Why should you manage reviews?
Reviews should be an integral part of your advertising. Bad reviews can give a tainted reputation of your services or products, so taking the time to respond to any negative reviews is important. Understanding how to respond to all types of reviews, positive and negative, is crucial for the online life of your business.
Your customers can post to a number of online platforms such as Google, Facebook, Angie's List, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and more. This information is used by a larger percentage of customers before they consider using your business.
Ways to encourage customer reviews
1. Ask each customer for feedback
Customer's don't typically leave a review unless they had a bad experience. Encouraging customers you know had a great experience to leave a review can give great feedback for others considering your product or service.
2. Make your preferred review systems easily accessible
Making it easy for people to leave a review gives you a better handle on where people are posting and can provide them with directions to save time posting a positive review.
How to respond to online reviews
1. Stay positive
Your customers aren't looking for a perfect response, but seeing nothing but positive responses to any review will shed a positive light on your organization. While it can be frustrating to deal with negative reviews, always respond positively to acknowledge complaints.
2. Create solutions
If someone posts a negative review about an experience with your company, looks for ways to make it right. For example, if you own a restaurant, if someone leaves a bad review, offer a free meal voucher to come back in and give you a second chance to make things right.
3. Reply
Make an effort to reply. This shows you are communicating with your customers and that you are invested in customer relations. Reply to every review, positive and negative. Your responses go a long way in showing you care about your customers.
Cube Creative has a great system for helping you automate and manage your online reputation. Visit our reputation management page for more information.
