Encourage and Reward Positive Reviews
A bias that is inherent in most review sites is that the people who write reviews often feel strongly one way or the other. You either have to be really excited or really upset to go out of your way and write a review online – there is little middle-ground represented. Most companies only have a handful of reviews posted on these sites, making that group less representative of their overall customer base. So one negative review out of three total looks really bad. The key to managing your online reputation is encouraging ALL of your customers to leave a review online. This way, there is a better representation of how customers feel about your business and “outlier” reviews will become less noticeable or influential.
There are a bunch of great ways to encourage your customers and clients to give great reviews of your company, product or service.
Perhaps the best way to solicit online reviews is by sending customers an email within 24 hours of earning their business. Provide them with a link to your review site making the process as easy as possible for them. Once they have completed and submitted their review, be sure to email the respondent thanking them for their feedback and responding to negative comments if necessary. One way to reward and encourage participation is to enter those who complete reviews into a raffle for an iPad 2 or a discount off future service. Just make sure you don’t cross the line of bribing customers for positive reviews!
GOT A PHYSICAL LOCATION? HERE’S AN AWESOME WAY TO GET POSITIVE REVIEWS
Create a “Client Reviews Kiosk.” This could be as simple as setting up a netbook (laptop) near your front desk, waiting room or in your showroom. When you’ve had a great meeting with a client or you’ve successful sold them (ex. the bicycle shop owner selling a client a new bike for their kid), ask them right then and there to post a review about your business (on Yelp, Google Places, Facebook, etc.).
Have everything all set-up and ready to go. Make it fun, casual and easy for them to write a great review and offer an incentive – like a $25 gift card to a local restaurant. You might even place a placcard next to the laptop that says, “What Other Customers Have Written” – this will help spark some ideas for those clients that get stage fright or writer’s block.
How to Handle Negative Reviews
No matter how great your product and service, negative reviews are inevitable. Some people may have a bad experience, or may just be cranky. And not surprisingly, there’s a HUGE population of negative people that spend the bulk of their time wandering around the world wide web complaining about this and moaning about that (afterall, who wants to hang around in the real world with a constant complainer!)! While you can’t delete negative reviews on the internet, you can respond to them appropriately. Showing that you are responsive to your customer’s complaints may help change their mind about your company, or at least show people reading that negative review that you care.
It is best to do this both publicly and privately, if possible. Try leaving a public comment or reply on their review, and if you have no way of contacting them privately you can ask them to contact you privately to discuss further. It is always important to apologize for their experience and offer to correct the matter. If applicable, you can offer a discount code if the negative reviewer is willing to give you a second chance. The more that you show that you care, the more they will feel that their opinion was heard and that it mattered.
Whatever you do, don’t get defensive or try to justify what went wrong. Whether you’re right or wrong, defending yourself typically sends the complainer on the attack and only makes matters worse. Kill ’em with kindness! Read Dale Carnegie’s, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” – it’s an ancient book, but the lessons offered work perfectly for handling customer complaints online.
You Can’t Delete the Bad, But You Can Accentuate the Good
The best way to manage your online reputation is to be proactive. You can’t control what is being said about your company online, but you can guide the discussion by dominating the search results and accentuating positive reviews of your business. Investing in your company’s online footprint allows you to control, to a certain degree, what people find when they search for your company online.
It is much better for a prospective client to find a negative review of your company in a sea of positive reviews; in fact, a few negative reviews can even make the positive reviews more believable. However, if you only have a few reviews and the majority of them are negative or neutral, the negative carries a lot more weight. Constantly work to provide alternative information and make it easily accessible.
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