Yes You Need More Glowing Reviews For Your Business!
By Stu Leventhal ~ Guru Marketing Editor
People are checking online review sites now-a-days before they buy or hire. Most companies; realtors, restaurants, bars, barbershops, appliance stores, grocery stores…do not even know what people are saying about their business online. One bad review can and will hurt your business! You need to counter that bad review fast, as soon as possible, so it does not go on killing your brand image and deterring potential new clients and customers from hiring you and buying from you.
Online posts can stay online for months and years. The question is, are your reviews doing your company damage or helping you gain new business?
When was the last time you checked the relevant business review sites covering your industry to hear what folks are saying about your company? Do you reply to the good reviews, thanking the reviewer? Do you reply to the bad reviews you have gotten saying you appreciate hearing about the bad incident and you are glad that they brought this problem to your attention? You should comment! Make it clear to anyone who reads a bad review that you and your company listen to your customers and are taking steps to fix the problem? Invite people to come in and see for themselves the improvements that you have made on the issue. Tell great reviews and bad reviewers that you appreciate their business and hope to same them again soon.
Your goal with commenting on a review is to convince people that you are professional and interested in being the best in your field. Yours is a brand worth doing business with!
The good news is that you can improve your business by listening to what your customers have to say about the service they received when frequenting your establishment. Good or bad a review alerts management to problems and tells you what your customers are seeking from you. Good reviews tell you where you are winning and beating your competition so you can do more of those things. You should improve you marketing pitches so you are talking about the things that are being brought up in your reviews. These are the things by which people are judging your company and the criteria with which they are comparing you to your competition. Your ads will do better by focusing on what is being discussed in your reviews and your competitions reviews.
I know it makes you mad when a customer trashes your company, products and services online. You should get upset when you hear a customer, client or vendor was treated badly by one of your employees.
The thing to remember is that now you know about the problem. The bad review alerted you to a situation that may have gone on for many more months before you became aware of it. You can now fix the problem. Now comes the challenge though; do you have a dedicated employee actually making it a priority to go online and check out these reviews sites that are popular for your industry. If you are not checking these sites every few days minimum then a bad review may be posted that is doing you and your company harm, costing you customers, orders and losing you clients and you have no idea the post is live online.
On the flip side, when you get a great review, praising your crew members, you can use that review to further market your company and to build your brand image up. But again if you are not privy to the good stuff people are saying about you then you cannot optimize and capitalize on all the positive effect that a great review can have on your company. Yes, when your team earns a great five start review online, you should be sharing the great news with your crew. This alone can get your team to preform even better for your customers.
Your employees are in control of the type of reviews your customers leave online. Share the importance of reviews and do not just tell them when they get a bad review. Positive feedback tells your team that they are heading in the right direction and that their extra efforts are working, being noticed and are appreciated. A good review will improve employee morale and happy employees; smile, greet and make sure your customers have a great time while doing business with your company.
Reviews good or bad are always good for management and the team. Reviews are like your report card; customers get to grade you on how your company is doing. Customers are always right, so you need to improve your service when you get a bad review and you need to call a team meeting to discuss how we can get some great company reviews on this review site.
Did you know that reviews about your company will help your website, webpages, articles and posts go up in the search engine rankings? That is correct, the more people that are discussing you and your company all over cyberspace helps your popularity with search engines like Google. Your authority in your industry, especially if yours is a local based business, rises in stature because your company is being mentioned by others all over the net. Now it is common sense that you want to get mostly good reviews if not only good reviews.
So, is it hard to control what folks are saying about your company online? Ideally, you and your crew should be able to just give great service and you would get a lot of great people shouting your praise. But, we know that does not always happen. The companies that consistently get great reviews online, are actively going out of their way to strategize how to accomplish getting those great reviews. Yes, they make a plan to gain more favorable reviews and they target getting those great reviews onto, particularly, the most influential platforms that their potential customers are known to frequent. Your reviews need to be in front of eyes that want to read about your company and what you provide.
Bear in mind, potential new customers that are considering hiring you or buying from you, will value an independent person’s review of your company much higher than they will believe your own company’s claims that you are the best. You can pay to put up a billboard or run a commercial or take out ads online or in the local newspaper but your competitors are all saying the same thing you are in their ads. We will trust another person’s review before we trust a company tooting its own horn.
Make sure you have a place for satisfied customers to leave their praising reviews right on your company website. Your website needs to highlight the best reviews you get. By highlight I mean blow up the font so it is big on the webpage and stands out! You can also post your great reviews on top of an eye catching photo! Publish your commendable and flattering reviews on your about page to reinforce your messaging. Next; post (pin) your photo with your review on it, onto your Pinterest board. That pin is a clickable link that brings people from Pinterest to your website about page! That photo review can also be shared on all of your other social media accounts too just add a title and a few lines like; here is what our customers are saying about us.
Posting your reviews artistically gets you likes and shares on social media platforms; those links raise your standing with Google search and other search engines too!
You must ask frequently for reviews to keep getting current reviews. Direct folks to your social accounts, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, Twitter… and ask them to tell your members and followers about their wonderful experiences with your company and employees. When a certain platform, like Yelp or Angie’s list posts a few bad reviews, counter that negativity by asking your loyal customers to go to yelp and leave a positive review for you.
One way to court reviews of course is to offer incentives for reviewing. Yes, you can give customers a coupon or free consultation for leaving a review on your site or when reviewing on any other review site in cyberspace. Just tell them to notify you of the review once it is up and live online and you will send them their reward. This helps you two-fold because they have to give you their name and email address to receive their rewards. Now with their contact info in hand, you can converse and communicate to them more directly and more often in the future. Via well-crafted email marketing campaigns you can easily supply each of them with the information that is of more specific interest to each individual.
Make sure you poll your customers to ask what review sites they frequent and what review bloggers they trust. You want your flattering reviews to appear in the most popular online places. Places your particular type of customers hang out!
Online posts can stay online for months and years. The question is, are your reviews doing your company damage or helping you gain new business?
When was the last time you checked the relevant business review sites covering your industry to hear what folks are saying about your company? Do you reply to the good reviews, thanking the reviewer? Do you reply to the bad reviews you have gotten saying you appreciate hearing about the bad incident and you are glad that they brought this problem to your attention? You should comment! Make it clear to anyone who reads a bad review that you and your company listen to your customers and are taking steps to fix the problem? Invite people to come in and see for themselves the improvements that you have made on the issue. Tell great reviews and bad reviewers that you appreciate their business and hope to same them again soon.
Your goal with commenting on a review is to convince people that you are professional and interested in being the best in your field. Yours is a brand worth doing business with!
The good news is that you can improve your business by listening to what your customers have to say about the service they received when frequenting your establishment. Good or bad a review alerts management to problems and tells you what your customers are seeking from you. Good reviews tell you where you are winning and beating your competition so you can do more of those things. You should improve you marketing pitches so you are talking about the things that are being brought up in your reviews. These are the things by which people are judging your company and the criteria with which they are comparing you to your competition. Your ads will do better by focusing on what is being discussed in your reviews and your competitions reviews.
I know it makes you mad when a customer trashes your company, products and services online. You should get upset when you hear a customer, client or vendor was treated badly by one of your employees.
The thing to remember is that now you know about the problem. The bad review alerted you to a situation that may have gone on for many more months before you became aware of it. You can now fix the problem. Now comes the challenge though; do you have a dedicated employee actually making it a priority to go online and check out these reviews sites that are popular for your industry. If you are not checking these sites every few days minimum then a bad review may be posted that is doing you and your company harm, costing you customers, orders and losing you clients and you have no idea the post is live online.
On the flip side, when you get a great review, praising your crew members, you can use that review to further market your company and to build your brand image up. But again if you are not privy to the good stuff people are saying about you then you cannot optimize and capitalize on all the positive effect that a great review can have on your company. Yes, when your team earns a great five start review online, you should be sharing the great news with your crew. This alone can get your team to preform even better for your customers.
Your employees are in control of the type of reviews your customers leave online. Share the importance of reviews and do not just tell them when they get a bad review. Positive feedback tells your team that they are heading in the right direction and that their extra efforts are working, being noticed and are appreciated. A good review will improve employee morale and happy employees; smile, greet and make sure your customers have a great time while doing business with your company.
Reviews good or bad are always good for management and the team. Reviews are like your report card; customers get to grade you on how your company is doing. Customers are always right, so you need to improve your service when you get a bad review and you need to call a team meeting to discuss how we can get some great company reviews on this review site.
Did you know that reviews about your company will help your website, webpages, articles and posts go up in the search engine rankings? That is correct, the more people that are discussing you and your company all over cyberspace helps your popularity with search engines like Google. Your authority in your industry, especially if yours is a local based business, rises in stature because your company is being mentioned by others all over the net. Now it is common sense that you want to get mostly good reviews if not only good reviews.
So, is it hard to control what folks are saying about your company online? Ideally, you and your crew should be able to just give great service and you would get a lot of great people shouting your praise. But, we know that does not always happen. The companies that consistently get great reviews online, are actively going out of their way to strategize how to accomplish getting those great reviews. Yes, they make a plan to gain more favorable reviews and they target getting those great reviews onto, particularly, the most influential platforms that their potential customers are known to frequent. Your reviews need to be in front of eyes that want to read about your company and what you provide.
Bear in mind, potential new customers that are considering hiring you or buying from you, will value an independent person’s review of your company much higher than they will believe your own company’s claims that you are the best. You can pay to put up a billboard or run a commercial or take out ads online or in the local newspaper but your competitors are all saying the same thing you are in their ads. We will trust another person’s review before we trust a company tooting its own horn.
Make sure you have a place for satisfied customers to leave their praising reviews right on your company website. Your website needs to highlight the best reviews you get. By highlight I mean blow up the font so it is big on the webpage and stands out! You can also post your great reviews on top of an eye catching photo! Publish your commendable and flattering reviews on your about page to reinforce your messaging. Next; post (pin) your photo with your review on it, onto your Pinterest board. That pin is a clickable link that brings people from Pinterest to your website about page! That photo review can also be shared on all of your other social media accounts too just add a title and a few lines like; here is what our customers are saying about us.
Posting your reviews artistically gets you likes and shares on social media platforms; those links raise your standing with Google search and other search engines too!
You must ask frequently for reviews to keep getting current reviews. Direct folks to your social accounts, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, Twitter… and ask them to tell your members and followers about their wonderful experiences with your company and employees. When a certain platform, like Yelp or Angie’s list posts a few bad reviews, counter that negativity by asking your loyal customers to go to yelp and leave a positive review for you.
One way to court reviews of course is to offer incentives for reviewing. Yes, you can give customers a coupon or free consultation for leaving a review on your site or when reviewing on any other review site in cyberspace. Just tell them to notify you of the review once it is up and live online and you will send them their reward. This helps you two-fold because they have to give you their name and email address to receive their rewards. Now with their contact info in hand, you can converse and communicate to them more directly and more often in the future. Via well-crafted email marketing campaigns you can easily supply each of them with the information that is of more specific interest to each individual.
Make sure you poll your customers to ask what review sites they frequent and what review bloggers they trust. You want your flattering reviews to appear in the most popular online places. Places your particular type of customers hang out!
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