Why Are Positive Online Reviews Important?
Online reviews guide consumers through the purchasing process. Customers are 63% more likely to trust companies with online reviews than companies with no feedback at all. In other words, the more reviews you have on websites like Yelp, Google Reviews, Amazon, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Bright Local, and Trustpilot, the more trust you can build with customers.
Think about the last time you wanted to buy a product from a company. You might have Googled the business or checked its Facebook page. Then you might have read business reviews from customers who purchased the same product or service. If those reviews were generally positive, that likely influenced your purchasing decision. If those reviews were generally negative, you probably didn't want to do business with that company.
Positive online reviews benefit your business in the following ways:
- Good reviews on review platforms prove that customers have had a positive experience with your company, and you know how to achieve your customer satisfaction goals. These reviews can encourage new customers to visit your website and learn about your products and services.
- Good reviews are valuable for SEO, with search engines favoring companies with positive feedback. That can result in more potential customers finding your company on search results pages and landing on your website.
- Good reviews can increase revenue, whether you have a small business or a larger enterprise. Customers are more likely to purchase products from companies with favorable reviews than those with negative feedback because of bad experiences.
Now you know the benefits of online reviews, here are some of the ways you can increase positive feedback about your company:
1. Ask Your Customers for Positive Reviews!
You might feel weird asking your customers to leave positive reviews and testimonials about your products and services, but the most successful companies do this all the time. Many happy customers will be more than willing to give you positive feedback on review sites, which can improve your online reputation, build trust, and optimize your marketing strategy.
Here are some ways to ask customers to leave good reviews and get more five-star ratings:
- Encourage your contact center agents to ask customers to leave a review on third-party sites like Yelp, LinkedIn, and Google My Business at the end of a call. If someone received excellent customer service over the phone, they might agree to write positive words on one of these platforms.
- Send emails to customers after they interact with your company or purchase a product or service. These emails should ask customers to leave you a review on a third-party site if they are happy with your offerings and would recommend them to other people. You can send follow-up emails to customers to remind them to leave you a review. The best customer relationship management (CRM) systems have email templates that automatically send review requests to customers after they complete a particular action, such as purchasing a product or service.
- Send a review request by SMS. That can help you reach customers who don’t respond to email marketing. Explain in a couple of short sentences that a good review will help your company grow and reach more people.
2. Offer Incentives for Positive Reviews
There’s nothing wrong with offering incentives to customers in exchange for good reviews. You can send a customer a coupon code or other reward if they genuinely had a good experience with your company and are willing to post their personal recommendations on a review platform. Here are a couple of ways to do it:
- Send an email to customers who have recently purchased a product or service. Tell them they will receive a coupon code that takes 10% off their next purchase in your online store after talking about their positive customer experience on a review website.
- Use time-limited incentives to encourage customers to leave positive reviews shortly after purchasing products and services. For example, you can offer a coupon code for money off a future order to customers who leave a review online within 14 days.
Incentivizing your customers to leave a review for your company is a good idea because their time is precious. You can compensate a customer for the time it takes them to create an account with a review website and write feedback.
3. Choose the Right Review Platforms
Ideally, you want customers to leave positive reviews on the most viewed review platforms. That can increase brand awareness and drive more traffic to your website. As of August 2022, the top five review sites with the most U.S. traffic are:
- Google My Business
- Amazon
- Facebook
- Yelp
- Trip Advisor
Although positive reviews anywhere on the internet are good for your business, you will want to direct customers to these top sites. Do that by including a direct link to your preferred review platform in review request emails and text messages. Business owners like you use this technique to improve the number of positive product reviews on the sites that receive the most traffic.
4. Get Reviewed on Social Media
Facebook is one of the most popular websites for online reviews listed above, and for good reason. Users can leave feedback about local businesses and larger companies without creating a new account. The same goes for Twitter, Instagram, and other social media websites.
Although the latter platforms don’t allow customers to post reviews directly on your page, users can write positive feedback and tag your company. If someone has a large social media following and leaves positive words about your brand, you might experience a surge in leads and increased awareness about your products and services.
Here are some tips for gathering more positive reviews on social media:
- Include social media links and buttons on your website and all marketing materials. For example, a customer can click on a Facebook button in an email you send them and write a review about your company.
- Send a direct message to customers about leaving a positive review on a third-party website. For example, you can communicate with customers via Facebook Messenger to make it easier and quicker for them to write feedback. Not everyone will take the time to search for your company on Facebook and then leave a review.
- Create a post asking customers to leave you feedback if they have experienced excellent service or are satisfied with the products they received. Tell them that a positive review will help you reach more people and grow your business.
- Promote the reviews people have already left on your social media pages on your website. You can create a "testimonials" or "reviews" section on your home page that lists the most positive feedback from customers.
5. Reply to Every Review
Let's face it, some customers who are unhappy with the service provided to them will leave bad reviews. But instead of completely ignoring them or replying with a mean and defensive reply, try to professionally handle the matter and come to a resolution.
You can do this by reading the negative review and thinking of an appropriate response. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Why did the customer have a negative experience?
- Does the customer have a genuine reason to complain?
- If so, what can you do better next time?
- Is there anything you can do now to resolve the situation?
Say a customer leaves a negative review about your company because they didn’t receive their order on time. The customer had a negative experience because your logistics company didn’t ship the order correctly. In this scenario, the customer has a right to complain about the service they received, even if the issue wasn’t your fault. In the future, you might want to use a different logistics company to prevent this problem from happening again. Right now, all you can do is apologize for the issue.
When other customers see a negative review, they will also see your response. A well-thought-out reply that includes an apology can go a long way in restoring your reputation. Ignoring the complaint means customers won’t hear your side of the story.
You might want to offer customers who have had bad experiences with your company a small reward to prove you are sorry for the situation they find themselves in. Using the example above, you can give the customer a 10% discount on future orders. This removes any doubt potential customers might have when reading the negative review and can also encourage the person who left feedback to use your services again.
6. Find the Right Customers To Leave Positive Reviews
Asking all your customers to leave you a positive review can open a can of worms. Not every customer will have had a good experience with your company, even if you provide the best service. Something out of your control, such as a faulty product, can change the perception of your brand and result in a negative review. That’s why it’s best to only send review requests to customers who are happy with your service.
So, how do you find these customers? Agents in your contact center can ask callers open-ended questions to gauge their perceptions of your brand. Reps can find out about their experiences and whether they like your products. You can then send review requests to callers who talk positively about your company.
The problem with this method is that it eats up time and resources for agents who have other tasks on their plate, such as dealing with complaints and cross-selling products and services.
The easiest way to find the customers most likely to leave a positive review is by using an analytical CRM. These systems collect information about customers during every interaction with your company. You can learn when customers called your contact center, replied to an email, and other information, as well as the reasons for these interactions. For example, discover which customers called your contact center to complain about a product or service.
Powerful CRM analytical tools then reveal which customers have purchased the most products and services from your company, which suggests these companies are loyal to your brand and likely to leave positive feedback online.
7. Ask Customers in Person to Leave You a Review
If you're meeting your customers in person, don't hesitate to ask them to leave you a review on a third-party platform. Keep it conversational and add a personal touch by letting them know you value their thoughts and loyalty. This face-to-face communication can be more effective than asking customers for reviews via phone, email, text, or social media.
Talking to customers in person will also help you improve customer satisfaction in the future. In a face-to-face environment, customers have more time to tell you about what you can do to improve your services and achieve your customer service goals.
8. Organize a Contest
Another way to encourage more positive reviews is to host a contest. Like handing out coupon codes in exchange for feedback, a contest can encourage customers to take time out of their day and write about their experiences with your brand.
Here's an example of a contest that can boost positive reviews:
- Ask your social media followers to create a post about how your product or service benefited them in 100 words. Everyone who enters the competition must include a particular hashtag, making it easier to find these posts.
- Mention how you will give a prize to the best entry.
- Set a time limit for entries to your contest to create a sense of urgency.
- Choose the best entry and re-post it on your social media pages.
Final Word
These tips are a great way to make it easier for your customers to write positive reviews if they love your products and services. Directing customers to third-party review platforms allows them to write out their thoughts about your brand, which can boost your reputation, enhance awareness about your offerings, and increase sales.
FiveCRM is a CRM system that provides the resources you need to find customers most likely to leave positive reviews about your brand on third-party platforms. It all starts with the software's customer relationship management features. Agents in your contact center can collect information about customers and add them to profiles, providing you with a 360-degree overview of every interaction with your business. Learn why some customers complain about your services and why other customers love your products and services.
FiveCRM's analytical tools will then help you find customers who continuously purchase your offerings, indicating that these people are likely to leave you a positive review. You can contact these customers and ask them to post positive feedback on your favorite review websites, increasing brand awareness and driving sales to your website.
Here are some other benefits of FiveCRM for customer reviews:
- FiveCRM's advanced performance tools monitor organizational performance and identify the agents that need more training. That can help you improve training outcomes, resulting in better customer experiences and more positive reviews.
- Specialized marketing tools gather high-value leads in your sales pipelines, allowing reps to provide the highest levels of service to these potential customers. By improving service outcomes, you can generate more positive reviews.
- FiveCRM offers unlimited data storage and up to 999 databases, helping you manage data in your contact center. Reps will spend less time on data management and more time improving customer service, which can generate positive feedback about your company.
- FiveCRM automates various call center management processes, allowing agents to focus on customer service outcomes. These processes include callbacks, workflow management, and dialing customers. The CRM system also enhances sales efficiency outcomes for agents in telemarketing, telesales, and other outbound marketing environments.
- Lead scoring features help reps discover lucrative leads interested in your products and services. You can then move these leads through your sales and marketing funnels and encourage them to leave positive reviews about your offerings.
- Get insights about performance across departments in your organization and use metrics to improve customer service and the number of positive reviews you receive.
- FiveCRM improves compliance with data governance legislation like GDPR when processing customer data. By protecting data, you can avoid any data breaches that result in negative reviews and prevent expensive penalties from the government.
Other FiveCRM features include marketing automation, consolidated reports, call routing, previous dialing, power dialing, security, privacy, and a native app builder.
FiveCRM suits B2B and B2C contact center environments and streamlines all of the tasks associated with call center management.
FiveCRM is the CRM system that helps you find the right customers to leave reviews about your products and services. Email hello@fivecrm.com for a demo, or get FiveCRM now.
FAQs
Q: How can I encourage customers to leave positive reviews?
A: Encourage customers to leave reviews by providing exceptional experiences, exceeding their expectations, and politely asking for feedback. You can also offer incentives like discounts or rewards for leaving reviews.
Q: Should I respond to negative reviews?
A: Yes, it's important to respond to negative reviews promptly and professionally. Address the customer's concerns, apologize if necessary, and offer solutions to show that you value their feedback and are committed to resolving issues.
Q: How can I leverage customer reviews in my marketing efforts?
A: You can showcase positive customer reviews on your website, social media, and other marketing channels. Use customer testimonials in case studies, blog posts, or email campaigns to demonstrate the value and credibility of your products or services.
Q: Are there any legal considerations when soliciting customer reviews?
A: Yes, it's important to comply with relevant laws and regulations when soliciting customer reviews. Avoid offering incentives in exchange for positive reviews, and ensure that reviews are genuine and unbiased.
Q: Can I remove negative reviews from online platforms?
A: In most cases, you cannot remove negative reviews unless they violate the platform's policies. Instead, focus on addressing the concerns raised in the reviews and providing solutions to improve the customer experience.
Q: How can I make it easy for customers to leave reviews?
A: Provide multiple platforms and channels for customers to leave reviews, such as review websites, social media, and your own website. Streamline the process by including direct links or buttons for customers to leave feedback.