How to Manage Online Customer Reviews?
Online Reviews
Online reviews matter: 78% of people believe online reviews are at least “somewhat reliable,” according to a recent ReportLinker report. And 59% of online shoppers see these reviews as being as trustworthy as a review given by a friend, the report found. By managing reviews, you can protect and improve your online brand reputation, boost your search engine performance. And foster brand trust among existing and potential digital customers.
How to Manage Online Customer Reviews
Know how to respond
The right tone and the right words are everything. When responding to a bad review, making it a public war is a recipe for reputation disaster. The worst thing you can do for your brand is to trade blows with an angry reviewer. You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it—there’s never anything good that comes out of it.
But a polite response with the right spin and solution—an offer, refund or plain ol’ acknowledgement—can turn a disgruntled customer into a happy one.
Respond quickly
It’s critical to respond to reviews as fast as you can. Bad reviews can spread like a disease; responding to it quickly—whether it be through awesome customer digital service or handling the comment behind closed doors—goes a long way in preventing further damage.
Plus, responding promptly to reviews, negative or positive, shows customers you’re attentive and lets others know you care about their experience with your digital business.
Get to know social marketing
93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media (#SocialNomics 2014). Knowing how to connect with reviewers and followers on social is a huge business driver and is proven to increase sales by 18% (Bazaar Voice).
Another cool thing some companies are doing to rev their marketing efforts is reaching out to followers and making them brand ambassadors on their social sites. The primary function of these ambassadors are to test and review products and services in a good but honest light.
Keep reviews up to date
Fresh and relevant reviews are essential for healthy business results. Not only do they strengthen online presence but they directly impact sales conversions—63% of consumers are more likely to buy from a site with current product ratings.
Call for back up
Not every local business has the experience, tools, or resources to manage their own reviews. Offering DIFM or DIWM™ services is great way to expand your suite of services and tap into a new revenue stream.
How to Respond to Negative Customer Reviews
- Apologize, empathize, and own the issue (in that order) at the start of your response. This approach will humanize your brand and help to disarm the disgruntled customer, leaving them open to a reasonable resolution.
- Be professional yet conversational to ensure your response is approachable and most importantly, personal. Try to respond to every customer by their name.
- Always offer a practical resolution to your customer’s issue and thank the negative reviewer for their feedback.
- Track your online presence with platforms that will offer updates each time you receive a review or person that mentions your brand name online. This will help respond—and tackle—any negative online reviews quickly.
How to Deal with Fake Customer Reviews
What’s more frustrating than a stream of negative reviews? Being plagued with fake reviews—ratings and testimonials that are completely fabricated.
As unjust as fake reviews may be, they do exist—and it’s likely you’ll have to deal with them from time to time.
Fraudulent reviews can be as damaging as negative feedback. But by knowing how to spot them (the key traits of fake reviews or reviewers), you’ll be able to provide a suitable public response while appealing to get them removed from the platform in question. Here are the common traits of fake online reviews:
- They lack any real detail and are vague or generic
- Heavy on verbs than nouns
- Use lots of first-person pronouns like “I” or “me” to sound sincere
- Usually given either a five or a one-star rating
- The reviewer has a track record of leaving lots of reviews using different tones of voice or in different languages across lots of different platforms. Or, they have no review history at all.
Dealing with online reviews can be a tricky business, but handled with care and a certain sense of urgency. You’ll not only preserve your brand reputation—you also stand a solid chance of strengthening your consumer bonds.