’ problems. However, to achieve desired results, it’s essential to regularly monitor reviews on external web resources and process them. Respond to praise and address criticism. By doing so, you demonstrate your customer orientation and “enliven” the brand.
- Reviews can be collected in various ways — through online chat, phone conversations, messengers, and emails. Today, social networks are a primary source of customer information for many companies, where people share recommendations and demonstrate products and services in real life.
- Choose the most informative reviews and place them on the official company website, utilizing photos, videos, calls to action, and lead forms in the relevant section. Having such a page will not only increase the loyalty of potential customers but also promote the organic growth of the site.