Reviews are critical for today’s brands, since they have the ability to attract website traffic and retail customers. Online customer reviews provide you with critical information about your consumers’ experiences, and also show you the best way forward for enhancing your offering. That’s why receiving reviews shouldn’t be a passive experience – it should be something you actively seek out.
Here are a few pointers to help you handle customer reviews wisely:
Don’t be afraid of negative reviews
Having one or two unfavourable reviews legitimises your company in the minds of potential clients. Because no one is flawless all of the time, businesses with only positive feedback may look suspicious. Just ensure to reply appropriately to unfavourable reviews since clever customers may gather additional information about your company, depending on your response.
Solicit feedback from satisfied customers
Your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) suffers if there is a lack of reviews on Google and review sites about your business. While you may be hesitant to ask customers to leave a review because you are afraid of a negative response, you need their feedback.
Post reviews on your website
To authenticate your brand’s performance and drive greater involvement, include reviews, testimonials, and ratings in your sponsored ad messaging. Go a step further by sharing favourable customer feedback with eye-catching graphics on your most prominent social media channels. Someone once said, celebrate your wins, even the little ones.
Maximising Reviews for Success
Managing your internet reviews proactively can significantly impact your business’s marketing and growth. Consider the following three steps to achieve this:
Be aware of what your customers think
The first step is to find out where you’re being reviewed and what others are saying about you. Ensure that your company’s presence on review sites is claimed.
Respond to feedback
You’ll almost certainly come across both favourable and unfavourable feedback. Both might be useful in gaining a deeper understanding of your business and customers. Taking the time to react to both types of feedback will tell potential customers a lot about you.
Sync monitoring and response
You may need to follow up and respond to the most current posts when you first discover where you’ve been reviewed. After that, you can establish a weekly routine for continued monitoring and response. Asking satisfied consumers to provide a review of your business regularly is essential for managing your review cache.
Managing Negative Customer Reviews
While you may be afraid of getting a negative review, there are several ways you can use it to your benefit. To make a positive impression of the company and manage negative customer reviews well, follow these steps:
Always be ready to respond
It’s critical to show prospective consumers that each client is valued and that you understand and sympathise with reviewers, regardless of their issue. You can sincerely care about a customer’s dissatisfaction even though you believe you’ve done nothing wrong.
Don’t delete bad reviews
Instead of deleting a particularly negative review, request that the reviewer contact you personally so you can resolve their issues. This keeps the conversation out of the public eye while demonstrating your desire to respond to problems.
Find patterns
Negative reviews might provide important info about real concerns that need to be addressed for your organisation to prosper. Look for any common issues from reviewers and consider how you may fix them.
Follow up with dissatisfied customers
Check in with a consumer who left a bad review to see whether their problem has been fixed. If that was the case, you would want to ask them to edit their review.
Fake Customer Reviews: How to respond
What’s more aggravating than a slow trickle of negative feedback? Fake reviews. Any rating or testimonial that’s entirely false is a problem for business owners. Fake reviews actually exist, as unjust as they are, you’ll almost certainly have to cope with them at some point.
Spotting Fake Testimonials
Fake reviews can be just as destructive as negative feedback. Still, if you know how to detect them (the major characteristics of false reviews or reviewers), you’ll be prepared to respond publicly in an appropriate manner while also requesting their deletion from the site.
The following are some of the most prevalent characteristics of fraudulent online reviews:
- They are imprecise or generic and lack any factual information.
- They use a lot more verbs than nouns.
- To sound serious, they use a lot of first-person pronouns such as “me” or “I.”
- They’re typically either a five-star or one-star rating.
How to Inspire Positive Feedback
Of course, you desire positive feedback. While you can’t tell customers what to write, there are a few things you can do to positively impact the opinions they share online about your company.
Provide an excellent product or service
Earning raving reviews is the greatest way to get them. When you provide clients with a fantastic service or product and follow that up with excellent customer care, your reviews are likely to reflect this. You may increase your chances of acquiring this feedback by inviting your consumers to share their experiences with your company on social media.
Last line
In the stresses of everyday life, customers with excellent intent to review your company may forget to do so. Sending a text message that links them directly to a review website can be a great reminder. Also, it reduces friction in the process and makes it easier and faster for them to give feedback. It’s also a good idea to give a means for them to reach out to you if they have any issues or need assistance after they’ve made their purchase.
