In the Information Age, businesses that make the best use of high tech are usually the ones that succeed. This includes establishing a program to solicit, encourage and manage product and service customer reviews.
While word-of-mouth can help bring in new customers, for many businesses, word-of-mouth is not enough. Testimonials from an increasingly savvy and vocal customer base are considered the final word, by many, on whether a business is worthy of patronizing.
Why Reviews Matter
Whether your product is for other businesses, consumers, or both, you are competing with others who are fighting for the attention of a potential customer. Anyone on social media or browsing the internet is inundated with advertisements. It should be a priority to get them to focus on your product or service.
We live in a society that is willing to share strong opinions, both good and bad, on products and services. This is a key reason why reviews matter. For companies selling products, shopping sites and mobile apps have links in product ads for customer reviews. Almost all of these have a series of stars next to the product name in the catalog listing. People click or tap the stars to go right to the review.
Business Rating Websites
Service providers, such as restaurants, repair services, hospitality and professional services look to rating websites to help get the word out about their offerings. Websites like AngiesList.com and Manta.com are a must for any service business to subscribe to, particularly companies like Low Cost Interlock which serve a very specific customer.
Visitors have a perception that these business rating websites contain reputable, honest businesses. Having a presence on these sites is a great way to give your business additional exposure and hopefully, highlight all the positive things about your business.
Maintaining Your Review Site Presence
Most businesses have the occasional customer that cannot be pleased. In the time before online reviews which stayed online forever, you could call the customer and try and work out any problems or simply move on.
Today, you need to respond as soon as possible, after the negative review is posted. It is important to show both the negative reviewer and others that you are responsive to the needs of your customers.
To do this you first have to have a program in place to monitor all of the sites that review your business. If a site does not alert you to when a new review is posted, you should add a reminder to your calendar, to check the sites on a regular basis. This is a task you can pass off to one of your workers, if possible.
Once a review that is either negative or includes a question is posted, you should go in and do your best to communicate your understanding of their concerns and let them know that you will do everything in your power to make sure it does not happen again. Sometimes, this will result in the customer being so happy for the feedback, that they will edit their review to give your business a higher rating.
The most powerful benefit of an online review system is the ability to market those reviews. Adding positive reviews to your marketing materials, including social media posts and emails, sets your business apart from your competitors. Using review sites that people trust adds to the positive reputation you are trying to project.