Do you have a business struggling to get more revenue in this new online era? Or is managing the negative reviews on your page becoming hard? We get your problem as you are not alone in this situation! Over the past few years, consumers have become more reliant on online reviews than ever before making a purchase.
According to a survey, consumers trust internet reviews as much as personal recommendations. Another survey says that 91% of respondent consumers check evaluations for local businesses. Consumers are more inclined to read local companies’ responses to the customer reviews in 89 percent of the cases.
The reason why managing your internet reviews as a business is not only critical but also necessary is that negative reviews deter 40% of customers from doing business with a company. It might be challenging to navigate the dos and don’ts of managing online reviews, but these below-mentioned tips might just lighten some load from your shoulders.
So if you carefully manage these reviews, the benefits are well worth the effort. The ultimate goal is strengthening your brand, engaging with customers, and increasing revenue.
The Do’s Of Managing Online Reviews
1. Have A Strategy In Place
Managing online reviews must have a set process. Businesses should designate who is accountable for online reviews and set criteria for responding to them. They should set up problem-escalation mechanisms and specify a method for using criticism and appreciation to enhance the consumer experience.
2. Keep An Eye On Your Mentions And Reviews.
Several businesses provide free alerts and tools to inform you anytime your brand is mentioned or a new review is published online. You can get real-time notifications when someone writes a new review.
Setting up Alerts to get notified when your company name occurs in blogs, videos, news articles, or web pages is also a brilliant idea.
In the past, a 24-hour response time was deemed adequate; consumers now anticipate a response in minutes. Time is essential, demonstrating that you care about your customers.
Another excellent tactic is to sign up with major review sites. It not only has business benefits but also has a favorable effect on your website’s SEO. Online reviews are considered to account for approximately 10% of how Google and other search engines rank search results.
3. Establish And Claim Your Company’s Pages On Multiple Review Sites
Most review sites use public information, which entails that your company may already be included in the list. You just need to fill out the relevant information to claim your business. If it is not listed, you should create a profile on websites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Google.
Not only will you have access to member-only services such as page statistics, but creating these profiles will help improve your position on the search results. Maintaining track of your internet reviews can allow you to become more aware of your company’s conversation.
If there are already reviews, no matter how old they are, respond to all of them. Customers dislike loose ends since it implies that you do not even care enough to reply to their problems.
Even if you disagree with their review version, always be courteous and gracious. Not only will you be more likely to reclaim a customer, but you will also demonstrate to future customers that your company values their input.
4. Make Yourself Visible
Avoiding review websites because you’re afraid of negative feedback may seem appealing at first, but it’s not the best strategy. Customer reviews will benefit your company if you embrace them. You must be prepared to put yourself out there.
If you don’t have an internet presence just because you prefer not to handle the unfavorable reviews, you’ll lose customers, and your search position might suffer. Customer feedback must be addressed and embraced if you wish to generate more revenue.
5. Instead Of Emotionless PR, Fix The Problem
Many firms do an excellent job of reacting to customer reviews consistently. However, scrolling through their comments, you’ll notice that they sound like PR jargon with no real solution or proper response for their feedback.
This doesn’t solve the problem and, in fact, makes the company appear even worse and emotionless. You need to include what you’ve done or will do to resolve the issue in your response and make sure the customer feels heard.
6. Take The Conversation Offline
The goal of your business while managing online reviews should be to respond to a review only once while making it brief, and giving a direct contact method, ideally a phone number or email address, for the client to contact you with any further difficulties.
Engaging in an online back-and-forth with a reviewer is not a wise idea. In this circumstance, the company generally never looks good, and you wind up inflicting more damage to your reputation.
7. Inquire About Your Business’s Performance
Your company must have a consistent stream of online reviews. Prospective buyers prefer “new” reviews to those months or even years old. These User-generated materials, like reviews or comments, also help increase local SEO.
Now the question is, How do you obtain more feedback? The answer is simple, inquire from your clients. According to a recent survey, seven out of ten customers would submit an online review if requested.
8. Enhance The Customer Experience Through Review And Analysis
Customer feedback found in internet reviews is free market research for your business. You get to know the effect of your business on the community and also get to know the satisfaction level of your customers.
Businesses should use this data to their advantage by examining it quarterly or annually. The findings that they get are entirely raw and direct from the source. This simple practice can provide valuable insight into enhancing your establishment’s corporate operations and customer service.
The Don’ts Of Managing Online Reviews
1. Don’t Create Misunderstandings
While it’s vital not to come out as aggressive or petty in your response to negative reviews, it’s also necessary to get your point through. Frequently, when there is a miscommunication, it can be resolved with an apology and honest conversation.
When it comes to reacting to reviews, you don’t want to be a pushover. If someone is flat out lying or slandering you, report them to the site administrator; if that doesn’t work, respond straightforwardly and courteously with your version of events.
2. Don’t Argue Online
When emotions get the best of you, it’s simple to shoot off a stream of obscenities to put someone in their place, but this isn’t the best approach to handle things online. You want to be professional and sympathetic to customers unhappy with your service or product.
There has never been a time when a corporate answer to a grumpy consumer has gone over well. Always remember to incorporate your company’s brand and values into your online comments and responses. The customer should be your number one priority.
Even the best-intentioned jokes about other people’s experiences might be misconstrued on review sites.
3. Don’t Make Up False Reviews
False reviews are not just a red signal for knowledgeable consumers, but they may also get you removed from some of the larger review sites, as the big review websites have programs that fish out fake reviews. This can result in even more revenue loss than the poor evaluations you’re attempting to fix.
Fake reviews are easy to spot as well. Most fake reviews come from persons who have recently created profiles and have a small number of previous reviews.
4. Avoid Ignoring Online Reviews At Any Cost
Your consumers are taking the time and effort to post a review for your business. This shows their commitment to your business. Whether the review is positive or negative, it is your duty to acknowledge the effort that the reviewer has engaged for that review.
Ignoring those comments is just like ignoring a customer physically standing in your shop and talking to you. Online reviews provide you a chance to interact with your customers. Responding demonstrates that you care about their experience with your company.
5. Don’t Use A Template For Responding To Reviews
While responding to a review, you shouldn’t react with the same phrasing every time. The customers need to feel that their review mattered to the business, but by replying in the same patterns, you lose that personal touch.
Reading the original review and tailoring your response to that customer are both good review response practices that can make sure that your customers feel valued and respected.
Although you need to have a system in place for responding to reviews, it does not become a hectic task for you. The review can be a mix of tailoring a set of the exact phrases to the individual reviewer by mentioning a small detail that caters to their respective review.
6. Don’t Believe You Must Have Only 5-Star Reviews
We, the consumers, are a wary bunch, we are aware that nobody is without flaws, and when people try to hide the truth, it means they have more worms in their bag.
A firm with all 5-star reviews can also be considered a warning flag because it can entail the business fabricating the reviews, as it is nearly impossible to satisfy every customer.
You need to understand that it’s not terrible to have a few unfavorable reviews as long as you are addressing the problem and are vigilant toward the issues your customers are facing.
7. Never Miss An Opportunity To Engage
Replying to negative evaluations about your business or services is one thing. Still, it’s quite another to take them seriously and use them to help define your policy in the future.
If, for example, a customer receives a product that was supposed to reach in 3 days but took five days to deliver. Or if they receive a broken product that was supposed to be marked fragile but wasn’t, it was manhandled in the shipping, and due to this, they leave a negative review based on their experience.
Then it may be worthwhile to examine how your preferred shipping company or even your staff handles the packaging and labeling of the products.
8. Don’t Think Old Reviews Will Still Be Relevant
Old reviews are essential to establish trust in a business, as they entail that the business has been operational for a long time and is not a fraudulent establishment. But these old reviews fail to convince the customers to choose the services of that particular business, as they don’t tell the business’s current situation.
Even if the review is three months old, it becomes irrelevant because the business management style could have changed in these months, or they could have replaced any employee, affecting the quality of the services and product.
According to a recent survey, 73 percent of consumers believe evaluations older than three months are no longer significant in influencing their purchasing decisions. Businesses should encourage their consumers to post evaluations as this will help keep the reviews current and increase the total number of reviews posted.
Wrapping Up!
Online reviews are essential for a business, and their proper management is even more necessary, as they can affect the reputation and goodwill of your establishment. We hope these pointers, as mentioned earlier, can assist you in managing online reviews that will keep your business thriving.
You can also claim your business listing over ReviewFoxy.com. Thousands of businesses are present over ReviewFoxy. And as mentioned claiming your listings over multiple review websites can increase your chances of getting better visibility and improving your SEO game simultaneously!
