Customer Feedback for Growth
What is the most important part of a business’ growth? Customers.
Acquiring and retaining customers or clients is how you generate revenue. So isn’t it important to understand how your customers feel about your business? Of course! Their attitudes about your business can slow growth or drive it.
The best part is you don’t need to spend a lot of money and effort on surveys to find out how they feel. Just read your online reviews.
Reviews on Influence Buying Decisions
Keep in mind that reviewers not only provide valuable free feedback to you; they also influence the buying decisions of people they will never meet. A benchmark report from OnTarget Consulting & Research found that nearly 90% of people are more likely to buy from a company after reading positive reviews from strangers. That’s 9 out of every 10 people!
Perhaps, you’ve experienced this in your own life. Have you ever decided where to eat or where to get your car serviced or your haircut based on Yelp or Google reviews? If you haven’t, it wouldn’t take you long to find someone who answers, “Yes.”
Not Just A B2C Thing
However, it’s not just consumer services that are impacted by company reviews. B2B buyers also consider reviews when selecting a vendor or partner. It makes sense because the B2B decision maker is a person or a group of people looking out for the best interest of their company. The decision maker is not the business itself.
B2B reviews just are not as prevalent as reviews for businesses selling directly to consumers. This means there is a big opportunity for B2B companies to stand out among the competition and increase sales.
Number and Freshness Matter
Just because you have reviews doesn’t mean you are set. The number and freshness of reviews are also very important. A survey from BrightLocal found that 85% of consumers believe reviews older than three months don’t matter. That’s right. If you have a 5-star rating but your last review was posted a year ago, the level of influence has decreased significantly.
In fact, it might cause some people to question whether you are still in business. They are more likely to turn to a competitor that has a 4.5 star rating if the reviews were posted within the last few weeks.
The number of reviews are also a factor when consumers are making a decision to engage with your business. Brightlocal reported that 60% of survey respondents said that they considered how many reviews a business had when comparing them to other companies.
While there may not be a magic number for your business, you want to make sure you stay ahead of your competitions by asking customers to go online and rate you. If you take a passive role and hope your customers will take the initiative, you won’t see the same results. If your competitors wise up to the value and importance of reviews, consumers who compare you against other options might not choose your business.
Lack of Company Responses Can Cost You
Consumers are more likely to engage with your company if you respond to the reviews, both good and bad. According to another study, people found that businesses who respond to reviews are 1.7 times more trustworthy than those who don’t. And not responding to reviews can increase customer loss by 15%.
The way you respond is crucial. Be aware that it’s a public forum and other consumers are reading and making judgments about your business based on the message and tone of your response.
If someone posts something negative about your business in a review, it’s imperative that you don’t go on the defensive. Just simply apologize that their experience didn’t live up to their expectation. Then thank them for the feedback telling them that you will use it to improve. You can also invite the reviewer to contact you privately.
Negative Reviews Aren’t All That Bad Afterall
Negative reviews can actually be a good thing in moderation. Ironically, they can lead to higher credibility. According to a ReviewInc survey, people trust a 4.7 rating more than a 5 star rating. Why? No one’s perfect. No one.
There will always be someone who finds fault with your business or service and writes negative comments. But this provides an opportunity to respond in a way that shows your professionalism and that you really care about your customers. In fact, a Podium survey found that 56% of consumers changed their opinion of a company based on how they responded to reviews.
Of course, there may be times when a negative review is not from an actual customer. It’s ok. Just point out that you don’t have a record of them as a client or customer. Be polite and don’t call out their intent. Yes, it might be someone out to hurt you, but it also might be an honest case of mistaking one business for another.
Don’t Miss the Opportunity to Improve
The next important step is to actually use the feedback to improve your customer experience. Find out where the problems are and sort them out. You may have a 4.7 rating today, but if you don’t take the negative feedback as an opportunity to make improvements, you could end up with more and more dissatisfied customers, and eventually slower growth.
Review Management Made Easy
Getting and responding to reviews may sound like a lot of work. But it doesn’t have to be. Studio98 has reputation management software that makes it quick and easy for you to request reviews and to respond to them. The responses can be AI generated or augmented to help you craft an intelligent and empathetic response.
Additionally, the software identifies trends in reviews that helps you determine what customers see as your strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to make decisions about how and where to improve.
If you still don’t have time to use the software for responding to reviews, we have a service you can use to have a member of our team respond on your behalf,
Stop the loss of potential revenue your state of reviews is causing. Contact your account manager or sales rep today to take control of your reviews
If you have any questions, or like to schedule a private demo with Claire of VP of Sales, click here