The Best Strategy is to Increase Online Reviews
When it comes to online customer reviews, it’s a numbers game. Statistically speaking, most comments are positive. So, constantly adding new customer feedback will push the negative comments to the bottom of the list
In our last article, we highlighted effective ways to handle negative reviews. As you learned, it doesn’t help to ignore them and hope they go away.
You must find a way to see them as opportunities to demonstrate your outstanding customer service by addressing them publicly and resolving them in a professional manner.
That being said, a way to dilute the impact of negative comments is to continuously ask for new comments and feedback.
Too often in our world as marketers we see situations where customers are happy to give testimonials and talk about a positive experience with a company or brand, if only they were asked!
This scenario can be avoided by simply putting in place a reputation management system, which automatically solicits feedback from a customer when certain criteria of the sale are met, or at other designated times in your customer relationship process.
Your what?! Yeah, it’s a mouthful. But the truth is, every business has it. Maybe more commonly referred to as “customer satisfaction.”
We’re talking about the sales cycle process – with the major steps being:
- The customer identifies a need
- They find out that your company offers a way to address the need
- They research and decide to contact you
- They learn more about your product or service
- Money is exchanged for the good or service.
Some industries have more pre-sale touch points, others require even less. It usually depends on the size, cost, and complexity of the purchase.
Throughout that process, the business employees build a customer relationship through “touch points”.
Within every process we find opportunities to ask for feedback. Typically, it’s asked for after the sale, but it could be requested at other points in the process.
Here’s the main point
In reality, a majority of shoppers, clients, and customers will not leave reviews. Face it, we’re just too dang busy to leave a comment every time we’re asked. Think about your own habits for a moment – how many times a week do you click “No Thanks” to an online survey request?
But, every so often we do. Or, a company makes it so easy for us to respond, that before we’ve thought about it, we’ve participated and moved on.
Now, there’s two times we are “likely” to leave a review. One if we’re incredibly pleased – something was better or easier than expected. It actually feels good to tell others we got a great deal – or tremendous value!
The other time we’re likely to review – When we’re extremely pissed off!! We want people not to fall for the same trap – we rail against society and the evils of corporate America!!!
In fact, we’re probably more likely to go out of our way to leave a negative review when we feel we’ve been duped!
Taking all of this into consideration, it’s no wonder that sometimes we find businesses online that don’t have a good reputation – and sometimes it may not be their fault.
The few customers who had trouble, wrote about it.
While the vast majority of customers had a wonderful experience but did not go out of their way to write about it – so those voices aren’t being heard.
When you ask for their feedback, remember, some will participate, others won’t, and who cares? Overtime, you will add more positive comments into the mix.
Potential customers reading a wide range of reviews will have more information to consider and it will help them make an educated decision.
Many times, we rush to assume bad reviews will be our downfall. But sometimes, the bad feedback is that someone had an unreasonable expectation that wasn’t met, or they did not read the instructions properly, or they tried to use a product for the wrong purpose, whatever.
The real problem with a few negative reviews is when there are no positive comments to balance them out. It looks like a one-sided argument.
If you want to learn more, call us today.
A solid reputation management strategy by Ajar will help you rise above.
