Stop Leaving Revenue on the Table: Turn Customer Reviews Into Your Sales Superpower

Did you miss our recent "Unlocking Sales Success" webinar with ZoomInfo? Let's hope you were busy closing a big deal.  

The good news is that I’ve rounded up some of my favorite takeaways for sales leaders from my discussion with Alexandria Snow, G2's director of solutions marketing, and Ben Salzman,  ZoomInfo's EVP, GTM Strategy & ZI Labs.

As someone who's led enterprise SaaS sales teams for years, I know how important it is to build trust and relationships with prospects if you want them to choose your solution, especially in crowded markets. And one of the best ways to do that is by bringing customer reviews to the forefront of key conversations with your accounts. 

Forget thinking of reviews as just a marketing afterthought. We're talking about actionable intelligence that directly fuels your sales motion. 

Here are the three game-changing insights every sales leader needs to implement now to accelerate their deals and drive more pipeline.

1. Customer reviews help you build more trust with prospects at crucial points in the sales process

The truth is that buyers trust their peers more than they’ll trust a sales pitch from one of us. 

In fact, recent research from G2 found that 31% of buyers name review sites as their most consulted information source, and 80% leverage customer testimonials right at the beginning of their decision process when building their initial shortlist. And buyers often narrow down their shortlist to just one or two options before they even book a demo. 

That’s why it’s crucial to equip your AEs with authentic, third-party validation for your solution at every stage of your sales process, especially in the early stages. Customer reviews help increase brand awareness and directly impact your pipeline velocity and win rates. 

Using customer reviews and the insights they generate in your outreach and early-stage conversations can be the ultimate deal accelerator.

2. Even negative reviews offer sales opportunities

Think about the last time you looked up reviews for a new restaurant you wanted to try. 

Besides skimming the four-star reviews, did you also scroll to some of the one-star reviews to help you decide whether to make a reservation? And did you spend the most time reading the 3-star reviews, which were more neutral in rating but had a lot of detail about the service and the food itself?

Foodies and software buyers have this in common: They spend more time reading reviews between the bad and good sides of the spectrum. 

Why? As Snow pointed out, “A middling review that gives a good list of pros and cons paints a much clearer picture [for prospects] about what it's like working with you, and it's going to give your audience more information." And you can use that to your advantage in sales conversations.

But what about the dreaded one-star reviews?

Smart sales leaders don't hide from negative feedback; they embrace it. Prospects are already reading these reviews. 

Addressing concerns proactively in conversations demonstrates transparency and builds trust. Even better, mentioning product improvements to show how you've acted on feedback transforms potential objections into compelling selling points. 

As Ben Salzman shared, "Every signal is a valuable signal … It's about rolling up all the reviews or the lack of reviews into a comprehensive view of what the account is doing or not doing, and how it feeds into scoring. Often, it's really informative to see a negative review and determine that maybe now is not the right time to reach out to a particular account or there's some other angle that we have to take to get there."

"Don't be afraid to respond [to negative reviews],” Snow added. “Don't argue with them. Always thank them for their feedback, then give that information to your product team."

3. Combining review insights with other data enables more intelligent sales targeting

Imagine a world where you know who fits your ideal customer profile and who is actively showing purchase intent right now. 

By combining your CRM data (first-party), review platform insights (second-party like G2), and market intelligence (third-party like ZoomInfo), you create a revolutionary sales intelligence ecosystem.

Ben Salzman gave this example: "If I know that a company has signed up on the website and we recently had a call with them when their sentiment was mixed, and they recently were exploring reviews on G2, and they recently hired a CMO … that is a very different set of context than I think most companies are going in [to discussions] with today."

He also emphasized that "AI has unlocked the possibility to go way farther in combining all these different signals and attributes together." 

This intelligence matrix lets your team prioritize accounts based on fit and active buying signals, creating the perfect opportunity for sales success. 

Snow also pointed out the value of competitive insights, advising, "You should be on your competitors' pages. You should see what they're putting in because you want to know what their customers are saying about them, and you might just get an end to a great lead."

Put reviews into action on your next prospect call

The bottom line for sales leaders? Peer-to-peer reviews are no longer a passive marketing asset. They are a valuable source of account intelligence and a powerful tool for your sales team at every stage of the funnel. 

From a sales perspective, peer-to-peer review sites are more than just a way for someone to research. They influence buyer decisions through your executive advisory board, AI results, or the trackable attributable funnel.

So stop leaving revenue on the table. It's time to integrate these strategies into your sales playbook and empower your team with the voice of your satisfied customers.

Watch the complete "Unlocking Sales Success" webinar recording for all the strategies, real-world examples, and implementation tips from our expert panel!