Customer reviews website Word of Mouth Online (WOMO), has gone through a website overhaul following its acquisition by local services marketplace Oneflare.com.au.

WOMO has introduced new enhancements to the platform, designed to improve the overall experience of its 175,000 registered businesses. The changes are aimed at boosting website traffic, increasing customer engagement and driving more reviews from new and existing members.

WOMO is the largest online reviews site in the country. The user-generated review site where people share the experience they have with businesses, both good and bad, has 175,000 businesses and 420,000 reviews and testimonials, more than Truelocal and Yellow Pages.

Improvements to the WOMO platform include the following:

• It now runs twelve times faster (supported by Google Analytics)
• It is more responsive, particularly for tablets and smartphones
• It is better optimised for search engines
• Has a cleaner, fresher look and feel
• Improved searching, browsing and ease of navigation
• An updated Facebook connection for businesses on the Happy Customers Program to share reviews on their business page newsfeed

Marcus Lim, co-Founder and CEO of Oneflare, said the new features of WOMO will strengthen the platform and bring more value to local businesses and reviewers.

“WOMO is the go-to community for advice, reviews and real information from real customers about local businesses – whether they be tradespeople, health clinics, beauty salons, hairdressers, removalists, accountants or mechanic,” he said.

“We found that a lot of its customers wanted to post reviews to WOMO immediately after they had completed the transaction with the business.

“So we wanted to make it easier for them to do so from tablets and smartphones. In turn, customers rely increasingly on these reviews and testimonials when making purchase decisions.”

The new enhancements to the platform will help customers find it easier to browse and interact with the site, which Oneflare anticipates will drive an increase in reviews, searches and browsing on the site.

“Reviews and recommendations are important to businesses, and we know positive reviews bring in more leads. So we wanted to make the platform as easy to navigate through as possible. We also removed tools that people weren’t using and didn’t find useful, such as compliments and messaging between members.”

Oneflare will continue to roll out improvements to WOMO.com.au in coming weeks.