Online Reviews: Best Practices for Building Trust
What do your customers say about your company online? And how much do online reviews and star ratings affect public perception of your service?
Your business caters a number of customers throughout the day. Besides the customers whom you interact directly, there are a large number of people who could be your potential customers and who closely follow your products and services, so here online reviews play a vital role in the reputation and financial success of your company.
However, it is as important for a business to take care of the online customers like the direct customers. There are a large number of businesses which operate entirely online, and hence managing the customers on the internet is even more crucial for them.
If your business sells goods or services online, the star ratings are of utmost importance for you. For example, consider the following example:
The above illustration shows an exhibition of a smartphone on Amazon online store. Besides the features, the most prominent thing marketed by the e-commerce site here is the star ratings of the product. If you’re a customer, it will be crucial for you to take account of the reviews to understand what the other customers have been saying about the product or service under consideration. From a business’s perspective, it is important to take account of the reviews and ratings for luring potential customers.
However, just like any other marketing or promotional activity, the star ratings or reviews of your product or service or simply of the business organization could be managed by professional tips.
Five of the most crucial tips for improving the star ratings as discussed in course of this particular article include:
- Development of a system for requesting reviews
- Enhancing Customer Experience
- Increasing Business Opportunities
1. Development of a system for requesting reviews
The business could introduce in-house or third party rating prompt for requesting reviews and ratings from the customers. Having a rating prompt could be like using a double-edge sword. There could be a condition where the customer experience could be disrupted and that could lead to no or negative reviews.
However, if used correctly, it could be the best way of boosting up the positive ratings. Before finalizing the rating prompt, proper research has to be carried out to understand the consumer sentiment. The best way of segmenting the customers is to include only those who have been using the product, application or service for a given period of time. It’s important to generate reviews on a scalable and scheduled basis – not all at once. The prompts should be delivered only at the right moments.
For example, once the transaction is completed, the pop-up prompt could be used as follows
When a customer has used the application, product or service offered by the business, and it seems that the overall transaction has been successfully completed, that time should be the ideal moment for asking the ratings. If the rating prompt pops up every time the social network page is opened or application is accessed, it could be frustrating for the consumer, and hence it would eventually result in negative feedbacks.
2. Enhancing Customer Experience
Your business should look forward to enhancing the customer experience in order to receive positive feedbacks and reviews. Online review sites are one of a marketer’s best listening resources. There are no shortcuts to that. The customer experience could be improved by the following five methods:
-
- Mobile Support: Providing complete support to the customers on their handheld devices
- Live Chat: It should be an integral part of the website.
- Self-Service: For solving the recurring issues
- Social Support: For demonstration of better services
- Single Channel Services: Taking help of the professionals
Business analytics could help in improving the overall customer experience. In terms of social media marketing, understanding the customers is probably the most important factor in engaging the target audiences in the posts and information shared by the business organization. Analytics help in understanding who the consumers are and what they care about. Once the required data is gathered, the communication with the customers could be improved by adding a personal touch to the conversations. The analytics program helps in gathering information related to customer history and demographics for overall better performance.
3. Limiting Negative Reviews
No product, service or even organization is immune against negative reviews. However, as a business organization, the negative reviews should be taken into the stride with a pinch of salt.
It is important to pay heed to what the customer has been asking for, and if there could be anything genuinely done for improving the overall experience of the customer, the business must not think twice before doing it.
Following these above steps is the beginning of an effective strategy and system to help you take control of your customer reviews. Your efforts will pay off.
As your social media partner, We could not only help in managing the content online but could also ensure that your business and the products (or services) offered, gets the highest star ratings on the social media. Our team of experts helps in underlining the issues in the current social media campaigns and come up with a comprehensive plan for higher ratings and better engagements online.