Retailers can resolve 90 percent of customer problems, according to Ratepoint CEO Neal Creighton in a video interview with AuctionBytes. Ratepoint provides feedback-management and email marketing services to offline retailers and online merchants. Creighton said in addition to collecting and publishing reviews from customers, his company's services help retailers identify and resolve problems, thereby boosting customer retention.

Publishing reviews on your website is good search engine optimization, experts agree. Search engines such as Google recognize ratings when crawling a merchant's website, if they are published in the correct micro-format, Creighton explained. (See more about Google Product Reviews Program.) Ratepoint also proactively syndicates reviews to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Facebook and Google Maps.

Creighton said reviews are also relevant to social networking, and Ratepoint is integrating Facebook into its review platform. "People's comments really matter to their social circle," Creighton said. Ratepoint also allows merchants to integrate their product and business reviews into their email marketing messages.