Why Should You Respond to Online Reviews?

There are several reasons to respond to online customer reviews that are either negative and positive. 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. Due to such, responding to reviews is a critical method of maintaining and growing community relations and encouraging other people to leave you additional feedback. Additionally, providing a response is the nice thing to do! If a customer offered a compliment to your face, you’d say thank you, wouldn’t you? The same can be said if a customer presented you with a complaint in person, as you’d need to identify a solution.
Aside from exceptional customer service, responding to reviews can enhance your search engine ranking. Utilizing strategic SEO tactics while replying can place your response in search results for people seeking businesses like yours! To make the most out of your responses, here’s our tips for replying to online reviews.
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 rating 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!
Responding to reviews is critical, but it takes a lot of time! Would you rather have MORBiZ respond to reviews for you? We can do that! Just call us TODAY to discuss how our team can manage your online reputation to help grow your business. Give us a call at 1-855-2MORBiZ (266-7249) to get started.









