Some read reviews posted about their business, and some don’t. If you’re the latter you should reconsider your choice. More and more consumers are leaning on reviews when making their purchasing decisions now. With a recent study by Bright Local showing that 86% of consumers read reviews before visiting a local business.
With that being said, weather you’re reading these reviews or not – your customers are. It’s important to know that you won’t please every customer every time, I’m sure you already know that. But you surely don’t want those customers slipping through the cracks and leaving you negative testimonials online for the world to see, for years to come.
To remedy this situation it is very important that you start keeping an eye on your reviews, and RESPOND to them. Good or bad they need to either be thanked, or you need to show the public that you’re attempting to handle the matter. Responses don’t have to take much time – 20 seconds to type.
“Hey Bob thank you for taking the time to leave a positive review for us. We strive for customer satisfaction. We look forward to working with you for years to come!”
Or if it’s a negative review…
“Bob, we’re very sorry to hear that your experience was not the 5 star standard that we strive for – Please reach out to us personally to remedy this situation email@domain.com”
Here’s what NOT to do.
- Fail to respond to the review
- Take a defensive stance – argue
- Insult the customer
- Call the customer a liar
Basically everything that you’re going to naturally want to do…don’t do it. I don’t care how long you’ve been in business, or what you think you know. From the outside looking in, potential customers rather see you attempting to rectify the situation vs. argue it. Unfortunately, we see many cases where the business owner answers with an obvious emotional response and it just doesn’t look good. I don’t know how else to say it.
In summary, your online reviews are very important. 86% of your potential customers (even more among millennials) are reading them long before picking up the phone to call or text you. Respond to both the good and bad reviews, every time, no matter what.
It is recommended to save time by looking into a review program designed to handle online reviews for you. We understand your job is not to chase people around looking for their testimony, but it is a vital part of your businesses future so the implementation of a program that handles this for you is highly recommended.
Here is a program that will get more of your current customers leaving positive reviews online about you, as well as filtering out negative reviews to be handled privately, not online.