Businesses need to adapt to the online world to ensure their survival in the days to come. The virtual world, unlike the real one, works in mysterious ways. Companies need to be on top of their games to ensure that clients and prospects do not just look at the store and move away. Reviews are […]
Businesses need to adapt to the online world to ensure their survival in the days to come. The virtual world, unlike the real one, works in mysterious ways. Companies need to be on top of their games to ensure that clients and prospects do not just look at the store and move away.
Reviews are some of the best and seemingly natural ways to get credibility for both current and potential clients. That’s why studies have found that over 84% of new customers make their purchase when they see positive reviews and testimonials on the websites or third-party review sites.
Still, small businesses and local companies have always struggled to ask for reviews in casual and non-evasive ways. Another important aspect of the review business is to keep tabs on them in real-time. There are dedicated software that can help businesses in managing and strategically use the reviews for business promotion.
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The online world is a world of dependencies, much like the real world. People and businesses are interdependent on one another to ensure that legitimate businesses get to grow and phony businesses are flushed out.
Customer reviews are a sure-fire way to see whether a business is what it claims to be. No matter what the marketing material says about a website, people mostly rely on other people’s say. This is a modern iteration of “word of mouth” marketing as it comes out free and serves as social proof for businesses.
Today, businesses take great pains to collect and showcase real customer reviews to enhance their credibility in the eyes of prospective clients. Since there is no vacuum and many companies compete for the same pie of market share, it is essential to employ anything and everything that could help businesses stay on top.
The obvious benefits of collecting and highlighting customer reviews are given in the section below.
Brand Leadership
People are conscious about the people they want to hang out with and the companies they purchase from. Brands not only need to be good at doing what they do and how to market that but also be on top of recent developments in the industry and show that off with a fresh stream of content.
With more people going through the content and praising it for its originality through reviews and testimonials, people will see that the company is worth doing business with and rely upon for purchases.
Enhanced SEO Results
Search Engine Optimization is about making content search-engine friendly so that crawlers can rank and index it higher and easily. Customer reviews are directly related to site rankings and visibility as they provide a positive signal to crawlers to reward players that play the game by the rules. Again, they show that a business is legitimate and worth sharing with others.
Improved Engagement & Conversions
Ratings and reviews are now part of the search engine results. This is an assurance by the search engine to users that the business they are seeing on their screens is indeed legitimate and others trust the establishment too.
This results in better engagement and conversions since people do not doubt the quality of services.
A Look Into Clients’ Psychographics
For a business that is eyeing new reviews, no matter the content of those reviews, it can learn a lot about both internal and external factors behind the received feedback. For instance, if a business is continuously receiving negative reviews about their delivery services, then management can improve this segment of their services line.
Although positive reviews help businesses in both the short and long run, negative reviews also help businesses in improving their processes and operations to yield better results in the future.
It is not that company employees can simply walk up to a person going about his business and ask them for a review. There is an informal protocol behind how, when, and to whom should one ask for reviews.
In this section, we will discuss three reasons or types of reviews that businesses can get from customers or prospects without worrying about malpractices.
Product or Service
After providing a product or service, a business is in a natural position to ask for a review. The rationale behind asking could be for the benefit of clients.
The best way to nail this rationale is by sending a small questionnaire that can help clients what was good and what was not about the delivered good or rendered service.
The Brand
If product delivery is not an option, then a business can ask for a broad company review. This is also possible with a small questionnaire that can help clients in gauging the quality and quantity of services and products provided by that business against a set maximum index.
The Interaction
The customer insights at this level can be the most important ones. Transactions do not happen automatically as customers need to go through a process to place an order and then wait to get the ordered product or service.
The company can ask for reviews based on the whole experience of ordering, waiting, and then receiving the products or services. This also helps companies in creating marketing materials and banners to attract more customers.
The best time for a company to get to a client and ask for a review is some time after they had received the products or services. The experience would still be fresh and the content of the purchase or service would still be clear to them.
If a company waits for long, the customer would not be able to recall what it was, let alone how it was.
If it goes too fast, the experience could become sour for the customer and result in poor reviews and testimonials.
Here are some ingenious ways businesses can engage clients to give up online reviews without imposing anything on them.
Social Media (LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook)
Almost every company exploits the inherent power of social media by making active profiles on these platforms. Depending on the product and services or level of engagement, these commercial pages or groups can have hundreds and thousands of subscribers.
Through smart endeavors like polls, rating marathons, and so on, businesses can obtain meaningful feedback that can be termed and marketed as reviews.
Targeted Emails
As mentioned in the earlier section, people are happier and more aware of their experience with a product or service right after they receive or consume it. To capture that elation, targeted emails are the best tools.
Simple email templates with necessary editing can do tricks in this scenario.
Handwritten Notes – A Personal Touch
Buying and selling is not just a transaction anymore; it is a prelude to a long relationship, hopefully. That’s why it can use personal touch and gestures.
A hand-written note along with the parcel can be potent enough to warrant a favorable review from a happy client.
Keep in mind that just because you send a hand-written note does not entitle you to ask for too much. It is best to stay in a reasonable mindset while asking clients to give a review.
Video Testimonials
These days, follow-up calls are going virtual through zoom and other proprietary tools. While asking about the product or service, managers can get the clients to record a small video testimonial at the end of the call.
Of course, the managers should have a release form up close and must obtain consent from the client before recording their video. When handled meticulously, this can yield amazing results.
Already Happy Customers
Many customers, even repeat customers for that matter, often show satisfaction regarding services and products without actually bothering about leaving a review or a testimonial. This is especially common among elders who do not shy away from “patting good kids on the shoulder”.
This is a great time to ask them politely if they could be bothered with a review or a testimonial.
Incentives Work Wonders
Buying reviews or feedback against monetary rewards does not ring true with the best practices of an online code of conduct. Instead of going through this route, businesses can do better by giving incentives to clients for favorable reviews.
This can go for all non-monetary things, such as newsletter subscriptions, which can enhance future engagements and conversions.
Customer reviews are one of the greatest tools in the arsenal of companies to advance their businesses. It is essentially free but the impact of original and favorable reviews and testimonials can help businesses in getting better traffic which can improve sales.
Since many companies struggle with how to ask customers to leave a review, this article is written to highlight the importance of reviews as well as some clever ways that business owners can employ to ask for reviews from customers.
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