When was the last time you went out to eat at a new
restaurant without checking their reviews online at Yelp.com? Or bought
something online without reading product reviews?
Restaurants are one business where customer reviews can make
or break you…very quickly! Personally speaking, I’ve always been big on reviews
and never purchase anything without going through both the good and bad stories
from customers of that service or product.
A lot of small business may underestimate the importance of
what is being said about them online, which could be a dangerous thing if
ignored. It is often harder to get customers to write positive reviews even if
they’ve had a positive experience but it doesn’t take a lot for an unsatisfied
customer to make it known to the world as to how they feel.
Most smart businesses provide an easy avenue for customers
to share their experiences, whether positive or negative. For example, they’ll
provide a link on their website’s homepage to leave feedback. They’ll share
their Facebook page and Twitter account so users of either social network can
find them easily and they’ll ensure that they request those users to provide
feedback. They also have a process in place to handle negative reviews, because
surely no business is perfect and there’ll always be that one customer that is
never satisfied. Businesses that address issues associated with negative
reviews and provide a solution that satisfies the customer are viewed more
positively by others than those that are left hanging and still angry with
their experience. I purchase a number of different things on Amazon and always
check for user reviews. When I read a negative review that is followed up by
the seller commenting and providing solutions to the reviewer’s problem, I feel
more confident in both the company and the product because I trust they’ll be
there if I have problems myself. In most cases it doesn’t take more than just
replacing a bad batch of a product that is otherwise problem-free.
One of my favorite companies is Southwest Airlines,
primarily due to their customer service. I believe they’re a model company when
it comes to providing great customer service even online. Looking at their
Facebook page and Twitter account, it is obvious that they’ve identified the
importance of unhappy customers and properly handling their concerns in order
to keep them with Southwest. Although Southwest Airlines is a large company,
small businesses can implement the same model and reap the same benefits.
Now you may ask: why have reviews at all? Not having the
ability to write online reviews eliminates the negative reviews all together,
doesn’t it? Digital Media, a social media agency, gathered some recent
statistics from the travel industry to prove that “reviews are an essential
ingredient your website needs today, especially for those organizations that
want to stay ahead of the pack.”
According to Digital Media, when it comes to booking a
holiday, “29% of consumers consider positive reviews as most likely factor to
make them book a holiday.”[1]
They also determined that online reviews help increase traffic on your website.
With Facebook, for example, for every good review shared on the social network,
it generates extra website traffic up to 2.5 times. This means that if your
Facebook page has 100 likes, you could increase your website’s traffic by 250
more visitors! That’s a big bump for any small business. More visitors mean
higher sales, which results to more reviews and assuming they’re mostly
positive, will result in even higher sales. This is important factor as
determined by Digital Media, as they write “Lightspeed Research say that 47% of consumers prefer to read ‘reviews on a
company’s website’ over magazines, forums, shopping comparison sites,
newspapers and social networking sites. The only other sources that were
more preferred than reviews on a company website were ‘via a search engine’
(64%) or ‘reviews on shopping sites’ (58%).” If I’m a small business with
limited resources to promote my products, this research tells me I should be
investing heavily on my website and monitoring reviews and staying away from
expensive magazine and newspaper advertisements.
It goes without saying then that online reviews are an
important factor for any business in order to help boost sales, establish a
brand and have a successful online presence. Implementing online reviews
without the proper follow-up might end up hurting a company, however, and would
be counterproductive. If a small business doesn’t already have a process in
place to allow customers to leave feedback and to monitor such feedback, it
surely is in their best interest to establish one now. As for social media, it
is relatively easy to setup a Facebook page and create a Twitter account, but
you need to hit the ground running. It would not be advisable to introduce your
business on these social networks until and unless you have the resources in
place to maximize the potential benefits. With proper planning and effective
execution, a small business can enjoy the benefits recognized by research done
by Digital Media and the like.
As a side note, from the consumer’s point of view, it’s not
always a good thing to be completely dependent on what online reviews have to
say about a product or service. I remind myself before anyone else that
simplifying your purchase process may make life a lot easier for you. Following
is a comic I found to be hilarious yet true to what I often find myself doing
when shopping online. And why negative reviews need to be handled properly by a
business so they don’t lose customers, as complicated as they may be!
Courtesy of xkcd.com (Google
Reader)
[1]
2012. The importance of online customer reviews.
Digital Advisor. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalvisitor.com/latestnewsandresources/social-media-blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews.html.
This is all about encouraging two way communication between consumers and producers- in the past, communication was only one way- from the manufacturer to the consumer-as a result the power resided with the manufacturer. Today, with all the online reviews and social media sites, communication is both ways; in fact, in a lot of cases, the power has shifted to the consumer. Many companies incorporate consumer feedback at all stages of the marketing cycle- Oracle incorporates consumer feedback at the design stage of the software so that it can incorporate what is important for the customer to see and use in the software. A product needs to fulfill the needs of the consumer- the first step is to understand what they are and then to incorporate them in the design of the solution. Feedback is critical, both ways and results in a win-win situation, provided it is incorporated and acted upon by the manufacturer.
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