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Nowadays, nearly everything is connected. At least until the Internet of Things comes on strong.
Access to the internet is way easier now than it was 15 years ago. This has made it easy for anyone to go online and a leave a word or two about their experience with a brand.
Customer reviews have become invaluable to business owners and marketers alike. For those who understand their value, they are now a treasure chest of useful information. Regardless of the review you get, you can gain insight into what your customers think about your brand.
Both positive and negative reviews tell you something more about your business from the customers’ perspective.
Customer Review Platforms
There are a ton of customers review sites out there. A few popular platforms include Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato, and Google. While these sites may serve as excellent sources of reviews, they are not totally reliable.
Here’s why…
Most customer reviews are made up of either 5 stars or 1 star. The 2 to 4 stars, in most cases, do not count for much. This is because the only customers that are driven to leave reviews are either those who loved their experience or those who hated it. But those whose experience fall somewhere in the middle may not feel inspired to leave any feedback.
You cannot make smart business decisions with unreliable customer review data. The solution to this is to garner customer reviews using your own channel. For this to work effectively, you need to build a sustainable relationship with your customers. You can do this by using platforms such as email, social media, and Wi-Fi marketing.
They can help you collect customer reviews that are true representations of your customers’ opinion. With your own channel, you can collect reviews that are based on multiple experiences.
What makes this idea really cool is that you can get reviews simply by asking for them. This 2018 survey by BrightLocal showed that out of 74% of customers that were asked to leave a review, 68% responded.
In turn, you can use the information to make your customer experience better.
Responding To Poor Customer Ratings
TNS NIPO, a global market research company, studied more than 2000 negative reviews. In this study, they found out that 70% of the customers who leave negative reviews hope they will get a response. But only 38% ever receive a response.
In the same study by BrightLocal, they found that 89% of consumers read a brand’s response to reviews.
In light of these results, you can see why it is important for you to respond to your customer reviews. There is no single correct way to respond to a review. That is up to the brand manager or business owner.
If you manage a restaurant, you could offer a free dessert or drink. When the customer shows up, you can use the opportunity to pacify them and win them over. This response could be different for retail stores, shopping malls, and other kinds of businesses.
TNS NIPO listed a few factors that contribute to the success of a response. They are:
- How quickly the response is given. Here is an efficient tool to help you with this.
- The quality of the solution provided to pacify the customer.
- How the solution is provided.
- How genuine the customer perceives the response to be.
You can ultimately double the willingness of a dissatisfied customer to recommend your brand if you combine these factors effectively.
In a nutshell, whenever you respond to a negative review, be human about it. Nobody likes a critical review but it happens, and it must be handled. You must let the customer know you really want to make amends. If the customer replies your response, ask for their suggestion on how to solve the problem.
Responding this way shows the customer that you care. It will foster a deeper relationship between the customer and your brand. Here are 5 positive ways to handle a negative review to help you get better at handling poor reviews.
One last thing that top 1% of businesses have discovered is that responding speedily to customer reviews is super crucial. It could literally mean the difference between a getting a customer back and losing them forever.
You know why?
A quick response shows that there’s always someone on the other side listening. This gives your customer a sense that they can trust you. Moreover, it tells your customers that you value their opinions so much you are ever ready to hear them.
The problem remains that responding quickly to reviews is difficult, impossible even.
And that’s because you probably use more than one review platform. To do this efficiently, you’d need a team of ‘responders’ on standby. In addition to the stress of managing a team, there’s the cost of it, too.
We have got just the solution for you. SpotOn Reviews will help you collect all your reviews in one place, making it easy for you access them whenever you want. Additionally, this tool notifies you the instant a customer drops a review on any platform you use. With this feature you can respond to customer reviews instantly as though you were having a chat with them.
Our solution is simple but efficient and inexpensive.
Want to know more?
Contact us and we’d tell you about how our tool can help improve your customer retention.
POSTED ON February 20, 2021