• digital marketing cheshire

    Online Reviews Guide

    Online reviews, how to use them to improve your business results and search presence.

  • Online Reviews Guide. Optimising your business' online reputation management.

    This online reviews guide was written to compliment our reputation management services page and give clients, both current and future, an understanding of how online reviews can help give your business an advantage, improving both its results and search engine presence. Understanding and achieving good online reviews should be an important element of any businesses digital marketing efforts. In fact as soon as you have an online presence your business will always be under review by someone ... so you may as well learn to exploit the concept. By embracing online reviews effectively you will importantly learn about your customers perceptions and how you compare to your competitors.

    Why your business needs online reviews

    Online reviews and reputation management

    From new tech to consumer services, it’s rare to blindly make a purchase decision without reading through several online reviews – so whatever your industry, having a positive online presence gives you several key advantages, which is why it should be considered a key part of your branding.

     

    Understanding why you need online reviews will help you optimize your customer experience to help create a positive online footprint. Let’s review these seven reasons why your consumers’ published experiences with your brand are vital.

    You’re Under Review ...,

    The way you market your brand is important, but having people talk about you is the best way to enhance your message. By encouraging positive conversations about your brand, you can quickly and clearly improve your marketing efforts.

     

    How to get your customers to write online reviews

    How to Get Customers to Write Online Reviews:

    Sometimes the challenge isn’t getting people to buy from you, it’s getting their opinion. Here are seven ways to help you get more online reviews.

     

    1. Post on Social Media

    A great option if you are active on social media and have a healthy following. Simply create a post asking your loyal customers or readers to leave a review. Chances are, if they have the free time to scroll through social media, they can likely spare a couple of minutes to tell you what they think about your business products or services. Plus, a customer that is loyal enough to follow you probably has some good things to say.

     

    2. Offer Incentives for Leaving a Review

    Incentives can be an effective strategy, particulalrly for certain promotions, but be careful not to overuse the strategy. Something simple, such as an Amazon gift card to the first five people who leave a review, or a 10% off coupon or voucher for their next purchase from your business, is a reasonable reward to offer.

     

    3. Run an Email Campaign

    When customers make a purchase, they often leave their email information with you. This gives you a list of contacts who have already purchased from you and likely have something to say. You can automate emails to go out as part of a campaign to gather customer opinions or after a customer’s product has been delivered.

     

    4. Find Happy Customers Using a Survey

     

    Surveys can tell you how satisfying a customer’s experience with your brand was. The data collected from these surveys can inform you about how likely a customer is to recommend your brand to a friend. From there, it’s easy to find out who the highly satisfied customers are, and you can send those specific individuals a request to leave a review. There’s a much better chance they’ll say something positive.

     

    5. Send SMS/Text Messages

    SMS/Text messages give you immediate access to customers. Plus, it might be a better way to get your request actually seen. Studies show that consumers read 82% of text messages within 5 minutes but only open 1 in 4 emails. Just make sure to keep your message short—and don’t forget a review link.

     

    6. Ask In-Person

    Asking for a review in person can feel awkward to some businesses, but it’s likely the most effective method. A great time to solicit a review is when a customer compliments or praises something about your business, then ask them if they’d be willing to share their opinion on a Google Review. (Read more below: when to ask for a review). You can also make it as non-threatening as having a tablet set up near the cash register with a sign asking for feedback. These are known as tablet reviews or Kiosk reviews

     

    7. Always Make the Review Process Simple

    Keep it simple. Make it as easy as possible for the customer to leave a review. Some ways you can do that include:

    • Sending them a link to the review site.
    • Giving simple instructions, like leaving a 5-star review and a one-sentence summary of why they were satisfied.
    • Letting them know how long the review process will take, so they understand the time commitment involved.

    When to ask for an online review

    Timing is just as important in getting more Google reviews from your customers. It’s in your best interest to pick the moments when your customers are satisfied enough that they would leave a positive review, like:

    • After a purchase
    • After a product has been delivered
    • When a customer re-purchases or re-orders
    • After a customer tags your brand on social media
    • When customers are browsing your site for other products/services
    • If they refer another customer
    • Before a customer walks out the door

    Get More Reviews with web-aviso

    If you have any kind of presence online, you need to incorporate online reviews into your marketing strategy. It’s one of the many things you should be doing to increase your visibility. web-aviso knows how to make the most of your reviews.

    marketing that gets you noticed

  • Responding to Online Reviews  ... The Secret Sauce !

    For those who have read this far we are rewarding you with some of our 'secret sauce' ... various responses to your online reviews, as t’s not just the reviews that matter, but how you respond to your reviews plays an even more significant role in influencing customer decisions.

    Evidently the success of your online reputation heavily relies on how you manage your reviews. Granted, many review platforms don’t offer brands the option to respond to reviews, but popular platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp do. If a potential customer comes across unanswered reviews, especially negative reviews, it will dampen their perception of your brand. Potential clients have no way of knowing whether any action was taken to rectify the issue or if the customer who left the review received any acknowledgment. The cost of not responding to reviews is that you might lose the customers that you work to gain as well as newer ones. Nurturing your existing customers to establish a relationship is more profitable as attracting a new customer can cost five times more than retaining existing customers.

     

    Before we reveal some of our different online review responses here are four key points :
     

    1. Develop a plan that includes multiple scenarios

    Create a list of brand-approved responses for various scenarios so your marketing staff can be prepared and respond to customers’ reviews efficiently.

     

    PRO TIP : Check what reviews your competitors are getting, create a list of FAQs and keep the answers ready.

     

    2. Always acknowledge customer reviews

    Regardless of the sentiment, always thank customers for putting in the effort to share their experience. It’s always important to reference details about their experience mentioned in the customer’s review. For example, if they have specifically mentioned an employee they appreciated, include that person’s name in your response.

     

    3. Offer an invitation to discuss their review further

    If you receive a poor review, ask the customer to contact you through a customer service channel. This is especially helpful for negative reviews that are a little hazy. It shows the customer that you are interested in learning about their experience and working to improve it.

     

    4. Look into adopting a platform to manage reviews

    Online review and reputation management can become a complex process, especially if you have multiple locations or your business is growing rapidly. A review management platform or mechanism will relieve the stress of operational processes and help you focus on what’s important. Reducing the workload is just one of many benefits of adopting a review management service - which is where web -aviso can help with their reputation mangement solutions.  With that, we’ve covered the basics! Let’s look at the review response templates now.

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