Word of mouth marketing has evolved in the last decade or so. Consumers are increasingly placing their belief in social proof and credibility. A recent study by Brightlocal, states that 98% of shoppers read online reviews for local businesses.
Customer reviews have the potential to bring your business to new heights, but they can also affect your business’s reputation negatively. However, there’s no need to worry because this article focuses on the essentials of customer reviews and provides excellent strategies to obtain positive feedback from customers.
What are customer reviews?
Essentially customer reviews are the opinions of someone who has visited your store which reflects their personal experiences, satisfaction and overall impression. Customers can leave a review on various platforms dedicated to them. One of the most popular websites being Google My Business, which we’re sure you’ve seen before. The reviews will cover many aspects of your business, from performance, store atmosphere, customer service, etc.
How can customer reviews benefit your business?
Customer reviews play a significant role in shaping the purchasing decisions of others, which can be leveraged to your advantage in attracting more customers to your business. With positive reviews you can build a positive customer reputation and public perception. By using some of your best reviews you can provide prospective customers testimonials to encourage a purchase. Additionally customer reviews can improve your business’s brand awareness, SEO, etc.
As we’ve mentioned before, social proof and credibility are really important in a business success, but how? Social proof indicates that others have had a positive experience with a product/service and this can influence customers to choose your business. Likewise credibility aids in trust and it also enhances trust in your business with potential customers.
On the other hand you may think that negative reviews will only hinder your brand’s reputation. But these negative reviews can help with finding flaws in your service so that you can improve.
How can you get positive customer reviews
In order to get positive reviews you must first offer your customers an exceptional experience. But once this is done you have to reach out to your customers to leave the review. Here are some great ways to initiate this.
Asking for reviews will never hurt—always encourage your customers to leave a review. There are a few ways to do so:
- Asking customers to leave a review at checkout
- When following-up via email or SMS
- Rewarding customers for leaving reviews, etc.
A great way to secure reviews is to make it as easy as possible to access the review page. We suggest using QR codes like in the example above.
Dealing with negative reviews
How should you deal with negative reviews? If you are given the opportunity you should always show initiative and respond quickly to your unsatisfied customers. Then offer these customers a solution to their problem. This way you can try to change your customer’s opinion of your business.
If you are interested in learning more about Google reviews, check out one of our previous blogs, the importance of Google reviews. In this article, we talk about how to handle both negative and positive reviews as a small business.
Hopefully this article can help you improve the reputation of your business, and helped you understand how to support customer reviews. If you are interested in marketing, business, and the newest retail news, subscribe to our blog.
