Great online reviews are golden for your business: They can boost your digital presence and search results while building trust with current and potential customers. Still, not every review will be stellar and learning effective customer review management can keep your business growing and thriving.
In this guide, you’ll explore customer review management, including how to leverage reviews to strengthen your service and grow through unlimited reach to a worldwide clientele.
What is review management?
Review management is the process of monitoring, analyzing, and responding to customer reviews across various platforms. This includes your business’s website, social media sites, additional ecommerce sites such as Amazon or Etsy, and aggregate review sites like Yelp, Google, and TripAdvisor. It’s an essential tool to maintain a positive online presence, enhance visibility, and improve your business practices based on direct consumer feedback.
Often, small business owners find it difficult to effectively monitor and respond to all the online reviews they receive. Today, though, there are tools that make it easier to collect, monitor, and respond to online reviews. For example, automated email services and online survey platforms can respond when customers receive their orders – and that process can help you gain more reviews.
Why do you need a review management strategy?
Today, every business needs an online presence, even if yours is primarily an in-person business, because the root of all purchasing decisions are online reviews.
Returning and potential customers are likely to explore your online reviews on your digital platforms, as well as through feedback channels like Yelp, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and others. In fact, TrustPulse found that over 99% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase, and almost 50% of respondents trust online reviews as much as recommendations from family and friends.
It’s great when things go well and your customers love your products, services, and customer care. But what happens when a customer has a negative experience?
At any moment, a review that goes viral can cause a business’s sales to skyrocket, or plummet, within days or weeks. That’s why an effective review management strategy is essential.
How to create an effective review management strategy
The right review management strategy can support you in any situation. Here are tips to help you with review management:
1. Monitor online review sites
Set up alerts using tools provided by platforms like Yelp and Google to get notifications when new reviews of your business are posted.
Set regular check-ins by scheduling a time when you or a team member will manually check review sites. You should also review anything that may have been sent directly, such as through your customer-service email.
Engage with your customers when someone takes the time to leave a review.. Set a goal to acknowledge all new feedback within a set timeframe to hold yourself and your team accountable. For trust and transparency, it’s important to include negative reviews along with the positive. This shows the world that you care by recognizing something could’ve been done differently or better.
2. Request reviews from current clients
Your current and returning clients keep coming back for a reason – they love what you offer! There are a few ways you can stay in touch to ask for a review:
- Follow-up purchases with requests for reviews: Send automated emails asking for feedback shortly after a purchase or after completing a service. Assuming your customers are happy with their product and/or experience, they’ll be more inclined to leave you a positive review in this timeframe.
- Monitor social mentions: Keep track of mentions on social media platforms using tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to quickly collect and respond to feedback that may not appear on traditional review sites. When you see a positive mention, reach out to see if the customer would be willing to leave a more formal review!
- In-person requests: Train staff to ask for feedback during checkout or at the conclusion of a service. While this isn’t the type of review that will appear in an online search, you’ll get real-time feedback to improve your offerings and show that you’re invested in your customers’ satisfaction.
- Follow-up calls or texts: Depending on your business, consider using follow-up calls or texts to gather feedback, especially for high-value clients or complex services.
3. Leverage digital platforms for a competitive advantage
Meet your customers where they are online and use the platforms they frequent to solicit feedback. You can use:
- Social media polls: Platforms like Facebook and Instagram can run polls or request feedback on specific aspects of your business, which can give you important insight.
- Online surveys: Create brief surveys using tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms and distribute them via email or on your website. This shows that you want to use the feedback to add value for your customers and their experiences with you.
- A feedback form on your website: Most website builders make feedback forms available as an easy way to engage customers in the moment.
To ensure that your staff members are on the same page for review management, be sure to:
- Set clear guidelines. Develop a set of guidelines for how and when to respond to different types of reviews. Ensure that your staff understands that reviews live forever online and anything they say as a response will be a permanent reflection on your business.
- Designate responders. Assign feedback responsibilities to specific team members to maintain consistency of tone and messaging. This also puts a system in place for responding to feedback so it’s always clear who should take on this work.
- Create a response timeframe. Aim to respond to reviews quickly to show customers that their feedback is valued – ideally, within 24-48 hours.
Turn all reviews into opportunities for goodwill
Responses to positive reviews are the easy part of the equation. They can be as simple as “Thank you, we appreciate your business and your great review,” but if you spend a few more moments, it can also make a big difference for your business. Consider these suggestions when crafting your messages:
- Show appreciation: Always thank the customer for their positive feedback and their purchase.
- Personalize your responses: Customize each response to reflect specifics mentioned in the review, showing genuine engagement.
- Encourage further engagement: Invite happy customers to return or to join a loyalty program, or ask them to share their experience with friends.
Responding to negative reviews
When you receive a negative review online, respond in ways that are positive and purposeful by addressing the specifics of the complaint. Then, try to take a resolution in the direction of an offline conversation or action.
Keep these important points in mind:
- Stay professional: Always respond calmly and professionally, regardless of the tone of the review.
- Acknowledge the issue: Recognize any problems the customer experienced and express genuine regret.
- Ask to continue the conversation offline: Propose a solution to resolve the issue or ask the customer to contact you directly to discuss further. This shows your commitment to customer satisfaction.
For example, if you own a pizzeria and a customer complains about the food and service they received in your shop, try something like this: “Joe, we just read your review and we’re so sorry that you had that experience with us. We take pride in our family recipes and our service, and we hope that you’ll give us another try. Please contact us directly at the pizzeria, thank you.”
What you don’t want to do in your response is offer an action, service, or product. Unfortunately, there are too many people who may try to take advantage of your goodwill. For example, if your response is “Joe, we just read your review and we’re so sorry that you had that experience with us. We take pride in our family recipes and our service and so, we’ll refund your money and give you a pizza for free.” As a result, you’ll end up with more negative reviews than you can manage from other people who just want a free pizza.
What to do about harsh or unfair customer reviews
From time to time, you’ll get a review that’s clearly less about your product or service than it is about someone else’s very bad mood. While these are unfair reviews, they’re almost inevitable in our digital world. There are ways to manage these:
- Remain professional and courteous: Respond politely and professionally, even if the review is harsh or unfair. Whether someone has a legitimate complaint or not, approach with compassion and you’ll win over the majority of people who read your reviews, regardless of what actually happens with this customer.
- Invite further discussion offline: Encourage the reviewer to contact you offline to resolve the issue. This opens the door to building goodwill and often, this is enough to inspire a negative reviewer to update with their positive interaction.
Use incentives wisely, if at all
While you want your customers to provide feedback and publicize your business through their reviews, it’s also important that you do so in ways that build trust. Given this, use consideration when incentivizing reviews. The more someone has to gain by leaving one, the less trustworthy the review becomes – some platforms don’t even allow them. Keep in mind that this is different than rewarding returning or new customers with incentives such as loyalty discounts.
Analyze feedback, then put it into action
Over time and with many reviews, you may spot trends among your customer feedback. That’s a great opportunity to improve or introduce products and services. You should categorize the feedback to identify common suggestions. This will help you find out what could be good for your business’s bottom line and provide value for your customers:
- Rating-scale analysis: For feedback collected using rating scales, calculate average scores for different aspects of your business to identify strong points and weaknesses.
- Content coding: Similar to rating scales, manually code qualitative responses to categorize feedback and identify patterns or recurring themes.
- Trend analysis: Look at feedback trends over time to determine if changes in your business practices are improving customer satisfaction.
- Customer interviews: As relevant and appropriate, conduct follow-up interviews with customers who provided detailed or critical feedback to gain deeper insight and context.
- SWOT analysis: A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis can help you align customer feedback with your business strategy to identify where feedback can turn into opportunities or mitigate threats.
Do a cost/benefit analysis to develop a clear, step-by-step action plan to address areas of improvement, capitalize on strengths, and explore new opportunities.
If you move forward with your customers’ ideas, be sure to let them know. Depending on your business, this can be a “By popular demand, we’ve added XYZ to our menu” message on your digital media or it can be a more personalized note to your clients.
Pursuit can help you leverage opportunities and grow
Effective review management strategies can help you leverage opportunities and address challenges – and if you need financing for either or both, Pursuit can help. We have small business loans and line of credit for working capital, inventory, and everything you need to keep your customers coming back. Contact us to learn more.
