Best Practices: How to Respond to Online Customer Reviews

Did you know that upwards of 90 percent of consumers will only use the products or services of a business if that business has an online rating of at least three stars out of five? That’s a lot of pressure. While you’re doing as much as you can to maintain great relationships with your customers offline, by providing them with quality products and services, it is important that you turn to Yelp, Google Reviews, Facebook and other platforms to continue the conversations surrounding your offerings and your customers’ experiences. Responding to reviews, both negative and positive, is a critical method of maintaining and growing community relations and encouraging other people to leave you feedback.
Why Respond to Online Reviews?
There are several reasons to respond to reviews that are both negative and positive in nature. In both cases it is important to remember that you aren’t just responding to the person who left the review, but to anyone who reads it. When it comes to positive reviews, responding shows that you are actively engaging with your business’ community, which can help generate buzz around your business. Additionally, it’s the nice thing to do! If a customer offered a compliment to your face, you’d say thank you, wouldn’t you?
Responding to negative reviews is just as important. As mentioned, you aren’t just talking to the person with a complaint, but to anyone who finds the review. By responding to the review you can work on setting things right! This helps show that you care about your customers’ thoughts and feelings and want to do right by them.
Furthermore, replying to reviews in a proper manner can help enhance your search ranking. Utilizing strategic SEO tactics while replying can help your response show up in search results for people seeking businesses like yours!
Responding to Negative Customer Reviews
When you work so hard to please everyone it can certainly be disheartening to receive a negative review. Fear not though, there’s a chance you could turn that 1 or 2 star grade into 5.
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An effective template for responding to a negative review starts with acknowledging and apologizing for your customer’s poor experience.
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Follow this up with a sentence about how your business doesn’t usually make this mistake. For example, “Our car wash employees are known for their great attention to detail, we’re very sorry if we missed a spot and we’ll be sure to provide our employees with additional training to make sure this issue doesn’t happen again.“
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Lastly, invite the customer to contact you directly, offline, so that the issue can be properly resolved. Once the problem is addressed there’s a good chance the customer will revise their review without even being asked to do so.
Responding to Positive Customer Reviews
On the other side of things, there’s the good reviews, which are sure to bring a smile to any business owner’s face. Responding to these reviews is certainly more fun than replying to a negative review, but there’s still a basic formula to do so.
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Start by thanking the customer for their positive comments. By being specific you can ensure the customer knows you’re not a robot!
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To help improve your search rankings be sure to state the business name in your response to customers. This way the review is more likely to be found when people seek the services or products of your business.
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End the response by inviting the customer back by encouraging them to try another service or product. For example, “If you loved our new nail polish line be sure to check out our scented hand lotions. Try the purple polish and the lavender lotion!” This will help grow your relationship with that customer while informing others of what you offer!
Getting reviews is only half the work, the response is really how you’ll make an impression. Managing responses can be tough, though, especially when you’re busy running your company. Thankfully, there is a customizable online review management platform available from the web presence experts at MORBiZ. Our WebStar Reputation Management Platform offers automation and assistance with the never ending task of reading and responding to reviews. With WebStar, you can manage your online reputation in one place, see what customers are saying about your business all over the web and stay up to date with executive reports that detail how your business is faring in online conversations. You can even be alerted when new information is found! To learn more about this exciting online reputation management software call MORBiZ at 1-855-2MORBiZ or use the handy contact form! We look forward to working with you to maintain or improve your business’ online reputation.









