You’ve heard the saying “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” or maybe “What you don’t know may hurt you.” But whichever version you prefer, when it comes to the world of online reviews, “What you ignore may kill you.”
Our clients fight the same battle most small business owners fight – a tiny percentage of your customers who complain online about how you ripped them off, did a rotten job, or sold them junk. You may think that the bad reviews are the problem, and you wish they would just go away. But there are better ways to confront bad reviews. Communicate with your staff to improve the customer experience, and hire a marketing team to manage your reviews proactively.
A recent consumer survey reported that 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is the most important factor when assessing a business through reviews.
What you may not realize is that you don’t have to let bad reviews pile up. With today’s technology and your ability to immediately engage with a customer via email or text, you should be taking advantage of the opportunity to follow up with customers after the sale, after the delivery, and after a key interaction. By embracing and utilizing customer feedback, you’ll create pathways for positive reviews online and initiate the opportunity for service recovery immediately after a customer interaction. This not only allows your business to improve the customer experience but can potentially mitigate the situation and avoid a negative online review. This is the modern way of engaging with your audience.
To give you more insight, we have some helpful tips on how to manage your audience.
How It Begins
It begins with simple and smartly designed software. The software system allows you to be the first to offer customers an avenue for feedback.
How You Manage Reviews
Great reviews on well-known review sites encourage new customers; bad reviews come back to you to address. Long before bad reviews surprise you online, you are already aware of the issues at hand, addressing them effectively and turning a bad situation into the beginning of a positive relationship.
How Your Reputation Grows
Once reviews are directed to online review sites, your star rating naturally grows while you capture the positive reviews to display on your own page.
What if you stopped ignoring the bad reviews and addressed them instead? When a bad review is given, it can be dealt with before it impacts your online reputation. You can communicate directly with the consumer who had a poor experience. Many people don’t know this is possible and even more, don’t know how to do this effectively. But when you do, you will change how people perceive your business and how the staff takes ownership of the relationships. As you improve customer relations, you improve your ratings.
To learn more about this tremendous improvement in online review and brand management, contact us at Riley & You.
Your reviews should be the best reflection of your business. Using a sophisticated reputation management system, our experts will get your reputation back on track, and help keep your ratings high.
