Today, more than ever before, people are using online platforms to share their experiences with businesses. In today’s digital world, that means posting reviews of your company’s services and products online to help potential customers find you faster and make the right decision about where to spend their money.
You see, a good review from a satisfied customer can be the difference between staying in business or going out of business. That’s why it is so important for businesses to take advantage of every single opportunity available to them when it comes to getting positive feedback from customers. Many small actions can add up over time to have a huge impact on your company’s success in the future. So how do you maximize the value and effectiveness of your online reviews?
The Benefits of Online Reviews
Online reviews are one of the most powerful ways for consumers to communicate with businesses. They play a major role in influencing purchase decisions, and studies have shown that online reviews can increase sales by as much as 35%.
Online reviews are also extremely helpful for improving a company’s reputation among its existing customers. The more reviews your company receives, the more likely people are to trust your products and services. At the same time, negative reviews can be a negative force on a business’s reputation. They can damage a company’s brand and make potential customers think twice about trusting that company with their business. However, there are ways to maximize the value of online reviews and minimize the impact of negative ones.
Maximizing Online Reviews for Your Advantage
Be Proactive When Building Your Online Reputation
When you have a channel like online reviews open to you, it’s important to take full advantage of it. This means pursuing reviews from your existing customers and prospects, as well as engaging with potential new customers who have expressed an interest in your products or services.
Asking for customer reviews is an excellent way to build your online reputation. You can send out a coupon or discount code with a note asking customers to take a moment to leave a review. You can also send a follow-up email a few weeks later to make sure that the review was posted.
When you’re building your online reputation, it’s also important to remember that online reviews are not the only way that people will be hearing about your brand. Your business card, letterhead, and website will also be a source of information about your company. Therefore, you want to make sure that these other sources are also receiving attention and getting updated regularly.
Ask for Reviews
Asking for reviews is the most obvious way to get more online reviews. Customers have a lot of reasons to leave feedback about your business, so you should never be surprised if you get a few negative ones. If you’ve asked for reviews, you’ve received – and you should expect them. However, you also want to take steps to turn those reviews into positive ones.
Never leave negative feedback on someone’s review. You can use your coupon codes, follow-up emails, and other communications to ask for more reviews and turn those initial few negative ones into positive ones. If you do receive a negative review, don’t be afraid to reach out to the customer to find out why they chose to leave the feedback the way that they did. It’s often helpful to find out what could have been improved to turn the review around.
Respond to Reviews
Responding to negative reviews can be a good way to address any concerns that customers have about your services or products. Make sure, though, that you don’t address the negative feedback directly. Instead, focus on how you plan to remedy the customer’s concerns or address their frustrations.
When you respond to a review, be sure to keep your reply short and sweet. Be sure, too, that your response addresses the customer’s main concerns or frustrations. You can then use your response to build more reviews by directing people to leave more positive feedback. If you receive a negative review, don’t be afraid to reach out to the customer to find out why they chose to leave the feedback the way that they did. It’s often helpful to find out what could have been improved to turn the review around.
Create a Review-Friendly Environment
Studies have shown that the type of content that appears on a business’s website can have a significant impact on its online reputation. If you want to maximize the value of your online reviews, you should make an effort to create a review-friendly environment on your website. This means avoiding content that is likely to turn off potential customers, such as long product descriptions and lots of company branding. You also want to avoid posting too many generic information articles and content that is unrelated to your products or services.
Focus on creating content that is useful for potential customers and focuses on helping them solve their problems and meet their needs. Make sure that you’re posting online reviews from your existing customers as well as posting content that will pique the interest of new customers. This will help you create a review-friendly environment on your website that will maximize the value of your online reviews.
Stay Consistent in Your Communications
Varying the tone and message in your online reviews will make it seem like you are responding to different customers. This will confuse readers and make it harder for them to remember which review you responded to. It will also make it harder to discern if you are responding to a good or bad review. As a result, you will want to make an effort to keep all of your communications consistent and make sure that you are sending a consistent message with your brand. This means avoiding back-and-forth debates on social media and avoiding inflammatory language when responding to customer feedback.
If you’re receiving a lot of negative feedback, you should make an effort to respond to at least some of them. You can do this by acknowledging the customer’s complaint and then apologizing and explaining how you plan to remedy the problem.
Use Incentives To Boost Reviews
Incentives are one of the most effective ways to boost the number of online reviews that you receive. For example, many companies offer discounted products or coupons to customers who write reviews about them. Many businesses also offer freebies or discounts to reviewers on sites like Yelp and Google, so it is important to make sure that you are getting credited for all of your reviews.
By offering discounts or freebies to reviewers, you will make it more likely that they will choose to post a review about your business. You should also make sure that you use tracking software to make sure that your customers are getting their incentives. This will help you make sure that you are maximizing the value of the reviews that you receive.
Measure The Results Of Your Efforts
It is important to measure the results of your efforts when it comes time to evaluate your online reputation. This will allow you to see how effective each of the strategies that you employ is towards boosting the value of your online reviews.
By measuring your online reviews, you will be able to see how many positive and negative ones you receive, how long it takes for customers to decide to leave feedback, and how many times you send follow-up emails to turn those initial few negative ones into positive ones.
Final Thoughts
Online reviews are a great way for potential customers to discover more about your brand and your products. These reviews can also be used to help direct future customers to your business and make purchasing decisions. However, you must remember that simply getting reviews does not guarantee that your customers will visit your store or make a purchase.
You must make an effort to bring new customers into your store to get them to purchase products or services from your company. Thankfully, there are many ways that you can be proactive when it comes to online reviews and grow your online presence, reputation, and revenue. With a little effort, you can increase the number of online reviews you receive and make your brand more visible to customers.
