Why Online Reviews Matter

It happens to even the most well-managed and universally beloved local businesses: the dreaded negative online review. While one or two dissatisfied customers are always inevitable, just a few adverse internet reviews could have a dramatic impact on your company’s ability to generate new customers through marketing and advertising.

It may seem silly that online reviews play such a critical role in the success of businesses of all sizes. Companies, however, are only ever as good as their reputations. Additionally, search engine and social media algorithms may prioritize highly rated businesses when prospective customers are looking for a new restaurant or retail store to visit.

Developing a successful approach to online reputation management is a key component of any successful marketing strategy in the modern era. Using platform-provided tools, it’s possible to effectively manage your brand’s online reviews and safeguard your company against the ill effects of a bad reputation.

How Online Reviews Affect Your Business

Before you begin developing a review management strategy, it’s important to understand the ways that online reviews affect your business. Here are just some of the ways that bad online reviews can negatively impact your company’s reputation:

·        Most customers read reviews: Surveys suggest that at least half of all consumers read reviews prior to visiting a business they’re unfamiliar with. This means that even a single negative review could substantially impact their impression of your brand before they ever set foot inside your space. Because it’s impossible to remove negative reviews, just one negative customer could lead to permanent damage to your company’s standing in the community.

·        Consumers check multiple sites: Most consumers look on multiple online review sites before visiting a business. This makes the process of managing your reputation more complex. Sites like Google, Yelp and even Facebook include spaces for community members to review businesses. Having reviews of your business on multiple sites can increase the overall visibility of your business—which could be either great for business, if the reviews are positive, or detrimental, if they’re negative.

·        Most customers don’t write reviews: Even though most people read reviews prior to visiting a local business, very few customers take the time to write them. For most people to write an online review, their experience at your store or restaurant has to be extremely memorable or noteworthy. Unfortunately, negative experiences usually leave a more lasting impression in the minds of most customers. This means that you should train your customer service staff to de-escalate situations whenever possible.

·        Reduced search engine rankings: While search engine companies keep their algorithms largely under wraps, it’s thought that sites like Google and Yelp use a business’ rating to account for as much as 10 percent of their search engine ranking. This means that just a few negative reviews could derail your company’s entire marketing operation. It’s important to develop a review management strategy to use in coordination with any content marketing techniques your company may use.

Developing a Review Management Strategy

Managing your company’s online reviews is often a complex and challenging endeavor. Internet reputation management, however, is a key component of your brand’s ability to successfully execute marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as generate new business.

While there are many companies that offer comprehensive, full-service online reputation management, there are a number of steps you and your marketing team can take to preserve the integrity of your business and maintain a dependable internet reputation:

·        Automate monitoring: There are several tools you can use to automate review monitoring of your brand. These tools will collect and aggregate reviews from across a wide variety of platforms, and inform you about the “chatter” surrounding your company. These review aggregators make it easy to collect and respond to both positive and negative reviews of your business.

·        Provide spaces for dialogue: One of the best ways to reduce the possibility of suffering from a negative review is by providing customers with a private channel to talk about their experiences interacting with your brand. You should make it easy for customers to talk to a member of your customer support staff. Often, a negative review is the result of an unresolved customer service dispute. Dialogue can often remedy this.

·        Encourage positive reviews: Another step you can take to prevent negative reviews from adversely affecting your bottom line is to encourage customers to leave positive reviews whenever possible. There are a number of creative ways that you can encourage customers to leave reviews, including hosting drawings or games.

·        Always respond: Finally, it’s important to always respond to reviews. When responding to positive reviews, thank the customer in question for their loyalty to your business, and invite them to come back soon. When responding to negative reviews, it’s important to never sound accusatory. Always address their concerns directly, and invite the reviewer to discuss their concerns offline.