By: Sentry Marketing Group

February 28, 2015

For service industries, online reviews are the new word of mouth. No business, especially one that depends on referrals, can afford to ignore its online presence. Here, we offer some advice from the experts for getting good reviews and connecting with customers online.

Why reviews are important

A 2014 survey by Bright Local found that 56% of consumers consider reviews before visiting a restaurant.   30-35% use reviews to help them choose a doctor or dentist, retail store, hair stylist or beauty salon, or hotel or B&B.  Of those surveyed, a whopping 88% said they trust online reviews as much as they would a personal recommendation.  For service industries, online reviews are the new word of mouth.

Reviews are also playing an increasing role in where businesses appear in search results.  Google, by far the most used search engine in the world, now shows reviews right in the returns.  And guess what?  Those four or five businesses that it puts on that front page (the only page most people look at) all have a healthy sampling of reviews, usually with four or five stars.

Another thing to keep in mind: the purchasing power of millennials is on the rise.  These online-review-happy young people are soon to have the most spending power of any other group of consumers.  Already, Zendesk reports, 58% of consumers are more likely to share customer service experiences now than they were just five years ago.  No business, especially one that depends on word of mouth for its customer base, can afford to ignore its online presence.

Building a healthy online reputation

The first step in generating a positive online reputation is, of course, no different from that in building a positive reputation in any other setting: earn the loyalty and trust of your customers.

A 2013 survey by Zendesk indicates that customer service is the #1 factor that influences how much consumers trust a company.  As a proprietor or manager of a service-oriented business, it is essential to have mechanisms in place to ensure that the customer service standards of your company will earn you that trust and that they are being carried out at every level of the business.  In our experience, mystery shopping is one of the most reliable and effective ways of achieving this.

However, having a great product or offering great service will only take you so far.  Once you have created the kind of service that gets talked about, you need to make sure people are actually talking about it.

Getting customers to review your business

There is a lot of advice out there about how to increase the number of reviews of your business, and there a few things that all the experts seem to agree on:

DO

1. It is essential to claim your accounts on relevant review sites.

Step one?  Learn where your business is likely to be reviewed.  Do some research to see which review sites are most popular for your industry.  Search your successful competitors and see where they are being reviewed.  In our research, we found this very helpful tip in an article from Bruce Clay, an internet marketing firm:

Take a day to fill out your profile on as many of these of sites as you can.  This doesn’t mean you will need to monitor all of them carefully (you will probably want to choose 3 to 5 to focus on, at least at first), but having a full profile lends your business legitimacy, which is a huge factor in building trust.  Plus, every site on which your correct address, phone number, website and, when possible, menu is available is another way for customers to find you.

Most experts also suggest creating accounts on social media, especially Facebook, which also has a review function.  Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be great ways to build a community around your brand and to help loyal customers become ambassadors.  They also provide easy ways to make customers aware of special offers, coupons, and events.  With Google’s new integration of tweets into search results, these customer-drawing notices will even likely be seen by potential customers who have not yet chosen to follow you on social media.

2. Be active, respond to reviews.

Just as it is important to stay active on your social media accounts, once you start getting reviews, it is important to keep up with them.  Especially in the case of negative reviews, how and whether you respond will tell potential customers a lot about your commitment to customer service.  But it is also good to respond to positive reviews.  Thanking loyal customers and letting them know that you value their opinions is a great way to keep them coming back (and to keep them giving those good reviews).

3. Encourage customers to offer reviews.

Though it is not generally a good idea to solicit reviews, there are a number of ways experts recommend to help encourage reviews.

• Let customers know where they can give you a review.

Most people who provide reviews online are in the habit of doing so.  Many times, all it takes to get them to review your place is to remind them to do so.  Sometimes this is best done by letting them know where you have profiles – a sign in the store that says “Check us out on Facebook” or a Yelp! sticker on the window (several review sites provide these if you register with them) can make a big difference.  Some establishments add a note at the bottom of each receipt reminding customers to review them on a particular site.

• Make it easy.

Provide links on your website and in all of your email marketing to whatever review sites and social media pages on which you have a presence.   Make sure these links lead directly to your profile on the site, and not to the site’s homepage.

• Let customers choose.

Set yourself up on several sites so that customers can choose where to review your business.  The sites themselves (especially Yelp!) tend to favor their frequent reviewers anyway and customers don’t want to be bothered with having to set up an account on a site they don’t normally use to give a single review.

4. Automate the process of managing reviews.

Because everyone recognizes the importance of managing one’s online reputation, there are hundreds of tools designed by and for business owners and reputation managers to help you keep track of what people are saying about you across multiple platforms.  Some of these simplify the process of getting your listings out there, taking your information in through one portal and distributing it to sites people use to search for businesses like yours.  Others focus on tracking activity on various review and/or social media sites and alerting you accordingly.  Some also help you to automate the process of posting on these sites and responding in a timely manner.  Many combine some of these services.  Some of these tools are free and some require an investment, but, unless you are already killing it on review sites and social media, it will be well worth it.  Here are a few articles that can help you get started on identifying what kind of tools might be best for your business.

 

Top Tips and Tools for Online Reputation Management
from CIO online magazine

2015 Best: Social Media Monitoring Review
from Top Ten Reviews

How to Monitor Yelp, Other Review Sites
from Web Marketing Today

Top 10 Most Reviewed Social Media Monitoring Software Systems
on SoftwareAdvice.com

List of 50 Free Social Media Tools

50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management

5. Create a structure for handling reviews.

Especially if there will be more than one person monitoring them, decide on a timeframe for responding to comments and reviews, establish policies regarding incentives and reparations, and make sure your employees know when and how to encourage customers to mention you online.  Also, be sure to schedule time at least once or twice a week (though every day would be best) to read and respond to reviews.  If you don’t keep up with them, whatever effort you put into garnering them will ultimately be wasted.

Don’t

There are also a few no-no’s on which all the experts seem to agree:

1. Don’t ever pay for reviews.

In many cases, this is actually illegal and at best it is unethical, frowned upon, and will incur the wrath of the review sites that people trust.

2. Don’t ask specifically for good reviews.

What you want are honest reviews.  It is not that difficult for review sites or consumers to see through a campaign for positive reviews.  They show up in clusters and create recognizable patterns that at best leave potential customers suspicious about their legitimacy and at worst get you in big and damaging trouble with the review site.

3. Don’t be afraid of negative reviews.

 Research has shown that consumers overwhelmingly trust reviews more when there are a mix of positive and negative comments.  While too many negative reviews will definitely hurt business, a complete absence of them will also lower trust.  For more on this, check out our post on handling negative reviews.

4. Don’t ask customers to submit reviews on your establishment’s tablets or kiosks for.

Sites that pride themselves on objectivity (and rely on this reputation to make a profit) have all sorts of ways to make sure reviews are honest and freely given.  They will notice if several reviews have come from a single IP address, and they will call you out, brutally.

Maybe

There are a couple of points on which the experts seem to be divided:

1. Offering incentives for reviews

In our research, we found that just a little more than half of the advice given recommended offering small incentives (a minor discount or a little swag) to customers who provided reviews.  Others felt that this pushed the line of paying for reviews.  It is a dangerous path to tread, and some sites (like Yelp! and Google + Local) have strict policies against soliciting reviews in any way.

2. Responding to all comments and reviews

Though most of the experts seem to recommend responding to as many of your reviews as possible, especially negative ones, there were a few who felt that simply responding to a good helping would be sufficient.  This may especially be true if your resources are limited, as reading and responding to every review once you really get rolling could be very times consuming.

 

Whether you’ve just started thinking about your online reputation or are looking to up the ante, whether you’re keeping your strategy simple or going all out, never lose sight of the big picture:  If you want your customers to rave about you online or off, the best thing you can do is give them something to rave about.