There are many benefits to working with reviews for both established and start-up businesses. In this article, we’re going to tell you what feedback processing consists of, how to collect it and share useful services for automating the process.
Why is it necessary to work with reviews?
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Reviews about your business are posted on many sites. Not monitoring this process doesn’t mean it wasn’t launched by a single dissatisfied customer and turned into a bunch of hard-hitting things that would scare away potential visitors.
According to statistics, a person is 20% more likely to take the time to leave a negative review than to leave a positive one if they were satisfied. A few complaints can become a real nightmare for newly opened stores, because people have not yet developed confidence in them and it only remains to focus on those who have already visited a new place.
Working with reviews is an integral part of the company’s image on the web. Systematic work with reviews in business brings a number of advantages – both quite obvious and unexpected. Let’s see them in more detail:
- Reputation management. A review is social proof of the quality of service in your establishment. The client is rather inclined to trust the experience of a stranger than the assurances and promises of the company itself. At the same time, it is precisely negative reviews that cause more trust – it’s no secret to anyone that positive ones often “cheat”.
- SEO promotion. On some platforms, responding to reviews is the same as updating the card. At the same time, their texts are searchable.
- Increasing customer loyalty. Dealing with negative reviews is a real chance to demonstrate your customer focus, readiness to apologize, make concessions and work out shortcomings. For satisfied customers, this is an extra point of contact with the company, and the more there are, the more loyal the customer base.
- Create content of reviews. Positive reviews can be converted into content and placed on official pages. This can be done not only in the usual text form, but, for example, in the form of a photo with geolocation. Imagine how strong the photo report on the changes made and the measures that are taken not only in words look.
- Quality control of personnel work. The opinion of the buyer allows you to look at your own business “from the outside”, and from the one that brings money into it. On the other hand, a one-time negative review may be due to many factors besides the quality of service. If negative reviews about an employee are systematic, this is a reason to doubt his competence.
- Motivation for growth and development. The opinion of clients in terms of motivation is more important than the opinions of relatives, friends and acquaintances. It also turns out to be the most honest, but you shouldn’t get emotionally attached to the “reviewers” – no one canceled reviews bought by a competitor and aggressive users. Most importantly, reviews point out the strengths and weaknesses of your business, highlighting growth points.
How to get more reviews for your business
Some of the reviews will be generated by visitors without your direct participation, but if the opening was recent, the process will “slip” for a long time.
Feel free to ask for feedback!
If a dissatisfied visitor demands to talk to the manager or conveys his offense to a card in Google Maps, then a satisfied visitor is less inclined to write a negative review. Unless the impressions are so vivid that they require a splash on paper. Therefore, it is important to ask customers to leave feedback.
Motivate to write reviews!
There are many ways to motivate users to do it. You can offer a discount when showing a review to an employee, perhaps providing a small gift at your expense. Good reviews will pay off such costs.
The process of collecting reviews can be automated by placing a tablet with an application (at least three emoticons to choose from) at the checkout or exit from your store. True, in this case, reviews will be collected more likely in your personal statistics – few people want to log in. However, posting even this kind of feedback on your social media can be a good motivation for potential customers. You can also embed reviews on your business from Google to your website in order to motivate your audience to leave new ones.
Other ways to induce feedback include:
- Newsletter with news about new products in the assortment, seasonal arrivals and discounts, changes in work or interior, holidays.
- Booklets/business cards with a QR code that gives a link to social networks and a company card in geoservices or “reviews”. They can be placed directly on the tables, as is usually done with advertising booklets, or placed on the menu (for catering).
- Direct communication with the client. It will be especially nice if the owner of the establishment in person or someone from the management staff comes up to you, thanks and asks you to tell about your impressions and wishes.
- Posting photos of visitors on official pages on social media. Provide small preferences for publishing content with a check-in, ask permission to repost.
Handling negative reviews
Negative feedback requires an immediate response. A few tips will help to avoid the escalation of the conflict and, if not return the client, then soften his emotions. By working with negative reviews, you demonstrate to your users your interest in their opinion, customer focus.
Note that negative without a reason reviews can be checked for authenticity. If the score tends to zero, but there is no text at all, ask what the client did not like. If there is no answer, most likely you are dealing with a fake review from a competitor, because people tend to share their impressions, especially negative ones. You can remove such reviews by contacting the administration of geoservices and “reviewers” and substantiating your position.
Conclusion
Thus, working with customer reviews in a business opens up space for promotion, reinforcing the institution’s reputation with social proof. In a situation of uncertainty, people often rely on the experience of other people – in such a situation, feedback can play a decisive role.
Take control of the reviewers, put the cards in order and monitor reviews, motivating customers to leave feedback. Start with geo-services, go to social media and directly to business review websites.
Do not forget to quickly work out negative reviews – sometimes they can turn out to be a plus for you, demonstrating customer focus and care for visitors.
If you follow the tips for processing reviews and do it sincerely, you can be sure that the result will not be long in coming. Stay refreshed with informative ideas with Quintdaily.
