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What Is More Important Than Social Media? Online Reputation
Today’s marketplace has numerous challenges for small business online. The advent of social media and online marketing has caused many companies to jump in uncomfortable directions. As a result, one of the first questions small businesses ask us is, “What should we tackle first?” The answer is not Facebook or Twitter, but rather online reputation.
Online reputation is, in essence, what end users see when they search for your business. In addition to giving you the website for the business, the search engine also considers the reputation that the business has earned from various online reviews and comments on popular sites like Yelp, Google My Business/Reviews and Angie’s List. The reviews left online can make or break a business.
Most businesses do not manage their online reviews or monitor them until an issue arises. To explain how online reputation can harm a company, consider the example of Bob’s Plumbing. Bob owns a plumbing business and does over 200 jobs each year. He has been in business for over ten years, with thousands of clients. Only one review could be found when searching for Bob’s business, but because it was from a satisfied client, Bob never worried about his online reputation.
Although most clients were pleased with the quality of his work, Bob would still have around five clients per year that he could not satisfy. Three days after completing work for one of these challenging clients, a new client called to cancel an upcoming appointment. When asked why, the client explained that he was concerned about Bob’s abilities and decided to use someone else. He made it clear that it was due to a complaint he saw online.
When Bob went online, he found out that this one review had turned into two reviews. The first five-star review he had seen remained online, but now a new zero-star review from the unhappy client was appearing at the top of search results. The client took the better part of an afternoon to write a complaint that attacked Bob and his services.
Bob now faced a new challenge: half of his reviews were negative and as a result, people were second-guessing his company and services. Bob’s online reputation was not reflective of his offline reputation.
Online reputation for a firm that delivers a solid product needs to be managed well, because the reality is that up to 2% of any client base is going to face a challenge that could turn into a dissatisfied client. If a company manages their reputation and complaint process, then the normal speed bumps that occur while doing business will not harm their reputation and bottom line.
A business can be proactive by measuring and directing their client interaction with these two steps:
STEP 1 - MEASURE YOUR CLIENT’S SATISFACTION
Create a system that measures the satisfaction of a client. For example, after a job is completed, use another person within the office to gauge the client’s satisfaction through a follow-up call or visit. Use a brief interview survey to determine the depth of satisfaction with the client.
STEP 2 - DIRECT THEIR NEXT STEP
Once you identify a client’s level of satisfaction, point them in the direction you desire. If the client is unhappy, then you will want to ensure that they are guided towards an opportunity to offer their feedback directly to management. From there, you work to resolve the situation and ideally turn them into a satisfied client.
If the client is satisfied with your services, then you will want to direct them towards a path that leads them to creating an online review for your business. When clients are happy, they tend to be willing to take a few minutes of their time to share their positive experience. In this case, you could simply say, “I am glad we were able to help successfully fulfill your needs. When you have a few moments, would you mind following the simple steps on this page and leave an honest review about our services, professionalism and your overall experience on one of the websites listed below? We grow our business through referrals and making clients happy. Taking five minutes to leave us an honest review would be greatly appreciated.” When clients are happy with your service, you will see around a quarter of them take the time to leave you a review when asked.
Those two simple proactive steps will allow you to drive people online and increase your positive reviews. If Bob’s Plumbing had this process in place, when the negative review was posted, it would have been lost in a sea of positive reviews. But as a result of Bob’s Plumbing lack of reputation management, his negative reviews dominated his online reputation.
There are rules you have to play by in the online reputation world, the principle rule being that you cannot buy reviews or award reviewers. This is against most terms of services, and you will almost certainly be caught and end up with a public relations nightmare.
Instead, manage your online reputation attentively and honestly. Ask yourself: is it better to deal with the negative reviews online, or to do what’s necessary to make the client happy?
On a side note, from our experience of working with hundreds of businesses, we tend to see that unhappy clients that are transformed into happy clients become one of the businesses largest referral sources, so look at complaints as an opportunity and not a headache.
When it comes to making the review request sheet for the client, it’s simple. Do an online search for your business and industry category for your local area. Examples of this would be “Bob’s Plumbing” and “Plumbers Bucks County.” Start with the review sites that are highest in the search results. Some common review sites will be Google My Business/Reviews, Yelp, Angie’s List (membership required) and HomeAdvisor.
Next, create guidance on the steps the client needs to take, from start to finish, in order to leave a review online for your business. Make the steps clear and straightforward, without missing any details. Then at least once or twice a month, review your feedback and improve on your process where needed, in order to ensure you are increasing your online credibility consistently.
There are many benefits to a strong reputation online, ranging from better SEO, higher closing ratios and enhanced brand. For ideas of what a step-by-step review packet should look like, email bestpractices@focusmx.com. In our next article, we will discuss best practices for dealing with negative reviews and how to turn unhappy clients into raving fans!
Article by Scott Setzman, Web Marketing Specialist. For more information about FocusMX, contact Deb Rosica, Marketing & Web Specialist, 215.489.5460, x.355 or deb@focusmx.com.