Reviews often overlooked as important marketing component

Reviews are valuable to businesses, but many business owners don’t realize just how valuable they are. That’s why it is one of the most overlooked and under utilized marketing tools businesses have at their fingertips.

Reviews are an important way to interact with your customers, boost your brand and increase revenue. But, they are also a way to lose business and damage your brand reputation.

Why are reviews so important?

• 61% of shoppers read product reviews before buying (econsultancy)
• In 2015, 64% of all in-store sales, or sales to the tune of $2.2 trillion, were influenced by the Internet. (Hosting Facts)
• E-commerce sales from social media grew by 202% in 2014, and is expected to further increase. (Hosting Facts)

Businesses wanting to increase revenue should make sure they know what is being said about them, address negative comments and encourage positive remarks.

You have to be careful not to try to “buy” positive reviews or fake reviews. This can cause more harm than good. There are tools to help you with legitimate ways to generate positive ratings.

We offer our clients a review generation tool that makes the review process easier for you and your customers. You’ll be able to manage customer feedback efficiently and showcase raving testimonials across multiple platforms.

The tool allows you to have one central place to request reviews by email, collect and display reviews, publish positive reviews immediately, and respond to reviews. All it takes to start the process is an e-mail address. These can be acquired from forms customers have filled out or from information gathering, such as offering Wi-Fi access if they enter their email address.

Once the email address or batches of email addresses are added into the tool, the following steps can take place.

Step One: Request a review

We send an email thanking the customer for agreeing to write a review and provide a link for them to do so.

Step Two: Generate response based on review response

After the customer sends the review, an automatic response will appear on their screen. One of two different responses will then appear, based on the rating the customer chose in the review.

For higher reviews, the text will express gratitude to them for their feedback and encourage them to share their reviews on other platforms such as Yelp, Google Maps or Facebook.

For lower ratings, the text will thank them for feedback and let them know someone may contact them to discuss their experiences further.

Step Three: Get customer to share review across platforms

Google and other search engines love activity on your site and its affiliate sites. The reviews and their responses can help drive visitors to your site and increase the visibility of it within search engines.

High visibility drives potential customers to your website, which should mean an increase in business.

Generating the reviews is only part of analyzing the customer experience. It is also important to show customers and potential customers that you are responsive to the reviews being left for your business.

Monitoring online mentions is important, but businesses that take the time to respond to their customers can really set themselves apart from the competition. Responses build trust, which translates into higher loyalty and increased sales.

In many cases, you will be able to control what responses appear on sites, but in cases where you are not able to approve or deny a review posting, try to make sure you are responding to as many reviews as possible.

It is very important to respond individually to their postings whether they have left a positive or negative review. Future customers will come across these posts, and this gives you a chance to show that you are responding with excellent customer service to previous customers.

When responding, keep a professional tone and try not to become overly defensive. This will show that you are open to constructive criticism and willing to listen to what your customers say. Make sure to thank them for their opinion and keep a positive tone.