Presales - Why You Need to Know Your Customer Reviews

Customer reviews on platforms like Capterra or G2 have become the primary channel for your prospective buyers to gather information about your company and prepare their shortlist.

In fact, 98% of buyers read customer reviews before making a purchase decision, according to Gartner.

And 46% do so before even contacting sales during their research.

This tells us two things:

1. Customer reviews are important, and you should be visible on the main platforms.
2. In presales, you need to know what your customers are publicly sharing about you because your prospects will read that input and come to your calls and demos with a certain bias.

Let's take an example and have a look at G2.

Here, we are looking at customer reviews for HubSpot.

And the second question they ask their reviewers is about "What do you NOT like about HubSpot?"

Not sure if this is my little inner German, but this is exactly the kind of input I'm looking for when purchasing any new tool.

I don't care about fake 5-star reviews.

But genuine, negative feedback is what helps me make up my mind.

And your customers will likely do the same thing.

I don't want to blame HubSpot here, but this is what your customers are looking at when going through your reviews.

And as said earlier, 98% will eventually do so!

So, what do you need to do in presales?

Do the exercise and figure out what your customers are saying about you. Identify those patterns and be prepared to address these topics.

I see two options here: Either your prospect will approach you straight away and ask questions about what they have read online.

This is your opportunity to showcase what you have prepared.

If your prospect does not ask about anything specific, turn things around.

Proactively ask them if they have reviewed your testimonials online. And if they have any questions or concerns whatsoever.

Hey prospect - out of curiosity - did you check any review platforms before our demo session? Any questions you have, or any concerns we can address together?

Fishing for concerns might be counterintuitive. But it is significantly more effective to address any doubt straight away, rather than letting them sit and grow with your customer underneath the surface until it's too late.

If they raise concerns about complexity, have a scenario up your sleeve that will showcase to them how easy it is to use your product.

Reviews are super powerful to anticipate what your prospective buyers are worrying about.

Use this to your advantage and be proactive in your approach to get all objections out of your way before they arise.

This post is also available as a video here:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/max-luepertz_capterra-g2-omrreviews-activity-7198685961751343104-mhKW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Five more actionable strategies from Gartners Survey on Buying Trends:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/max-luepertz_buying-trends-for-presalespdf-activity-7195800147736383488-R6LI?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop