It is reported that more than 89% of consumers consulted an online review site before making their buying decision. And with a plethora of review sites, there are tons of online forums for consumers to comment on your companies products and services, for better or worse.
It is common knowledge that bad reviews can hurt your company’s prospects. There are various measures that your business can take to avoid a bad reputation. Along with soliciting feedback from your best clients, you can also take other actions to mitigate the impact of a bad review. You can use the positive feedback of your happy clients to improve your business and boost sales.
A company that protects and preserves its online reputation is more likely to be perceived as trustworthy by the buying community. Even prospects will feel more confident about doing business with you in the future.
When periodically checking your rating, it’s quite likely you would confront one or two negative reviews. The heartening fact is, however, that an overwhelming majority of the reviews posted online are positive.
Regardless of the industry to which you belong, consumers are more likely to leave a positive review after satisfaction with your product/services than they would complain about a negative experience.
By maintaining high ethical standards, you can improve the quantum of positive online reviews and make sure they overpower the occasional adverse reports.
However, it’s true that negative comments can hamper your sales turnover – more so because today’s online customers are increasingly likely to consult an internet review site before making purchase decisions.
Again review sites are essential for your business to flourish and prosper. In fact, online consumers are more likely to purchase a product with a few average and less flattering internet reviews than one with no reviews at all. Complete lack of reviews will make a consumer more suspicious. This might send wrong signals that there are no buyers for your products/services.
Request your customers to post the good, as well as average feedback on review sites because doing so shows that your business is honest and the reviews genuine and authentic. Publicly thank customers that have posted positive reviews and contact customers that are less satisfied and remedy the situation.
You can replace the product if it is defective. If the complaint is authentic, do not hesitate to apologize publicly as that would indicate you care for your customers.
Of course, it is not possible to please everyone all the time – a plethora of negative reviews could indicate that you need to work harder at customer service.
Consider all the negative feedback you receive, and look for common areas of the complaint before making improvements to your products/services and repairing customer relationships.