Turning a Dissatisfied Customer Around Dissatisfied customers can kill a business. Bad word of mouth and online reviews can discourage your current customers from returning, and can scare off new customers. New technology gives companies a better opportunity to monitor their online company reviews and reach out to customers who may have had a less-than-awesome experience with their business. Online Reviews No. 1 Factor Every customer counts, but now individual customers matter more than ever, because they all have a platform to sing your business’s praises -- or expose its faults for all to see. Modern consumers rely heavily on the Internet for information about businesses. A majority of consumers go online to find local services, such as auto repair shops, restaurants, hair salons, clothing shops, and much more. Having a good website is important, but so is having favorable business reviews online. According to a recent survey, 86 percent of respondents rely upon online reviews when making a purchase, and 72 percent said good online reviews were the biggest deciding factor in their choice of a business. Consumers focusing on online reviews as a primary source of information about a business make managing your company’s reputation online key to its prosperity. The online review universe can be capricious -- while some negative reviews your company gets will be from consumers with legitimate gripes, others can be the malicious work of online trolls and troublemakers. Good reputation management can help ensure that your company makes things right with legitimately dissatisfied customers, promotes positive reviews, and mitigates online mischief makers. When companies identify negative reviews online, they have several options to deal with the problem: ● Companies can reach out to the commenter and address his or her problem. Often an apology or the offer of a discount will placate an unhappy customer and convince him or her to take down a negative review. ● Make a public apology. ● Challenge incorrect statements with facts. ● Appeal to site administrators to take down malicious and untrue reviews. How Reputation Management Firms Help Reputation management services can help companies protect their good name online in several ways: ● Monitoring. Online reputation management services allow their clients to monitor what’s being said about their businesses across a variety of websites and social media. Keeping tabs on online comments helps business owners identify potential problems.
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Monitoring comments will also provide businesses with an opportunity to identify and contact disgruntled customers, so the issue may be resolved. Giving your customers a voice. With online reputation management services, your website will be equipped with a convenient way for customers to leave comments. You’ll be able to review those comments, respond to dissatisfied customers, and publish positive feedback on your site. This system gives clients a little more control over their online reputation. Reaching out. Online reputation management services will solicit positive feedback responses from customers by sending emails or text messages to those who have signed up on your contact list. The company will give them a convenient means of submitting business reviews online. Creating testimonials. Online reputation management services make it easy to collect and publish good testimonials written by your customers. Spreading the word. Good online reputation management companies help spread good reviews of your business by instantaneously publishing them to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites.
Online reviews are the best free advertising your company can get. Get the most out of local online company reviews by working with a reputation management firm like ReviewInc. to accentuate the positive and turn around the negative.