A new survey that has polled heavy UK FinTech hitters like Monzo and Habito suggests that customer reviews may be more important than innovation.
Trustpilot, the customer review platform, came to this conclusion after surveying 56 startup and 87 scaleup businesses. The answers came from around the world with 45% coming from North America, 43% from Europe, 5% from Asia Pacific and the last 7% coming from other places around the globe.
Of the people polled, 21% had been asked by investors to provide customer centricity proof points such as ratings and reviews. Moreover, 31% said positive reviews and social proof are critical for generating interest from investors. A further 52% believed this was important.
“These ratings show potential investors that a company is interested in engaging with customers and improving on what they have to say; that they’re not solely about raising revenue,” said Roberto Napolitano, marketing director at Seedrs, the crowdfunding platform. “Ratings are a very powerful tool for investors to take the pulse of a potential investment to see if anything needs to be improved.”
Additionally, 35% said ratings and reviews were critical for converting prospects into new customers. A further 57% said they customer reviews were important or quite important.
Alan Duncan, VP consumer marketing at Trustpilot, said: “At one point, innovation was enough to secure investment in the latest FinTech startups. Not anymore. The majority of FinTech startups are now prioritising a transparent, customer-centric approach from day one, listening and engaging with consumers to fuel their product and service innovations, and in turn, making them more attractive to investors. More than ever, startups are expected to show proof of consumer engagement to investors and this has made the role of online reviews essential for startups.”
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