Local Online Advertising Study: Reviews Can Tell the Future

Using Reviews for Local Online Advertising

Online reviews. You either love them or hate them, but there is no denying that they impact decisions on what products and services people purchase. Think about how many times you have looked at the star rating for a product or a business and chosen one over another because of the ratings and reviews others have written. I know I avoid hotels with low star ratings and I pick local restaurants based on what others have to say about the quality of service and food.

Research = Telling the Future

The University of Maryland's business researchers went further with using online reviews and have developed an algorithm that allowed them to use linguistic data from restaurant reviews to successfully predict which would go out of business. The Maryland study emphasizes what we already know - that businesses need to be paying attention to what their customers are saying.

Another study done by American Express, found that half of consumers who posted about a negative customer service experience, gave the business one week to respond before they gave up and went to a competitor instead.

Gaining New Reviews and Overcoming Negative Reviews

Websites that specialize in displaying online reviews like Google+, Yelp, Foursquare, Insiderpages, Angie's List, and many others, serve as a vast network of opinions and experiences that help consumers find the best fit for their service and product needs. Many of these websites allow the business owner to interact with client posts allowing businesses to solidify loyalty and to show their personality to prospective clients.

Paying attention to online reviews and responding to customer feedback is becoming more and more important to a business' local online advertising plan.

Remember, Impressions Review Managing is here to support you with technology to alert you of new reviews and experience to help you respond to your clients' needs to not only keep their business, but to attract other customers as well. Read our other blog articles or contact our friendly team today!

Negative Reviews: An Inherited Mess

Negative reviews are tough enough to swallow, but harder still when they weren't your reviews - they belong to the previous business owner!

Negative Reviews Compliments of the Previous Business Owner

You were bright-eyed and idealistic as you bought a business that was struggling and you were determined to turn it around. Unfortunately, the business also had a reputation that you have inherited and it's hurting your online reputation and impacting the number of new customers willing to come through your doors. 

What should you do?

• Claim all of your review website pages - You need to have control over what is being displayed on these sites so that you can direct the conversation and reveal the changes and improvements you've made.
• Post a note on every one of the review websites that the business is under new ownership.
• Reply to the existing negative reviews - Express that you are sorry they had the experience that they did and let them know that you have purchased the business with the intent of improving the service and products offered. Let them know you don't approve of the treatment they received either and that you hope they will give you a chance to show how different the business will be. 
• Read ALL of the negative comments and use that feedback to guide your plans for improvement. 
• Start building your new reputation - As you have new happy clients, ask them to write reviews for you so that, when people go online, they see new comments and evidence that the new owners have turned the place around. 
• Monitor your review websites daily - Be sure to publicly thank the people who leave positive notes for you and to address any comments that voice concerns by offering to speak with the customer offline. 

Grow Your Reputation

As time goes on, your reputation will stand on its own and the memory of the previous business owner will fade. You have the choice of growing a solid reputation both online and off, but as is true with anything worth doing, it will take diligence. 

Claim your business listings, monitor for new reviews, and interact with customers who take the time to write reviews for you. Listen to your customers and use their feedback to positively impact your local online advertising!

www.impressionsrm.com 

Anonymous or Fake Negative Review Options

Promoting your business is hard enough without having to deal with negative reviews, but the serious impact bad online feedback can have on your revenue makes it all the more important.

Those of you who have read my blog know the basic steps I recommend for reaching out to a reviewer. Sometimes though, the person who wrote the review did not use his or her real name making it much harder to mend bridges.

Some options for handling anonymous or fake reviews:

• Private messages - Many of the review websites allow you to log into your business account and send a private message to the reviewer. Be careful what you send him or her - you want to be kind in everything you say, show that you care and that you want to make things right. 
• Public posts - Similarly, many of the review websites will allow you to post a public response if you have claimed your business page. Be DOUBLY careful what you post publicly. Your audience is not just the person who wrote the review, but all of the public and what you say will impact your impression on prospective clients. 
• Flag the review - Some of the review websites allow you to mark a review and send the website a comment on why you believe it violates the websites usage policies. For example, if the review is not about that person's specific experience (they are commenting about something they heard about someone else's experience), or if the review contains threatening or offensive language, you can explain this to the website and they will consider removal. The decision still remains with the website though and they will not sift through mountains of evidence to try and decide between a "he said, she said" situation. 
• If you are certain that the review is fake or if it contains libelous statements, recent court rulings may help you determine the person's identity or legally push the review website to remove the review. As Small Biz Trends explains, the ruling does not automatically remove reviews, but it does provide business owners who have authentic issues another option for proving their good standing. 

Negative reviews are often painful, but consistent attention and proactive measures can help you promote your business online and develop a solid reputation. 

www.impressionsrm.com 

Online Marketing Mahem - Handling Negative Reviews

Word-of-mouth advertising used to be something that you had no control over. People would say what people would say. If it was positive, sometimes people would come in and tell you someone recommended they use your business, but if it was negative, you might never know that it even happened.

Now, business owners have an opportunity to use virtual word-of-mouth advertising to their benefit. Review websites have given consumers a place to voice when they are happy with a business or product and when they are dissatisfied. Getting that pat on the back is always great, but should you do anything when the feedback is not so good?

YES, you should and here are just a few reasons why:

1. Retaining a client is much less expensive than attracting a new one.
2. Up-sales and repeat customers are two of the most common reasons for business growth.
3. Prospective customers are using review websites to decide if they should trust you or your product - good customer service is important for others to see.
4. Critical feedback can give you the information you need to grow and offer better services - engaging in the conversation will give you valuable insights.
5. The conversation will take place with or without you - your choice is whether or not you want to have a hand in steering the conversation to your favor. 

Every business will have its ups and downs and a negative review is sure to come along. Here are some basic do's and don'ts when handling a negative review:

DO

• Reach out to the customer and try to mend bridges - try a simple reply to the negative post that says something to the effect of, "I am SO sorry that this happened to you! I would like to gather some more information about what took place so we can make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else - would you be willing to give me a call?" Leave the business phone number and your extension, or let your staff know that the call may be coming through and they should send it through to you right away. Even if the person does not call, everyone else reading along will see that you are trying to work out a solution and that kind of customer service elicits trust.
• Find something for which to apologize. Even if you feel you have no fault in the situation, saying that you are sorry can deflate the anger and tension your customer is feeling. You can always find something to apologize for like: "I'm sorry you left here upset," "I'm sorry that we didn't meet your needs," or "I'm sorry we were not able to correct the situation to your satisfaction."
• Own up if you made a mistake. Most customers know that sometimes things just don't go like we want them to and they are much more willing to mend bridges when they feel you are being honest and taking responsibility.

DON'T

• Take it personally. You pour your life into your business and it is very easy to feel like it is a slap in the face when someone writes a negative review. Take some time and get away from the situation before you respond.
• Post anything publicly that sounds angry, defensive, or accusatory. A good rule is to take what you plan to post publicly and hand it off to someone you trust who is not emotionally involved in the situation. Let him or her give you feedback on how the post sounds and make corrections before you post your reply online. 
• Despair. Everyone gets a negative review once in awhile. Take the feedback, make any changes to your practices that you need to, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and do your best to provide quality services and products and you will find positives coming in again.

About 75-80% of the reviews online are positive reviews, so while business owners get worried about acknowledging that some clients may be unhappy, most customers are pleased and enjoy sharing their insights about their favorite places. Engage in the conversations with those positive reviewers too and watch how their recommendations spread the great news about what you are doing!

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

What are your questions on managing your online reputation?

Are you confused about online review websites? Wondering what happened to reviews that disappeared? Not sure that reviews are impacting your business? Have tough negative review to handle?  Post your questions below - I will do my best to help!

Losing Customers? Pay Attention to Your Online Reviews!

How many options do you have for where you go out eat? How about for where you do your banking? Where you buy your hardware supplies? Who grooms your dog?

As consumers, most of us have plenty of options and businesses to choose from and we will go where we feel we get that combination of excellent quality combined with customer service. This also means we are fairly intolerant of poor customer service. As business owners then, we need to be stepping up our customer service to make sure we foster loyalty that will not only keep our current customers, but will attract others!

An infographic put out by Drumbi (a customer service company), shared statistics from a recent American Express survey that suggests that many companies are simply not listening to the customer feedback being generated.

How sad is that?  They could have left angry and never said a word, but they made the effort to reach out to the businesses they frequented and they were ignored!

With almost 90% of consumers moving on to competitors after a bad customer service experience and about half of consumers giving companies only one week to respond to their questions before they choose to leave, now is the time to not only know what is being said online about your company, but also to be responding to your customers.

I was working up an initial evaluation of a company new to managing their online reputation and what stood out as I read through their many various #reviews was the number of times their customers posted questions they hoped would be answered by the company and the number of people who said something to the effect of "I'm posting this in hopes someone from (company XXX) will read this."

It left me wondering how many of those same people continued on with that company and how many gave up and tried one of the competitors.

We have a great tool in online review websites, IF we pay attention and IF we connect with our customers. Will you?

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com. 

Legit Reviews or Manipulated?

A friend sent over a question last night asking if I'd ever heard of a company she saw advertised on TV that claimed it could remove negative Yelp posts off of the first page of website search results. As a business owner, I understand the appeal of being able to make negative review posts go away, but I am always wary of burying problems when you have the option of getting them out in the open, so I did some investigating.

This particular company plans to have its own review websites where the businesses that they serve can manipulate the feedback that is left so that only positive reviews are seen. Then, this company hopes to flood Google, Yahoo, and Bing with many of these sites so that they will show up when the customer searches for the business they want to investigate and it will result in the negative Yelp link being moved to the second page of Google's search results.

In theory, this will work whether the business is trying to bury Yelp posts or Foursquare or Insider Pages or any of the legitimate review websites. Sound a little shady to you? Well it sure does to me!

Most negative review posts are based on a misunderstanding or honest mistake made by one of the parties. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes these reviews have roots in some pretty big and pretty ugly problems at these businesses and sometimes there are people who complain just to complain, but the most common negative reviews can be resolved with some good customer service and that is what most people are seeking when they go public with their experiences.

That being said, while negative reviews sting and can harm your business' online reputation, the answer is most definitely NOT to bury the reviews, but to contend with the issues. Fess up if the mistake was yours. Make changes if your business is having repeat problems. Do some extra staff development training if your employees are not meeting customer needs. Change your product line and services if they are not what your customers are asking for. Reach out to your customers if there have been misunderstandings and work to mend bridges!

While there are times we'd all like our problems to just go away, don't fall prey to these kinds of shady companies who will try to play the system and ignore the problems. It can and will come back to bite! Your reputation will soar if you work to reconcile with unhappy clients and let the review sites serve both your customers and your business!

  Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations through monitoring and responding to customers on online review websites. For more information on IRM, it's services and programs, visit www.impressionsrm.com . 

Online Reviews: Word-of-Mouth Gone Viral

People talk and there isn't anything you can do about it. Or is there?

When I first started managing online reputations for businesses, I had no idea that there were things every business should be doing to manage the conversations that were taking place about their businesses online. I was surprised to find that even though sites like Yelp, Google+ Places, Foursquare, and Yahoo Local were designed to give consumers a voice, that they also give business owners a powerful means of showing the best (or worst) of their customer service abilities.

Before the rise of review websites, if consumers were unhappy with the service or product they received, they could go back to the business and complain. Sometimes this led to good customer service and sometimes not. Either way, that was just about the only recourse consumers had and some customers, either from bad experiences or from shyness or an overbearing sense of being polite, chose not to say anything when they were unhappy and just never used the same business again.

As business owners, it has always been in our best interests to provide excellent customer service and most of us do everything we can to ensure the customer leaves happy and ready to tell the world how fantastic our business really is. So, it hurts when we see a negative review posted on Yelp, Google, or any other publicly view-able site.

That's where we have a choice - we can turn the other cheek, ignore what is being said OR we can enter the conversation and use that feedback to strengthen our businesses and improve customer relations. After all, we cannot effectively improve our companies if we don't know there are problems to be addressed!

The different review sites are set up so that business owners can "claim" the pages that have been created specifically for their businesses. Once you go through this process, you can update your information there, post pictures, add links to your website, and, most importantly, you can respond to people who have posted reviews for you!

For the first time, all those customers who left unhappy have a voice - and a very loud voice given the high number of people who use review sites to research businesses and products - but business owners also have an excellent tool to reach out and mend bridges. We can restore relationships with our clients and correct things we never knew were wrong.

It's been the best part of my job as an online reputation manager to see clients turn a one star rating to a five star rating as they entered the conversation and corrected errors with their clients. It can happen for your business too - are you ready to manage your online review websites?

Ann M. Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - an online review managing and monitoring service for businesses new to review websites. If your business is needing assistance handling negative reviews or monitoring the high number of review sites, please check our website and program information at www.impressionsrm.com.