Is your nutritional supplement, skin care treatment or fitness product in jeopardy due to bogus complaints being made by the competition or unhappy customers? Or are you on top of the leaderboard because of the glowing reviews your customers keep posting online?
Why Are Reviews Important?
Today, your online reputation can make or break you pretty quickly. Never before has the voice of consumers been so powerful. Dissatisfied customers can badly damage any company overnight since all they have to do is get on their computer and complain like there’s no tomorrow. It could be a tweet or an actual review left on somewhere like Amazon or Google+. However, consumers should be careful of fake reviews on Amazon. On the other hand, customers who are delighted with the product or service that you have provided them can give your business a boost.
Even if you’re not active on social media websites, customers are still talking about your products, services and brands on websites like Google+, Yelp, Twitter and Facebook. It’s important to get involved on social media and customer review sites like Yelp and put your two cents in conversations. Almost 90 percent of customers have utilized online reviews to evaluate a business according to BrightLocal. Their 2014 local consumer review shows some statistics you might find surprising. After reading a positive review:
- 72 percent of consumers will take action
- If it has a 4-star rating, 92 percent of users will utilize a local business
- 88 percent of people trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation
- 72 percent of people in the consumer review said that positive reviews make them trust a local business even more
Nobody can deny the Millennial Generation is trusting crowdsourced/UGC reviews as much or even more than advice from family or friends. See this feature on Mashable about Millennials. So it’s important that you know what customers are saying about your products. Getting involved and taking control of your reputation on social media sites isn’t as difficult as you might think, especially if you keep these tips in mind.
Claim Your Social Media Accounts
Instead of opening an account on every social media platform, choose a few social media outlets where your customers tend to express themselves the most. For example, set up a business page on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram. Why are these places important? Readers are likely to post before and after results pictures. They may even upload videos to YouTube which requires a Google+ account. Include your phone number, address and name and make sure this information is exactly the same on all of the profiles so that customers have a place to vent that’s not public. Include links to your online site, social media pages, description of products and services you sell. If you have images or videos, add them too.
When it comes to review features, both Google+ and Facebook have them. You might be able to mitigate bad reviews, but you won’t be able to remove them. If you’re not getting five star reviews, ask your happy customers to leave a positive review. It’s particularly important because the reviews on Google+ show up in Google Maps listing on local search results pages. Never in a million years try to cheat the system and “buy” fake reviews because you will lose credibility. Fake reviews can be easily sniffed out by consumers and if you’re caught doing this it will end badly.
Monitor Reviews and Mentions of Your Business
In order to handle negative situations promptly and appropriately, you should always be aware of what’s being said about your company not only on social media, but on the official website of the BBB, Ripoff Report and Yelp, as these websites can really damage your reputation. Doing so can help you turn any negative into a positive, especially if you handle it correctly. To help you monitor all these sites, Orange Fox has several helpful tips and free tools.
But what if a customer goes on a rampage on their personal blog? How would you know about that? Easy. Keep your eye on mentions of your business on personal blogs and other places online by using Google Alerts. When you set up an alert for the name of your business, you will be notified by email so you can quickly step in to try to fix the situation. By simply checking your email, you’ll be able to keep a close eye on what’s being said.
Other Resources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/08/28/fake-reviews-amazons-rotten-core/
