How important are online reviews?
According to reviewtrackers:
- “Online reviews published on sites like Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Tripadvisor can be incredibly powerful in shaping consumer behavior.”
- “Google is (still) the top review site. Zero-click searches, which rose to 65% in 2020, mean more users than ever are reading Google reviews directly from search results.”
With that in mind, are you regularly giving reviews, particularly to the mom and pop stores, restaurants, and shops? Whether they are clients or just a restaurant that you stopped in, please leave them a Google review.
Reviews help all of us in business. Small businesses don’t have many of the marketing advantages that the bigger, national companies do. The marketing budget would be one of these huge advantages.
You know if you’ve heard a jingle on the radio or television several times, then you start singing it, right? So the company name stick in your head. Who are you going to think of if you need that service? But to produce a professional jingle can cost anywhere from $500 to thousands of dollars by the time you pay to have it written and produced. Then there is the cost of buying the media (radio/tv, etc.).
Depending on your competition and what they are doing as far as marketing or advertising, even running online ads can cost several thousand dollars a month to be competitive.
So you may be asking yourself, besides having consistency on social media platforms that are appropriate for your business along with astounding customer service, what can be done to help your business?
Give & Request Reviews
Google, as mentioned previously, is one of the best places to have or leave reviews, with or without photos. If you have a more profession-specific site that your business is involved in, that works too! And don’t hesitate to ask your customers for a review. There are systems out there that will email them so they have a direct way of giving you one. No messing around trying to find a site.
Bad Reviews
Of course, we all want good to great reviews, but that’s just not life. Someone has a bad day, or someone they dealt with in your business is having a bad day, and BAM they go right to Google or Yelp to leave a bad review.
Good, Great, or just Bad, you always need to address all reviews. This shows others that find you online that you really do care and appreciate clients/customers taking the time to leave them.
Don’t be afraid of getting a bad review. If you do, it’s okay. You just need to show your concern for their issues and that you appreciate them letting you know. You may need to replace an item they purchased, or just ask them to stop back to see if it can be resolved.
Of course there are always some people that really want to argue and will come back a second time with a nasty reply. If this happens, call them, take it off-line. Do not argue with anyone online. Remember, everything on the internet stays there forever!
Reviews, no matter how they sound, are good to have for your business. So remember, give first, and then you will see others doing the same.
