5 Tips for Businesses to Maximize Online Reviews
Online reviews can be key to your company’s success, but how you use them is important. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but you don’t want to be one of those businesses that goes viral because of your inappropriate response to poor feedback. The tips below can help you leverage your reviews for success.
Excel at What You Do
The best way to ensure that you are getting good reviews is to always give the very best service possible. It’s worth keeping in mind that people tend to go online and talk about their experiences with a business when they are either very satisfied or very unhappy. Make sure that your customers are doing so for the former reason.
Reducing Stress is Key
Make your clients or customers feel good, whatever that means in the context of your business. Thinking about your own experiences can help you identify how to position yourself as a customer favorite. If you go out to have a special meal to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, that occasion could be ruined if the meal is unsatisfactory. However, accidents happen, and a kitchen might get your order wrong or overcook your steak. Most likely, what then makes or breaks the evening for you is what happens next. If the staff is accommodating and apologetic, fixes the error and perhaps throws in a freebie, you will most likely come away with a warm feeling.
On the other hand, if you run the type of business that people come to when they are stressed out, you need to find a way to allay that stress. For example, finances are a reason why many marriages end in divorce and is constantly on the mind of consumers. Online lenders are there to help if you feel overwhelmed by the multiple student loans you are repaying, you can to research loan consolidation so that you only have one monthly payment. In a situation like this, you might be worried about making the right decision for your finances, so you want clarity and reassurance.
Encourage Feedback
Companies with mailing lists often send emails to customers after they have used a service or product reminding them to leave an online review. However, if this is not the case for your business model or you want an extra reminder, you could use a business card that encourages leaving feedback at one or more sites.
Boost Your Marketing
You can extend your reach and the number of people who see a good review by including links to it on your social media. In this way, they act as amplified word-of-mouth vehicles, getting the word out to far more people than would be possible through traditional means.
Don’t Ignore Negative Feedback
Ideally, you will never have an upset customer who goes online to complain about your business, but if you do, how you react can turn the experience into a big positive. People will see you responding with courtesy and trying to find a solution for your unhappy customers. In some cases, the person who left you a negative review might even change it after a positive interaction and a proposed solution.
