Without good, positive customer reviews, your reputation, and business traffic decrease. Even seeing one negative business review can prevent the majority of prospective customers from working with a business! Providing excellent customer service and impeccable experiences in every interaction is critical to the success of your business. This is especially true when you consider the ability for clients to leave reviews on the myriad of websites available (Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook–the list goes on and on). Online reviews help your business be more visible, look more trustworthy, and undoubtedly result in more business. Additionally, as alluded to above, they provide direct access to be able to have a direct (public) line of contact with your customers.
Responding to Reviews
Anyone can easily see how important it is for a business to provide excellent customer service but if your business has received a negative review, you must take action to make it right. Responding to negative reviews can help customers change any negative opinion of your business and show that you have customer satisfaction as your priority.
It is not only important to respond to the negative reviews, but the positive ones as well. Showing gratitude and appreciation for the positive reviews will help past customers feel valued, listened to, and encourage them to patronize your business, and result in customers continuing to sing the praises of your excellence to others.
It is crucial to monitor review sites for reviews of your business and respond to all reviews. Of course, monitoring and maintaining your business’s online presence in each nook and cranny of the internet is no small feat and can take an inordinate amount of your time. Consider using a company such as Charternet, which specializes in providing clients with online reputation management to ensure a positive presence online for your business.
Aligning Business and Customer Values
Aside from reputation management, customer reviews are extremely important in order to know what is important to your clients. Whether positive or negative, reading and understanding what is important to your clients is crucial to not only providing a positive experience but growing and improving as well. In fact, even when a business believes that its customer service is excellent, a survey of customers showed only 8% believed that their experience was indeed excellent! This disparity between how businesses perceive themselves and the customer’s perception is a huge reason why an intermediary manager of customer reviews is important. Thus, regardless of whether a customer believes their experience was positive or negative, it is important for businesses to ensure that they are managing customers’ experiences, expectations, and, of course, online reviews.
Consistency is Key
Maintaining a consistent online presence will show prospective customers that your business cares, is focused on always getting better, and listens to their feedback. Spotty responses to positive and negative reviews can damage your business’s online reputation. Additionally, time gaps in customer reviews can look suspicious to potential customers. Therefore, maintaining a steady flow of reviews and responses to reviews is an essential element in providing proof to customers that your business is focused on delivering a consistently great customer experience.
A business’s online presence is extremely important but can be highly time-consuming to develop and maintain. Make sure you have the help you need to ensure consistent response time, flow of reviews, and customer experience, to ensure your business is well-positioned to manage all aspects of customer expectation and online presence.
We know there is a lot of information here. Please feel free to contact us at support@charternet.com – our support staff is more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
