Did you know that every six out of ten customers first look at online reviews before availing the services of a local business? Another recent study revealed that over 90 percent of customers do consider online reviews when making a purchase decision.
This is a fascinating insight for all businesses. It shows that apart from focusing on your product and its marketing, you must also strive to increase your positive online reviews while managing negative ones.
Here are four ways you can manage and improve your online reviews.
Follow up with your customers
One of the first steps to online review management is getting reviews to begin with. As human psyche goes, people are more likely to make an effort to write a bad review than a good one. This is why to get positive feedback; you might have to ask for it. Do so right after they have made a purchase. This ensures that the purchase is still fresh in their minds. The more time that passes by, the less excited they might be about the service availed.
Make sure you don’t merely ask for a review when you are following up with your customers. Instead, make the email campaign a part of your overall customer service. Quality customer support can make or break a purchase experience. Reduce post-purchase dissonance through your customer service. Once you have satisfied their requirements, ask them to leave a review as a favor. This method goes a long way in increasing online reviews to your business.
Take control
You might not always want reviews of your business. But, guess what? You will be getting them anyway! Whether it be communities or social media, your target market might be talking about you. And unless you take a proactive role on your review pages, you won’t know about them, and hence respond accordingly.
Therefore, you must take control of all your review pages and social media profiles. Build a strong first impression by creating a professional looking profile with an eye-catching introduction and engaging content. The more professional, completed and active your profile looks, the higher is the chance that people will leave reviews on it.
Make sure to pages on the various review sites. Manage and complete them by updating the relevant information.
Always respond
It is common for businesses to not respond to their positive feedback. While you might think that you already have a loyal customer if they review your business favorably, remember that this may not always be the case. Customers like being valued. And a simple reply where you show gratitude to your client for liking your product and leaving a kind review will go a long way in building loyal customer relationships.
On the other end of the spectrum, you must also appropriately respond to all negative reviews. Do so publicly as well and make sure you don’t take a defensive approach. In the world of businesses and marketing, the customer is always right. So, even if you think that you are not at fault, always apologize to your clients for the inconvenience or hassle they went through. Additionally, make sure to provide them with a solution to their problem or some kind of way forward.
All in all, you need to respond to each of your feedback. And that too publicly. This helps your brand by projecting a positive image of it. Your target audience will be able to see that you are willing to listen to their problems and solve them. Also, the more engaged you are, the more chance there is that your customers will become your brand ambassadors. As we know, people are more likely to listen to other customers than brand communications.
Create an incentive program
If you are unable to drive customers to leave reviews on your website via your content, quick responses, and email campaigns, you might want to consider incentivizing them.
Most customers might not see any benefit from leaving reviews. Others might require a little push from you. In both cases, if you provide rewards to them as an encouragement to leave reviews, it might just work. For instance, you can offer every customer who leaves feedback (regardless of whether it is good or bad) 10 percent off coupon code.
You can either choose to tell them about it or give it as a surprise gift. Either way, it helps create goodwill with customers which increases reviews.
Conclusion
Online reviews are important. Especially in this age when customers are getting skeptical of brand communications and instead relying on communities and word of mouth. Manage your online reviews to ensure that your business does not lose out on customers.
Take control. Ask for feedback. Respond. Incentivize. Once you do so, you will witness significant improvement in your online reviews.
