Do you read a customer review and go, ‘meh, nice compliment’? Or do you get on the edge of your seat to exploit every ounce of it?
Granted, one review is just that – one review. But when they begin to add up, do you still see them the same way you see a single review or do you see them as tool for improvement?
A lot of business owners and marketers tend to zoom into the reviews, picking them off one at a time. They get more focused on the way the review made them feel or how a particular customer expressed gratitude or dissatisfaction.
This way, they fail to see the collective power of the whole.
Reviews Are More Powerful Together
There’s a proverb that says that a bunch of sticks is not easily broken. This is true for customer reviews. One customer review can be dismissed. But 50? Not so easily, if at all.
Getting one more review is great because a whole is the sum of individual units. By that, I mean you can’t get 50 reviews if you never had one. But the true value of customer reviews begins to compound as the reviews pile up.
Before you protest, here’s how Google shows the value of reviews in the collective sense. They have found the value of the whole and are putting it into the following use:
- Google uses customer reviews to answer questions asked by potential customers.
- They use reviews as a yardstick to compare the quality of businesses in the same industry.
- Reviews are used to rank businesses on Google.
- Google runs analysis on customer reviews to understand what a business is all about.
- They carefully study customer reviews so that they can get into specific aspects of a business.
As you can clearly see, reviews as a collection hold more value than many businesses realise. And so, it’s time to broaden your review horizon and see what lies beyond.
Getting More Strategic With Reviews
Right there in your customer reviews lie the secret to improving your business. Your customer reviews hold a copious amount of data; it’s crazy not to use it to your advantage.
Reviews convey the thoughts and perception of your customers. To understand what your customers want, you only need to listen attentively. How do you do this? By carefully evaluating your customer reviews.
With your customer reviews, you can take care of present problems and you can also forecast the problems of the future.
Here are a couple of strategies to use your customer reviews:
- Convert Passive Reviewers Into Brand Promoters
Most collections of customers’ reviews show two extremes, lots of 5-star and 1-star reviews. But there’s a middle ground. There are also lots of lukewarm reviewers, the 3- and 4-star customers. They liked your business but there was also something they didn’t like.
Customers who leave 3- or 4-star reviews usually write out why they aren’t giving you a 5-star rating. These reviews go along the lines of, ‘…I’d have given you 5 stars but I found so, so and so to be a problem…’.
You could take out the time to make a list of what exactly they all didn’t like and come up with a plan to make it better. Doing this can see you turn these lukewarm customers into brand advocates. This process may take time but it is definitely worth it.
- Know Your Strengths And The Things That Set You Apart
Your reviews can – like a crystal ball – show you a strength you never knew you had. In your reviews you could find which of your products or services caught the attention of your customers.
Here’s an example…
A certain fruit drink company in the US found out their strength this way.
They came up with a refreshing drink made out of a variety of vegetables and marketed it as a way to quench thirst on a hot day. The marketing campaigns didn’t produce the expected results.
However, when they asked for feedback from a few of their customers, they learned something. They found that nearly all the customer said the drink help them take their vegetables. It made it easy for them to take vegetables without having to go shopping for and blending veggies.
What happened next was almost magical…
The company then ran an ad marketing their drink as an easy way to take veggies without the stress. The results were amazing – sales went through the roof.
The bottom line is that customer reviews can reveal strength in your brand that your customers see but you don’t. Identify this strength and capitalize on it.
What role does Wi-Fi analytics play in this? More than a few.
For example, while you may think a certain product is what your customers want, Wi-Fi analytics can help you track what products your customers buy the most from you. It will also show what products are being neglected by your customers.
This way you’d have glimpse of what products you should stock up on.
With SpotOn Wi-Fi’s intuitive dashboard, you will see how all the data play out and can make inform decisions.
Go here and request a free-demo to see how it looks and feels. Or contact us if you want to know more about how our product can help your business.
POSTED ON October 12, 2019Share:
