Research shows that consumers are looking increasingly often at testimonials of others before they buy something. The consumer is even willing to pay a quarter more for a product that has a positive rating. Of course that means the product needs to have been judged by a large group of visitors and have a substantially higher grade.

Of the people who visit price comparison sites, 75% reads the testimonials and 24% writes them. Of this last group 63% leaves a positive report and 11% leaves a negative one. The customer likes to write positive reports. Companies that ‘keep their promises’ are valued the highest.

Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article

Consumers are allowing themselves to be more and more influenced by companies that tell stories through advertisement. Instead of this they start to listen to other people, just like in the era before the mass-communication. For now they’re just general testimonials, but soon they’ll be chiefly from what trusted relations (friends (of friends), family, or colleagues) thought of the products. That’s not so far away now.

• in Dutch