Why Listening to Online Reviews Can Help Improve Your Business

Customers are what make your business stay afloat, grow, or even fail. If you’re not listening to the one group of people that solely control your business, why would you expect to be successful? In 2018, one of the most popular ways for customers to leave feedback about your business is through online reviews, making your business profiles an important spot to monitor if you want to use that feedback to improve. Repcheckup makes monitoring your online profiles easy.

Online reviews are an easy way to make sure you’re making your customers happy and that you’re actually giving them a reason to speak good about your business. Essentially, online reviews allow past customers to give business owners and prospective customers an inside look as to what working with your company is really like.

As expected, good feedback draws in new customers and reinforces your good business operations. In cases where someone has left a negative or neutral review, you as a business owner now know exactly where to improve!

Online Reviews are the Most Authentic Customer Feedback

Great feedback and getting more online reviews about your business can sometimes be difficult. When you ask friends or family for feedback, you may not be told what you need to hear. They may know something is wrong, but are reluctant to tell you to avoid hurting your feelings or causing an awkward social situation.

Now, asking a customer face-to-face for their feedback also can skew the authenticity of their feedback. Take this common scenario as an example:

A new customer has just sat down at a restaurant for the first time and ordered their dinner:

After the food comes over, the customer notices that there is something wrong with the meal. Either the food isn’t prepared right, it’s a little cold, or something else is slightly is off. Whatever they noticed, though, isn’t enough to ruin the entire meal so they decide to finish their meal.

At the end of the meal, the customer is asked how everything was and chances are they’ll respond with “Great!” and move on with the rest of the day.

So, even though the customer wasn’t satisfied with their meal, and maybe they even decided they won’t come back for another try, the feedback you received was that their meal was great!

This isn’t accurate information and, as a result, you’ll be unable to fix the processes that ultimately let that one customer down.

Want to Find the Hiccups in Your Customer Journey? Check Your Online Reviews.

If there are any minor details that are wrong in your customer journey, your customers may be dissuaded from working with your business again. That’s why it’s so important to know about any hiccups in your customer’s buyers journey so that you can fix and apologize for the error.

When you ask someone what their experience was like via an automated service, it allows the customer to answer without feeling pressured to say something nice with you standing there.

By giving customers time to reflect on their experience and by removing any social pressures of being polite to a business owner in direct conversation, you’ll be able to work out those small hiccups by depersonalizing the review process. After all, writing about an experience is much easier than critiquing someone in person.

Online Reviews Show What the Customer Experience is Like From Their Point of View

It can be difficult to see something from another person’s vantage point and to imagine yourself in their situation. The same rings true for your customers, but there is a solution for you.

Taking a closer look at your online reviews, and how they reveal the way your customers view your business and the customer experience you provide, is the easiest way to truly understand their point of view. And, if you’re using RepCheckup, you’ll be able to get this information from a lot more of your customers.

Whether the customer leaves your business a positive or negative review, you still gain valuable insight into something you may not have seen before.

I can’t emphasize this enough: now is the time to act on customer feedback to improve the quality of your business’s online reviews down the road.

Ask Customers for Online Reviews, Even if They Aren’t Always Perfect

I understand some business owners may hesitate to ask for reviews because they are worried they won’t receive all perfect reviews, but this is the exact reason why you need to be asking!

The honesty of your customer’s feedback will force you to change – for the better.

It will show you what to improve upon and, if everything is implemented, you’ll start to receive those 4 and 5-star reviews in no time.

Having a perfect business profile with all 5-star reviews may actually raise red flags in savvy consumers who are doing their online research. After all, it’s impossible to please every single customer, so some diversity in your ratings helps potential customers verify that you’re a credible business.

Consumer studies have shown that:

• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business (BrightLocal)
• 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site which has user reviews. (iPerceptions, 2011)
• 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates (Reevoo stats)

Don’t be afraid to ask even if you think the outcome may be less than perfect. The bottom line? Any feedback you receive from your customers will always give you areas to improve upon and grow.

Online Reviews May Seem Small, But They Pack a Mean Punch

I recognize that online reviews are not always on the top of your mind when it comes to your marketing strategy..

Gaining better feedback through online reviews can be an easy step to take, especially if you are using an online review management software such as RepCheckup. When it comes to soliciting customer feedback, we do all the heavy lifting for you and you just have to focus on bringing the customers in!

Once the reviews start pouring in, now it’s time to see where you can improve and capitalize. But it all starts with RepCheckup! Sign up for your free trial today in just 2 minutes – no credit card needed!