A Guide to manage your online reviews

1. How Well Do You Play The Online Review Management Game? Let’s start with a scenario. You are in the grocery business and no matter how good your products are and how great your pricing is, the store next door outshines your performance on a daily basis. The fact is that when you kill time by playing Pokemon Go, your competitor grapples to find time for lunch. People do not decide to walk in to his store on a whim. He certainly is doing something worthwhile that you are not. Do you know more than 80% of shopping decisions are made after reading reviews online? Your competitor has comprehended the power of online reviews which you have not. The world has gone digital and you are still handing off pamphlets. Consumers get swayed by online reviews and just one positive or negative review can be the striker that hits your business for good or for bad. The bottom line is that you need people talking about your services. The number of your customers will increase with each positive review, as reviews simply imply an enhanced number of customers. But it will be naïve to assume that people are only going to post positive reviews online. Not every review is going to be a winning stroke.

2. Well, there is no need to put any further stress on the fact that your business depends on your online reputation. When customers find good reviews about your services they come buzzing at your door and bad reviews dispel the ones who are buying from you. P.S: You need to manage your online reviews to survive. But where does it start? 1. Invite reviews: Prompt your customers to write about you. Feedback is crucial. But you cannot be on the nose either. After a customer has used your services, send him an email or a message to score your services. Once you get an encouraging response, politely ask him if he’d be kind enough to share a little more than just scoring your services? 2. An all inclusive approach: So you have managed to convince your customer to score the experience he had with you and he is willing to participate further but the link you sent him doesn’t respond as expected. The customer will abandon the feedback process in less than three seconds. Make sure the links you send to gain feedback are responsive and that your website has links to all the platforms you have listed your business to such as Facebook and Yelp. Use an all inclusive approach and employ all the tools to prompt and encourage a customer to write for you. 3. It is a give and take world: Offer some special discount or a coupon to those who have been kind enough to write for you. You can even announce a small give away to anyone who would share their feedback on your product or services. A freebie is always a great bait to gain something you need desperately. Now starts the management: Not ever review you receive will be a positive review. And that is why you need to manage your reviews. Observe: A customer has posted something nasty about your services on portals such as Google, Yelp or Facebook. Once a negative review is on these major channels, chances are that the situation will get aggravated further. Stay Calm: Do not lose your head. Do not try to snap back. Assess the situation and figure out a rational way of addressing the situation.

3. Approach the customer: Approach the disgruntled customer. Let him know that you have acknowledged the situation and that you are all ears to know the whole scenario. Most people just want to be heard. They need to know that someone is bothered. Assurance: Assure the unhappy customer that you are doing all that you can to fix the current problem and also to assure that it doesn’t repeat again. Spread the good word: Use automated software tools that are able to bring the good reviews to your attention. When you have these tools working for you, they will identify the good review posted for you on the major portals and will update it on your website itself. This will build trust factor amongst those who visit your website.