Your Internet presence is your company's flagship on the World Wide Web. This does not only include a website: Online reviews are becoming increasingly important. Customers listen to what other customers report. But how do you generate new customer reviews? On which review portals should you be present? How do you best deal with negative reviews?
Here you will find the most important information on how to improve your online reputation and efficiently manage, analyse and increase customer reviews.
How important are customer reviews on the Internet?
Customers are interested in what other people have to say. How people rate your service, product or service on the Internet has an impact on your company's image. Online reviews on Google or other review portals have a direct influence on your online reputation, the purchase decisions of other customers and thus also on your turnover. However, it is not uncommon for unhappy customers in particular to leave reviews.
What does online reputation mean?
Online reputation is the image of a company, a person, a product or a service on the Internet. Online reputation is influenced by the following factors:
- Customer reviews
- Presence in search results
- Media coverage
- Social media
- Discussions in forums
- and much more
How do customers feel about online reviews?
The opinion of happy or unhappy customers can have an impact on the purchase decision of prospective customers. Especially when there are several, equally valuable products or services to choose from, people tend to read online reviews. According to a Statista survey published at the beginning of 2020, 66% of 16- to 19-year-olds use online reviews as a decision-making aid.
Seriousness and trust play a major role here. If there are too many perfect reviews, consumers become suspicious and often fake reviews can be quickly recognised. Company profiles on which mainly 5-star ratings can be found appear dubious and untrustworthy. This is confirmed by a study by Capterra: More than half of the respondents believe that at least 50% of online reviews are fake.
What rating portals are out there?
Customer opinions are collected and published on rating portals. Customers can rate products, services and companies there, among other things. For potential target groups, these portals offer a wide variety of information and experience reports that play a major role in the purchase decision.
Most portals take care to publish serious and verified customer reviews in order to guarantee an authentic image. On the one hand, positive online reviews increase the popularity of a company. On the other hand, bad or fake reviews can damage the image and scare off potential customers.
The selection of rating portals on the internet is diverse and offers both industry-independent platforms as well as specific rating sites for certain industries.
How to deal with online reviews?
Reviews alone are no guarantee of success. How you as a business respond to online reviews, both positive and negative, has a big impact on potential customers. Good review management can help attract new customers and improve your online reputation.
Important: Do not leave customer reviews unanswered. Respond to positive and negative reviews.
Dealing with negative comments in particular is not easy. You often need to be sensitive in order not to upset dissatisfied customers even more. In principle, regardless of whether it is a negative or positive review, you should thank the person for their feedback.
Show your customers that their opinion is important to you. Leaving customer feedback unanswered is one of the most common mistakes when responding to online reviews. If it is a negative customer review, the following tips should be taken to heart:
- Do not take negative reviews personally
- Respond to complaints promptly
- Show empathy and understanding
- Respond to the person individually
How to get positive customer reviews?
Customers tend to leave reviews especially when they are unhappy. The challenge is to convince the happy customers to write a positive review.
Be present with your company on relevant review portals. In addition to industry-specific platforms, this also includes Google My Business. Here, users can find important information and contact details as well as customer reviews. But that alone is not enough. To generate positive customer reviews, you have to act proactively. After the purchase, remind your customers to leave an online review.
Using the Google QR Code Generator, you can easily create a QR code or link that leads directly to your Google My Business profile. This gives customers the opportunity to write a review quickly and easily.
Why you should not buy customer reviews
Generating customer reviews in a natural way takes time and work. Buying fake reviews promises an easy solution to the problem. Providers of fake reviews offer a large number of positive reviews for a comparatively low price.
Even if these offers sound appealing, you should definitely not buy online reviews. On the one hand, buying online reviews is against the law and on the other hand, many review portals take action against fake reviews. Real, authentic feedback and loyal customer relationships are more valuable than fake online reviews.
Improve SEO performance with Google reviews
Search engine optimisation (SEO) has become an important marketing area for small and local businesses in recent years. Google continues to expand its own search results, which means that most information can already be seen directly via the search engine. The Google My Business profile is considered the digital business card of a company.
On the Google My Business Profile, customers can find the most important information, contact data and ratings of a company. The better the profile is optimised, the greater the influence on SEO performance. This includes not only essential information such as address or contact details, but also customer reviews.
Search engine optimisation is no longer just about keywords. Trust, authority and expertise are among Google's important quality criteria. Genuine, positive and authentic customer reviews on Google make companies appear trustworthy.
Google reviews influence whether users click on a search result or not. According to a survey by BrightLocal, 57% of consumers will only choose a business if it has 4 or more stars. So if a business has positive and reputable reviews, users are more likely to trust the website and click on the Google search result.
Competitive advantage thanks to customer reviews
Of course, review management can be very time-consuming for your company, but the effort is worth it. Consumers use reviews from other people to get an overview of different companies and products.
Online reviews play an important role in the purchase decision. With positive reviews you give your company a significant competitive advantage.
The process must be as simple as possible for customers. Therefore, you should remove all obstacles on the way to the review as far as possible in advance. It is best to ask your customers to rate your business through the same communication channel they use in their private lives. In doing so, you should not simply ask for a rating, but send a rating link directly.
Show your presence on relevant review portals, invite customers to submit new reviews and respond to incoming customer reviews.
Improve online reviews with Superchat
Satisfied customers often don't think to leave a review. With Superchat, you can send your customers a review reminder quickly and easily. Various communication channels and messengers are available for this purpose.
As soon as a new notification is received via Google, Facebook or other rating portals, you will be notified via Superchat.
- Superchat functions at a glance
- Notifications about new reviews
- Creation of templates for rating reminders
- Statistics on incoming ratings
- Add multiple review platforms
- Employee rankings
- Mobile Superchat App
Would you like to use Superchat? Do you have any questions about our product? Contact us easily and without obligation via WhatsApp, or write us an email at hello@superchat.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!