• SocialBull
• 2022-11-28 00:00:00

It's no secret that in the era of information, consumers place high importance on the views of their peers. Customer feedback is critical to the long-term success of any brand. In fact, nine out of ten individuals check internet reviews before purchasing a product or service.

Positive reviews speak for themselves: a wonderful testimonial or rating from a customer will throw the best light on your company, helping to create trust, increase brand recognition, and bring more customers to your business.

But, in today's hyper-connected digital world, you must take the rough with the nice. Negative and even fraudulent reviews will come your way regardless of who you are or how amazing your services are.

It's pointless to hide them, especially when 60% of buyers will avoid a business that controls internet evaluations. Transparency is essential for effective communication and marketing. That includes coping with unfavourable or even false public consumer feedback.
Here, we'll look at the good, bad, and false world of internet reviews, providing suggestions and tools on how you can use them for the betterment of your business.

Ways to manage Online Reviews

Here are a few tips through which you can manage your online reviews or feedback:

1. Understand how to reply
Everything depends on the proper tone and the appropriate words. Making a public fight in response to a negative evaluation is a formula for reputation disaster. Trading blows with an irate reviewer will negatively impact your brand. You've seen it, I've seen it, and we've all seen that nothing good ever comes from it.
However, a polite answer with the correct spin and solution—an offer, reimbursement, or simple acknowledgement—can transform an angry consumer into a pleased one.

2. Don't be afraid of bad feedback.
A negative review justifies your firm in the eyes of certain potential clients, believe it or not. Because no one is always flawless all of the time, companies with only favourable evaluations may appear to be feeding the review sites. Make sure to reply correctly to unfavourable reviews since intelligent customers will acquire further knowledge about your company based on your answer.

3. Quickly respond
It is vital to reply to reviews as soon as possible. Bad reviews spread like wildfire; reacting quickly, whether via excellent customer service or resolving the comment behind closed doors, can help avert future harm.
Furthermore, reacting quickly to reviews, whether favourable or bad, demonstrates to consumers that you are attentive and tell others that you care about their experience with your company.

4. Increase the number of favourable client reviews
Another strategy to benefit from positive customer feedback is to obtain more of them. Your client feedback will not only provide critical data for enhancing your communications and service but the better the evaluations you receive, the more you will profit.
Several strategies to acquire more positive feedback include joining popular review platforms and motivating your consumers to submit reviews across platforms in return for free shipping or a discount voucher.

5. Learn about social marketing
Social media influence 93% of customers' purchasing decisions. Knowing how to interact with social media reviewers and followers is a key business driver that has improved sales by 18%.
Another interesting way that some businesses are doing to evaluate their marketing efforts is by reaching out to their fans. Companies also make them brand ambassadors of their brand. These ambassadors' major duty is to test and review items and services in a positive yet honest light.

6. Google should be prioritised.
Customers seeking reviews of your company are likely to start with Google. More customers trust Google reviews than any other source, as no one has time to check every review site. Therefore, they prioritise Google reviews. (Tip: Make sure you claim your Google My Business listing.)

7. Maintain current reviews
Fresh and appropriate evaluations are required for healthy company outcomes. They not only improve online visibility, but they also directly influence sales conversions—63% of consumers wish to buy from a site with current product ratings.

Ways to Tackle Bad reviews

1. Do not remove
Rather than removing a particularly negative review, request that the reviewer contact you personally so that you can resolve their issues. This removes the discussion from the public forum while demonstrating your readiness to respond to objections.

2. Patterns may help you learn.
Negative reviews may provide important information about difficulties you may need to solve for your organisation to prosper. Look for prevalent issues among reviews and consider how you may remedy them.

3. Be quick and personable. Get to the bottom of the problem
Whatever the clients say or the issue is, you should always try to respond to negative reviews and testimonials as soon as possible and in an approachable, polite tone.
You should never leave a negative review hanging in the digital space, as it will create an untrustworthy appearance on your website and will ruin your reputation.
To properly respond to poor customer evaluations, you should respond individually, beginning with an apology on any public platform. In a word, you must take control of the situation, or it will take control of you.

4. Following up
Check in with a consumer who left a poor review to ensure their problem was resolved. If yes, then request them to amend their review.

5. Respond at all times
It's critical to show potential consumers that each client is valuable and that you sympathise with a reviewer regardless of their complaint. Even if you believe you have done nothing wrong, you might care that a customer is angry.

Ways to increase positive reviews

1. Provide an excellent product or service. 
Earning great ratings is the greatest way to receive them. When you offer a fantastic product or service and follow it up with excellent customer service, your reviews are likely to reflect this. You may increase your chances of receiving these evaluations by inviting your consumers to share the experience they had with your company online.

2. Make use of influencers.
Influencers are increasingly crucial components of a company's marketing mix. They have an audience that pays attention to what they have to say. Find an influencer in your niche and offer your goods or service for free in exchange for an honest evaluation from their audience. If appropriate, you may opt to compensate them financially for their time spent reviewing your company.

3. Request reviews using SMS messaging.
Customers who have excellent intentions to evaluate your business may need to remember to do so due to their busy and hectic schedules. Therefore, you can send them a text message with a link to the review site as a reminder. It's also a good idea to give a means for them to contact you if they have any concerns or need assistance after making their purchase.