It’s unsettling for a business owner, but the truth is that you are not the only one in charge of your business. Your brand is determined some by your efforts, but primarily by the impact of online reviews and your online presence. You might do everything you can to create a certain culture and impact in the online space, but online reviews will outmatch you every time. That’s why review management is so important.
What Is Review Management?
Consider your marketing strategy and the impact you expect it to have online. You want customers to notice how great your business is. You want them to recognize your logo and understand how you can improve their lives in various ways. You want brand awareness.
You can do all the work to create the brand – the logo, the guest posts, the website design, the savvy social media posts – but ultimately, you must rely on customers to talk about you to build true brand awareness.
Customers love to talk about their experiences with various businesses. They interact with companies through social media posts. They recommend brands and products to their friends. And they leave reviews about your company online. One area where many companies fail to engage is when it comes to finding the best way to manage reviews. This process is customer review management.
Customers leave reviews on social media as comments or posts, they review your business on your own website. But the most telling reviews are on websites dedicated specifically to that purpose. Up to 97% of customers are using those reviews to actively research products and companies before they make a purchase.
If you haven’t developed a plan for review management, you’re missing a tremendous marketing and branding opportunity.
Tips for Successful Review Management
Your online review management strategy doesn’t have to be overly complex. The goal is relatively simple: track the reviews coming in and interact with the customers who wrote them. Of course, sometimes something simple can feel a lot more complicated until you find an efficient way to handle it. This might be true for effective customer review management.
Here are some ideas to get you started with your own review management plan.
Be sure you are connected to your review pages
Your first step for effective online review management is to connect to the reviews. Check that your company has an active account linked to your company’s page on popular review sites. Don’t forget to include social media accounts for review management.
Track the reviews that are happening
Once you have access to the various account pages, you need to track the reviews coming in. You can do this yourself by setting up alerts, or you can streamline the process by finding a review management tool that will alert you when customers post about you online.
Effective customer review management demands that you check in on reviews frequently. And so do customers. According to ReviewTrackers, roughly one-third of customers expect a company to respond to a negative review in less than three days. 53% are willing to give you a week to respond. If you don’t think you can check in quickly enough, consider outsourcing this role to a review management service.
Thank the positive reviewers
This is the easy part of reviews management. When you see someone leave a positive review, tell them ‘Thank you!’ It’s easy to leave a positive message for positive feedback. Try to personalize the messages if you can for even more authentic brand development. Since 63% of customers have never had a company respond to their post, they will be thrilled when you take a moment of time to publicly appreciate them.
Engage with negative reviews
Interacting with happy customers creates a good brand image. But interacting with unhappy customers is even more critical. Review management demands that you address negative reviews as quickly as possible. While it can feel intimidating and perhaps even risky – who wants a situation to publicly explode? – responding to unhappy customers is hugely beneficial.
When you quickly reply to a negative review to apologize and try to resolve the issue, you’re not only consoling the frustrated customer. You’re also publicly demonstrating to everyone else reading how much you value your customer’s experience. At this point, we can safely assume that just about everyone else is definitely reading the negative review and your response.
If you have used a review management service, this might be an area where you ask them to step back. Negative reviews should be handled authentically and professionally – you want those in your hands or the hands of a trusted designate, not the hands of a remote service.
Encourage more reviews
If you haven’t been up to this point, make it part of your business plan to actively seek more reviews. Ask customers for feedback while they shop, after they check out, through quick surveys, after some time has passed, and certainly when they contact your customer support. Don’t harass your customers, but customers are more likely to leave feedback if they know a company values and appreciates it.
How to Manage Your Company’s Reviews on Pissedconsumer.com
Ready to dig into review management on PissedConsumer? The process is straightforward!
1. Contact PissedConsumer
Your first step will be to get in touch with PissedConsumer. You can do this by emailing at help@pissedconsumer.com or making a business inquiry via the contact form. In your email, you can write the questions you want to discuss with the PissedConsumer Customer Support Team:
- learn about the review managing possibilities on the platform;
- request a demo for PissedConsumer business solutions;
- or update your company information.
2. Decide on your business needs
After you’ve communicated with PissedConsumer Customer Support Team, it’s time to establish what features and ways of connecting with consumers would be the most beneficial for your business.
PissedConsumer offers several business solutions to help company owners stay connected with reviewers on their company’s page. Opening a business account gives you the following benefits:
- business admin panel, where you can manage your company’s profile, including editing contact information, responding to reviews, questions, and more;
- having your responses labeled as "Official company response";
- getting a "Verification badge" for your company;
- the number of responses to consumers will be shown on the company information panel.
A business account allows you to get more visibility on the platform and engage with customers more effectively. You will get access to the contact information of posters, enabling you to resolve your customers’ issues in private.
A free trial for Bronze or Silver plans will give you a better understanding of how PissedConsumer services can help you in improving your brand reputation and increase customer satisfaction.
Another option is to register an account on the platform, give it your company name and respond to consumer issues without any subscription. These comments will be displayed as comments from regular users. Still, they will be helpful for consumers seeking assistance from a company representative in resolving their issues. You may also opt to communicate with consumers anonymously.
3. Start review management
As noted above, customers appreciate interaction with the brand and are looking for your responses. They often are more willing to update a review after engaging with a business representative.
If a customer leaves a negative review and you engage with them to find a solution to their issue, you can ask them to leave an update for the original review. That update will show up above the original review, letting other customers know that the situation is resolved and demonstrating how customer-centered your business is.
According to PissedConsumer, 64% of companies were able to improve their rating on the review site by talking to their customers.
Conclusion
You care about your business, and you want to be in control of its success. For most companies, that means turning over a bit of that control to the customers who they serve. Encourage consumers’ feedback online through reviews, and then implement your online review management strategy to turn that feedback into effective branding. You need to hear what your customers are saying. They want to hear from you. The solution is simple. Incorporate review management as reputation management.
Legal disclaimers:
- While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, it is not intended to provide any legal, medical, accounting, investment or any other professional advice as individual cases may vary and should be discussed with a corresponding expert and/or an attorney.
- All or some image copyright belongs to the original owner(s). No copyright infringement intended.
