This article offers tips and strategies for effective customer review management to improve your online reputation.
Running a business comes with many challenges. While a business always wants to get customer reviews, there is an ever-growing need to manage customer reviews online, too.
Since most customers will interact with a business for the first time on the internet, having an effective customer review management strategy is a must.
Companies spend a great deal of money and time on advertising and sales campaigns to advertise their brand. However, word-of-mouth marketing is both free and powerful. As customers talk about their interactions with your brand and leave reviews or feedback online, the word spreads to others, including potential customers.
It’s important to know what others are saying about your brand and to have a review management strategy in place that covers how to handle both positive reviews and negative reviews.
NetReputation provides information and services to help you protect your digital presence. Call us at 844-461-3632 to learn more, or fill out the contact form below for a free consultation.
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What is Customer Review Management?
Customers will leave online reviews whether or not you know about it, and they don’t need your permission to share their experience with your brand. This is why it’s in your best interest to keep tabs on your online reputation and the conversation circulating about your business.
While you can’t change what people say about your business in personal, one-on-one discussions, you can take action on online reviews and customer feedback on public platforms.
It’s imperative to stay proactive when it comes to review and reputation management. Don’t wait until after something happens to take action.
You can take control of your online reputation, whether you’re working on your personal reputation or your professional digital presence. Call us at 844-461-3632 for more information.
Adding an Online Reviews Section to Your Site
Customer review segments on websites are becoming more and more popular. Having a customer feedback area on your brand website provides your clients with a space to assess your product or service. It also shows them that their opinions matter to you.
When it comes to where to place the customer feedback section, you may not want it prominently displayed on the home page of your site. While you want to show off positive reviews, negative reviews are bound to occur, too. The last thing you want is to make the wrong first impression when someone visits your site.
Instead, place the online reviews section on a dedicated page that you link to from your site’s menu. You can always take stellar online reviews and place them on the homepage as testimonials and social proof for your business.
What Happens If I Receive Negative Feedback?
Always remember that negative comments and bad customer reviews are bound to appear online, even if the review portal is right on your business website. This is a normal part of running a business. The best thing to do is remain positive, attempt to resolve the issue, and work to generate more positive reviews in the future.
It’s simply not possible to please everyone all the time. And unfortunately, most people are more likely to leave a negative review about a poor experience than they are to leave positive feedback about a great experience.
Most of the time, customers want their voices heard when something negative happens, as they want the brand to make it right. There’s less of a reason to leave great feedback when everything goes smoothly.
All is not lost when it comes to negative business reviews. You can actually use them to your benefit. By listening to customer complaints, you may be able to identify recurring issues that many other customers are facing, whether or not they’re posting about them online.
On the same note, positive testimonials on your website, Google reviews, Facebook, and other platforms give you the chance to spread the word and show your audience how happy your customer base is.
Take the Feedback Seriously
It’s vital that you listen to what’s being said about your brand. This allows you to proactively and efficiently run your business and handle reputation management.
When you read a negative customer review, you’ll have a chance to respond and do a little damage control. Even if you receive irrational criticism, be sure to respond with professionalism and do not berate, belittle, or be impolite to the client.
Bear in mind that anything and everything you do online has an impact on your reputation and your personal character since you are your own brand.
Customer reviews online, both solicited (review areas on your site, for example) and unsolicited (discussions happening on social networking websites and in business forums), offer feedback for business owners in regard to how their business is being experienced and observed by its core audience.
While responding to negative customer reviews online is not always fun, it shows the rest of your audience that you care about what others have to say about you.
Expert Tips for Proactive Customer Review Management
Nowadays, it seems like everybody is a critic. It’s becoming harder and harder to sift through a large number of online reviews on popular sites like Google and Tripadvisor. As a business owner, though, you should fully embrace the concept of customer review management.
Businesses that rely on their geographic location for their success are especially impacted by reviews. BrightLocal found that 91% of consumers say their overall perception of big brands is impacted by reviews of local branches. Plus, 36% of consumers use two review sites when researching local businesses, and 41% use at least three sites
When those reviews were posted matter, too. The “sort by newest” feature on Google reviews is the most useful, according to 47% of consumers.
If you have a location-based business, online reviews can be your lifeline. Handle them with care, not rash judgment.
Yes, it can be stressful as you work to increase your positive star ratings. However, this process is a marathon, not a sprint.
By ensuring that your employees are delivering nothing but the best customer service, you’ll have to expend less effort to encourage positive reviews over time. Why? Because they’ll begin to roll in on their own.
It works the other way too, though. If your brand or customer support team leaves something to be desired, negative feedback and poor online reviews will start to flow in at a rapid pace.
Strategies for Professional Customer Review Management
We’re going to jump into these in more detail, but to get the ball rolling, here are must-have elements for your review management strategy:
1. Stop taking customer remarks personally. It’s not about you — it’s about them.
2. Online review curation is a long-term strategy. Don’t ignore reviews now or later.
3. Make sure to write thoughtful, personalized review responses, and always keep it professional.
4. Ensure that key support team members are notified whenever new online reviews are posted. This way, they can manage reviews in real-time (or as quickly as possible).
5. Employ third-party online reputation management companies to assist with review management.
At NetReputation, we work with individuals and businesses to help them build and take control of their online reputation. Give us a call at 844-461-3632 to learn more.
Welcome Customer Feedback
Monitor review sites using Google Alerts, which is absolutely free. You can also work alongside a reputation management agency to track all mentions of your business on the internet. Here at NetReputation, we issue monthly reports, position and ranking updates, 24/7 customer support, and much more.
Always Work to Generate More Reviews
Most satisfied clients will not take the opportunity to post a review if you don’t expressly ask them to. Make it simple by automatically emailing customers after they make a purchase and asking them to leave a review. This simple strategy can dramatically boost the number of favorable reviews you generate.
Improve Your Overall Online Reputation
Be certain to display a View Our Reviews button prominently on your site and on social networking pages. This provides a compelling call-to-action for clients to read and write reviews. To begin, create a new web page that lists your testimonials. Make sure they will be updated automatically via an RSS feed from review sites — this way, you won’t have to add them manually.
Respond to Customer Reviews (Good and Bad)
Create a policy for responding to adverse customer reviews, and designate an individual to serve as the spokesperson in these circumstances. Every time a negative review arises, have that team member react in a timely manner. Here are a few tips for how to respond to an upset customer:
- Take the conversation offline. Using their contact information, which is likely in your database, get the conversation started by leaving them a personalized message.
- Acknowledge their dissatisfaction. Whether or not you agree with their feedback, review management involves making the customer feel heard.
- Explain how you want to solve the problem. For example, you can give them a refund and allow them to keep the product, or you can offer a discount code on their next purchase.
- Reply publicly to the original review. Let the reviewer and the public know that you’re taking steps to remedy the situation.
The food service industry is a good example of how to appease unhappy customers. Oftentimes, restaurants will not charge guests if they’re unhappy with their experience. This type of financial loss is expected from time to time, and it’s a way to safeguard their business’s reputation. Losing money on a meal here and there isn’t nearly as problematic as losing that customer for good.
While you should always deal with negative feedback proactively, it’s also important to reply to positive reviews. Keep these statistics in mind: 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all reviews, both positive and negative, while only 47% would use a business that doesn’t respond to its reviews.
Customer Review Management Software for Businesses
By using customer review software, you can streamline the process of generating and managing online reviews. Common features of review management software include:
- Collection of Online Reviews: Customers are automatically contacted and asked to leave reviews through email, SMS or website calls-to-action.
- Multi-Platform Integration: You can gather reviews from various sources online, including Facebook and Google reviews, your own website’s feedback page, and more.
- Response Management: This software lets business owners and customer service teams quickly respond instead of having to go to each review site separately.
- Review Display: You can have recent positive reviews showcased on your website, social media profiles, and other marketing materials.
- Review Management: Customer feedback is organized in one easy-to-use dashboard for managing online reviews.
- Sentiment Analysis: Many programs to manage reviews have AI-powered analysis to identify the overall sentiment of your brand and identify trends.
Customer review management software empowers small business owners to stay engaged with their clients and customers through regular communication.
Final Thoughts: Review and Reputation Management
Your reputation and professional reputation management are crucial to having your company recognized and trusted online.
Moreover, Google reviews can have a serious impact on your business page ranking. The more positive reviews your business has, the easier it will be to find your business when searching online. That can make a big impact — DataReportal found that, according to more than 45% of internet users, one of the main reasons for going online is to research products and brands.
Additionally, when searching for a local business, Google reviews are displayed along with the rest of the business information.
At NetReputation, we provide a broad range of services to individuals and businesses who want to create, grow or repair their digital reputation. Whether you’re prioritizing your personal or professional online reputation, our solutions and team of experts can help.
Our ORM services include content removal, review management, branding, content creation and more. It’s time to take back control of how people perceive you online so you can attract the opportunities you deserve.
We offer ORM solutions for individuals as well as businesses. Get started today with a free consultation with one of our experts. Call us at 844-461-3632 or fill out the contact form below.
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by Net Reputation
NetReputation was founded in 2014 by Adam Petrilli, a results-driven leader dedicated to empowering individual and business success on the web. Our award-winning process and team of online reputation management specialists allow us to remove, suppress, repair, and monitor your online presence. Within our first two years, we were recognized by some of the world’s leading business publications for our company growth. Today, NetReputation operates offices in Sarasota, Florida; and Kansas City.