I can tell you from experience that just like company culture, your online reputation is better created on purpose than by accident. If you don’t build your reputation, your customers (usually the difficult ones) will have no problem airing their opinions online, and that’s all prospective customers will see.
If you are focused on building customer trust and securing future business, I highly recommend spending a decent amount of time making sure you put an online reputation plan in place.
You might be wondering why you should care about adding another task to your plate (which is already full). I would say you can’t afford not to.
At Solid Digital, we’ve done reputation management research for many clients and found that companies that don’t focus on their reputation often have a higher percentage of negative reviews. If you think about it, this makes sense. Happy customers usually don’t immediately run to their keyboards and tell everybody. Customers who aren’t happy, well, we all know what they do.
Benefits of Collecting Customer Reviews Proactively
Highlighting Positive Reviews: It’s a numbers game really. You will get bad reviews, it happens. When you proactively collect positive reviews, you create a balanced view of your company.
Social Proof: Reviews validate your products/services and encourage potential customers to trust your brand. A high volume of recent, positive feedback builds trust and credibility. Social Proof is also something you can use both on review sites and your own website.
Customer Insights: Customers can provide valuable feedback to your company. I would argue that you should collect this feedback privately before asking for a review, but such insights highlight what you’re doing well and where you can improve.
SEO Impact: Positive reviews can boost your search engine rankings.
Increased Conversions: Buyers are more likely to choose a businesses with many reviews that are positive.
Future Employees: More and more employees are looking at reviews of the companies they are applying to. This behavior makes sense, especially since one of the most widely known review sites is Glassdoor.
Common Reasons Businesses Avoid Collecting Reviews
Here are some of the reasons we hear from our clients on why they don’t focus on collecting reviews.
Fear of Negative Feedback: It’s scary to ask for reviews if you don’t know what your customers will say. Some companies worry that asking for reviews invites criticism. We would argue to build the best experience you can and go get those reviews.
Unawareness of Importance: Some teams underestimate the power of reviews and many don’t know how they stack up against their competition online.
No Existing Process: Without an established system or team responsible for soliciting and managing reviews any teams don’t know where to start, or the task feels too daunting.
Time and Effort: Building a review collection process can be time-consuming and difficult.
The Risks of Ignoring Customer Reviews (or Letting Them Happen Organically)
Imbalanced Feedback: Dissatisfied customers are more likely to leave reviews on their own, creating a skewed reputation.
Reputation Damage: Negative feedback left unchecked can spiral, deterring potential customers.
Loss of Control: Allowing reviews to develop without input limits your ability to manage and respond effectively.
Competitive Disadvantage: Competitors actively managing their reviews may overshadow your brand in search results and consumer trust.
How to Build a Simple, Effective Review Collection Process
Reputation Monitoring: Set a goal to collect a certain amount of reviews over your calendar year. Track your progress. It’s even easier to do this if you have someone helping you with Reputation Monitoring, like the solution Solid Digital provides.
Keep it simple: Create a simple and easy to execute process. If it’s too complicated, you won’t follow through. Always remember to make sure that “simple” means “good.” Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and make sure their experience submitting the review is streamlined.
Choose Your Platforms: We like to think of a minimum of 3 platforms up to 5 to start. Focus on key platforms for your business. If you are a B2B SaaS company for example, this would be done on platforms like Google, G2, and industry-specific sites.
Automation: I think automation is a great idea if you are an e-commerce or very high transaction volume company. But if you aren’t, just ask your customers. It’s more personal, and makes response more likely. You might be disappointed if you leave all your efforts up to automation.
Ask at the Right Time: Engage customers when their experience is fresh, such as post-purchase, when they say something positive about their experience, or after you deliver your services.
Respond to Reviews: Acknowledge all positive and negative reviews to show responsiveness and professionalism.
Wrapping Up
It can be a challenge to start a new process in a company. So my last words on the subject are this, just start with tracking using some kind of Reputation Monitoring process (ask me how, and I can help you set it up). See what customers are already saying as a baseline. Start small and build your process from there.
