Getting the Right Best Reviews for Your Business

The big question is, how do you improve your online reviews or even get people to leave reviews that lead to more sales in the first place?

Below, you’ll find everything you need to whip your online reputation into shape, from which review platforms to focus on to how to ask for reviews that’ll actually make a difference to your bottom line.

For instance, your dentist wont have a very good client base if their online reviews are negative. It would benefit your dentist SEO if the reviews are positive.

Online Review

Consumers pay close attention to the reviews they read online, so earning good reviews is very beneficial to any modern business.

Earning positive online reviews is beneficial to any business page because consumers trust online reviews.

Persuading customers to leave an online review isn’t always easy, though, and many people are more inclined to leave online reviews if they’re upset or unhappy with a business.

Positive feedback is more likely to happen if their experience is great. Because of this, it is important to give a great impression so you have more positive customer reviews.

So what steps can businesses take to share positive reviews that genuinely represent their business and will encourage potential customers to engage them?

Are Online Reviews Important?

Online reviews play a crucial part in the success of your business.

Eighty seven percent of consumers read online reviews to decide what to buy, where to stay, and which restaurant to visit.

This is why positive customer reviews are crucial. A positive online review is what really matters in 2021.

If you’re neglecting your reviews, you’re operating with a major hindrance.

Here’s why:

• Reviews influence search engine rankings: According to a Moz study, review signals make up around 15 percent of ranking factors.
• The more good reviews you have, the higher up your business will appear on local search results.
• Social proof influences purchases and fosters trust: If someone else has had a good experience with a brand, we feel more confident in giving them our money.
• 78 percent of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a business more.
• Reviews help with decision making: If you’re unsure which product to buy from two different brands, online reviews can help take the anxiety out of making the wrong decision.

Positive Customer Reviews

Every successful business relies on having the best customer reviews.

In the past, it was word-of-mouth recommendations from friends or family.

If you wanted to go to the movies on the weekend, you’d pick up the local newspaper and read what film critics had to say.

In 2021, positive online reviews are quintessential for your business to thrive. The more positive reviews, the better.

In today’s digital world, online search and online reviews that people turn to when needing advice on purchasing decisions.

By focusing your marketing efforts on acquiring more of the right reviews, you can grow your business without funneling more money toward expenses like paid ads.

Share positive customer reviews when you receive positive reviews from customers, highlight them!

It’s a good idea to share positive reviews from customers because this shows prospective customers that they are also likely to have a positive experience buying from you.

By providing excellent service, you are encouraging customers to leave positive reviews.

Negative Reviews

No matter what business you’re in, bad reviews are going to happen. There will always be unsatisfied customers that will leave a negative online review.

Sometimes they’re the result of a genuine misstep on the part of the business owner or a staff member; sometimes they’re due to customer misconception, and on rare occasions, a customer might be completely off-base or unreasonable.

Whatever the case, your online presence is important and there is always time to try and change them to a satisfied customer

Managing Negative Online Customer Reviews For Local Businesses

In the event of a mistake on your part, a quick, sincere, and honest response will go a long way.

If you or your staff did something wrong, admit it, apologize, and takes steps to correct the situation.

Even if a review is hostile, you have to remain professional.

It’s never a good look to get nasty with a customer, no matter how much they might provoke you.

If you are finding it impossible to make headway with an irate customer, tell them you’re sorry they had a bad experience and walk away.

Keep in mind that if you resolve the situation, you can ask the customer to remove the negative review and replace it with a a positive review.

They might not do it, but if they seem genuinely satisfied with how you’ve handled yourself, it cannot hurt to try.

Review Sites

Review sites other than Google obviously don’t influence your Google star rating or Google local search results, but they can still generate business.

As many as 97 percent of customers say online reviews influence their decision to purchase.

With online reviews, both quality and quantity are important, because consumers are savvy enough to consider both.

Two or three five-star reviews won’t convince the majority of consumers.

Good reviews are certainly important, but you should also make an effort to acquire as many reviews in as many places as possible.

Industry-specific sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp hold a lot of sway with potential customers, and you can use the same tips discussed above to build a respectable amount of reviews on these platforms.

Because you’ll likely compile a fairly extensive list, you’ll need to decide which sites to focus on because as we’ve established, it’s tough to get customers to leave even one review.

If you overwhelm them, there’s a good chance they won’t leave a review at all.

Product Review Sites

These sites not only help companies gather reviews, but they also vet them for accuracy, which fosters more trust in many customers.

It can also prompt them to leave reviews. Both of these factors mean reviews on these platforms more often lead to conversion.

A good product review site will include the Schema markup needed to get your rating listed in the Google search results and have enough authority with the search engine that those results will be visible.

Social Media

Social media platforms are not only a place where consumers leave reviews, but Facebook in particular is a place where many consumers start their search for a local product or service.

The same as on other sites, those customers will take a business’s star rating into consideration.

Social media has a slightly different etiquette, though.

First of all, users on social media have a very short attention span, and they expect an almost immediate response to any complaints aired on Facebook or Twitter.

If you are unable to monitor these accounts, you should have, at minimum, an automatic message letting users know you’ll respond as soon as you can – and you should respond in no more than a few hours.

You should also resolve the issue publicly.

Asking the customer to take a complaint offline makes others think you have something to hide, so if you can do so without revealing personal information or giving in to unreasonable demands, you should address the complaint on the platform.

This shows other potential customers what kind of treatment they can expect.

Lastly, it’s important to respond to each and every review. For positive reviews, showing some gratitude and encouraging repeat business is fine.

In the case of negative reviews, don’t be defensive or try to argue with the reviewer; that’s a bad look.

Instead, ask them how you can make the situation right and try to resolve the issue.

In all cases, give each and every customer a unique response – customers will notice quickly if you are pasting the same sentence into every response.

Google My Business

The first step to cultivating reviews is to set up your Google My Business profile rather than letting it go unclaimed.

The process is fairly simple, and Google will walk you through the steps.

You will need to verify the physical location of your business, and this is an important step that you shouldn’t neglect; Google algorithms use this information when deciding whether to show your information to a searcher who is in physical proximity to your establishment.

Next, optimize your Google My Business profile with high-quality photos that capture the nature of your business and its personality.

Update all of the available descriptions with as much attention to detail as possible. That’s the easy part.

While encouraging your customers to write reviews is tricky, encouraging them to leave high quality reviews is more of a challenge.

First, make it as easy for them as possible by providing a link where they can leave the review.

Here is one way to do that step by step:

• Go to the PlaceID Lookup Tool
• Put your business name in the “Enter a Location” field
• Click your business name or enter your location
• You will find your Place ID on the map beneath your business name and above your location
• Copy your Place ID and paste it over “<place_id>” in this URL: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=<place_id>.
• From this link, a Google review form will pop up

This is the link you’ll share with your customers to encourage them to leave a review – particularly when you believe the review will be a positive one.

Again, actually getting customers to leave reviews is the difficult part.

Here are some tips on getting more online reviews. Use the Google review link in your email marketing campaigns – to help, collect email addresses at checkout.

Teach your staff to ask for reviews from happy customers have printed materials instructing customers on how to leave a review when it’s not possible to provide the link Use in-store placards and banners to encourage customers to leave a review.

Google uses distance and location ranking to deliver optimized search results.

It helps users find the best and nearest solution and shows rankings and reviews to help make a decision.

In other words, getting your business’s website optimized for local search is one of the best ways to get more customers without any aggressive marketing campaigns.

How do you get onto Google My Business? You need to create and verify your Business profile.

Once it’s set up, you can control how your business shows up in search, including contact details, opening hours, etc.

You’ll start appearing in Google’s listings for your business category.Next, you want to work on getting reviews.

The more 5-star reviews you have, the higher your business will appear on the Google My Business search results.

Customer Feedback

Feedback is important for a variety of reasons.

Good customer reviews and feedback can tell you a lot about your business and what the market is looking for.

The more reviews, the better.

1. Customer Feedback Helps Improve Products and Services

When you initially introduce a new product, brand, or service to the market you probably have an idea about customer needs.

Market research that you conduct before introduction gives you an idea if potential customers would be willing to buy it and also they can give you some tips on how you could improve it.

However, only after your customers use your product or service you can learn about all the advantages, flaws and their actual experience.

On top of that, their needs and expectations evolve with time.

Customer feedback is an insight into what is working well about your product or service and what should be done to make experience better.

You might have the best expertise in the industry in which your company operates, but your professional knowledge will never be more valuable to business performance than customer insights.

Their opinions help you ensure that the end product will actually meet their expectations, solve their problems and fulfill their needs.

2. Customer Feedback Helps You Measure Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and loyalty is a crucial factor that determines company’s financial performance.

It is directly linked to many benefits, such as increased market share, lower costs, or higher revenue.

Many studies confirmed close connection between customer satisfaction and business performance.

Therefore, there is no doubt that you want to make sure your clients are happy with your products and services.

Naturally, the best way to find out if you meet their expectation is to get their opinions.

Using rating-based questions you can easily estimate the level of satisfaction and consequently predict your company’s financial condition in the future.

One of the most accurate methodologies that has helped many companies measure, manage and improve customer satisfaction is NPS.

The metric is based on one simple question that investigates how likely it is that a customer would recommend a brand to a friend.

3. Collecting Customer Feedback Shows You Value Their Opinions

By asking your clients for feedback you communicate that their opinion is important to you.

You involve them in shaping your business so they feel more attached to your company.

Listening to their voice helps you create stronger relations with them.

This is the best way to gain valuable brand ambassadors who will spread positive word-of-mouth for you.

And I am sure you are aware that their recommendations is probably the most effective and, at the same time, the cheapest way to acquire new customers and become more trustworthy in the eyes of your current and potential clients.

People always appreciate when you ask them if they are happy (or unhappy) with your service.

It shows you actually value their opinion and that you are here for them, not the other way around.

They feel that your primary business goal is to solve their problems and fulfill their needs, not to get their money.

It puts a customer in the central position of your company and this is the right way to run a business.

4. Customer Feedback Helps You Create the Best Customer Experience

Today’s marketing is heavily based on experiences people have with products, services and brands.

They do not buy Apple products just because they are good. They want to demonstrate their status and affiliation to a particular group.

They do not buy Nike clothes because they are durable. They buy courage to extend their boundaries.

Therefore, if you focus on providing the best customer experience at every touch-point clients will stay loyal to your brand.

And naturally, the most effective way to give them amazing experience is asking them what they like about your service and what should be improved.

5. Customer Feedback Helps to Improve Customer Retention

Satisfied customer will stay with you.

Unhappy customer will eventually find a better alternative to your business and leave.

Customer feedback helps you determine if your clients are satisfied with your service and detect areas where you should improve.

Thanks to asking for opinions regularly you can always keep a finger on the pulse.

Each time a dissatisfied customer express his disappointment you can immediately react and find a solution to fix an issue.

This is a perfect moment to win a client back and even increase his level of loyalty.

In many cases, an unhappy customer who encountered a problem with your service, but you got it fixed straightaway demonstrates bigger devotion to your brand that a customer who has never been disappointed with your service.

6. Customer Feedback Is a Reliable Source for Information To Other Consumers

In the times of social media, consumers do not trust commercials or expert advice so much.

Opinions provided by other customers who have already used a product or service are more reliable source for information these days.

When you look for an accommodation in a city you visit or you want to find a nice new restaurant to have dinner with friends you read reviews beforehand.

When you want to buy new shoes you ask for opinion on Facebook or go to a trustworthy blog to read a review.

Many companies today incorporate review system in their services and products. Think of Uber, or AirBnb.

They all do their best to ensure that poor service will be detected and excluded from their business.

Customer feedback is as important to your business as to other customers, so you should make sure that both you and your clients have an easy access to opinions and reviews.

7. Customer Feedback Gives You Data that Helps Taking Business Decisions

There is no place for business decisions based on loose guesses on a highly competitive market.

Successful business owners gather and manage distinct kind of data that helps them develop future strategies.

Only in this way they are able to adjust their products and services to perfectly fit customer needs.

Customer feedback is one of the most reliable sources for tangible data that further can be used in taking business decisions.

Customer insights will help you understand clients and their needs more profoundly.

Take their suggestions in consideration and thanks to that find out where you should allocate your money to get the highest return on investment.

You might discover that, for instance, further product development is not necessary in your case, but instead you should focus on promoting your brand to get bigger exposure.

Customer feedback is valuable source for such data, but you must learn how to listen to it and how to translate it into actionable takeaways for your business.

Use customer feedback at all corporate levels and across all departments in your company.

Insights will help you develop your products, improve customer service, and manage customer satisfaction.

Thanks to customer feedback you can make sure that your clients will stay with you, be loyal to your brand and in consequence will spread positive word-of-mouth for you.

Having devoted brand ambassadors is gold your company needs to grow!