Overview
Did you know that 93% of consumers are influenced by reviews when purchasing a product on the internet? A Podium survey reveals how influential reviews are in online shopping behavior.
The truth is, not having good quality reviews online can affect your websites traffic and conversions. Therefore, it is crucial to fighting negative reviews head on.
Three ways to effectively fight negative reviews
1. Address the review
You need to address all reviews. However, negative reviews especially require your input. Without a response, consumers only know about the bad things others saw in your company. When you respond, sometimes reviewers might ease up on your review.
Even if they don’t, people now have a balanced response to the situation.
To help you address these reviews on a timely basis, use monitoring tools like Google Alerts or Hootsuite to know what people say about your brand on an ongoing basis.
In addition, check out FreeReviewMonitoring.com.
The faster you react to negativity; the more likely people are to change these reviews and acknowledge your response in the first place.
Another key to getting the best results is to provide a solution that works for your customers. Like we mentioned above it is not always possible to resolve the issue with the specific client. However, other customers who read these reviews can see you attempted to mollify the situation.
2. Don’t give them a reason to provide you with a negative review
While it is easy to say, “don’t do anything wrong,” we know it’s not always possible. However, there are some steps you can take to improve the quality of your reviews.
First, give customers an outlet if they feel wronged. That could mean a contact form, a chatbot or some other type of quick response tool. Make sure your customer service team gets back to them right away.
As an example, many airlines have round-the-clock customer service because they understand how valuable it is to respond as soon as possible when someone complains about a flight.
Second, make sure you give customers as much precise information as possible ahead of time. For example, if you want customers to follow instructions, you need to tell them the steps to take for your product or service to work. Thus, you head off problems before they occur.
Customers often get frustrated and leave a bad review because of their frustration. It is not always that your product doesn’t work, but because they can’t figure it out. Make it as easy as possible for them to use it.
Third, use quality content in your marketing. While content marketing is a great business strategy to get new clients, it’s also a grand strategy to retain those you already have.
Creating content that helps customers understand how to use your product is one of the best ways to stem the flow of negative reviews to your business. That is because you give them the information they might need to understand how to use your products and services.
3. Get positive reviews
There’s nothing wrong with having a few negative reviews. It is impossible for a company to grow a sizable amount without one or two negative reviews. The key here is that you have a lot more positive than negative reviews.
If you look at every review online of a significant product or service, you see that about 5 to 20% of all reviews are negative. However, those top companies are active in making sure that their products get positive reviews as well. That is a large component of reputation management.
Email clients asking them to give a positive review is acceptable in many cases. Check the website you’re working on, so you follow their guidelines. Some have more stringent requirements than others.
The key is that you want to spend your time wisely, so a few negative reviews do no matter compared to the onslaught of positive reviews.
Final thoughts
It is entirely possible to protect your reputation and get a steady flow of new customers to your business. You must know how to protect your online reputation. That requires some strategy, so the employees at your company can actively do this on an on-going basis.
If your company needs help protecting its online reputation from negative reviews, contact us today for a free consultation.
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