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How to Build a Loyal Customer Base With Review Management

February 6, 2020 by letusrespond Leave a Comment

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, it’ll be impossible to grow. Therefore, putting them at the top of your priority list is in your best interest.

Of course, selling your products or services is essential to growth. But to sell, you must recognize the impact your customers have on your ability to do just that. No customers mean no sales, which is where a customer loyalty base comes into play.

According to American Express, satisfied U.S. customers are more likely to not only share their positive brand experiences with others, but they’ll refer an average of 11 people to a business. What’s more, a report from InMoment found that 60% of customers will purchase more regularly from their “preferred” companies.

In other words, not only can your existing customers bring you more business, but they will likely be your biggest supporters.

But what can brands do to improve their customer loyalty base? There are many ways to approach it, but one of the best methods being strategic review management.

Before we dive into how you can strengthen your customer loyalty with review management, let’s discuss the impact your customers have on your business as a whole.

How do your customers impact your business?

It’s not enough to sell to a customer then move on to finding the next prospects. There’s tons of value in your existing customer base.

Engaging with your existing customers—or building your customer loyalty base—is critical to creating a profitable business. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant ways your customers directly impact your bottom line.

Cost vs. retention

Attracting new customers is critical in growing your business, but there’s a lot of value within your existing network of customers.

According to a report from the Temkin Group, loyal customers are five times more likely to purchase again, five times more likely to forgive a poor brand experience, four times more likely to refer new customers to said brand, and seven times more likely to try a new offering from said brand. That’s a lot of value.

You spent so much time, money, and effort trying to attract those customers to your business in the first place. Letting them go—or pushing your customer loyalty tactics to the wayside—will cost you in more ways than one.

Word-of-mouth marketing

Your customers could be sharing their brand experiences with others at any given time. Those “others” could be potential customers of yours. With 77% of customers recommending companies to friends and family based on positive experiences, you want to make sure you’re on your customers’ good side.

In short, what your customers say about your business matters. It has a direct impact on the growth of your business and your reputation. Being aware of what your audience is saying about you (and engaging with them after the fact) is all the more important.

How to build customer loyalty base with review management

Each of these methods serves a different purpose, but it’s essential to keep your customers’ best intentions at the center of everything you do.

With that being said, let’s dive into how you can improve your customer loyalty base with review management.

Leverage customer feedback

How can you make impactful changes to your business or customer experience unless you know how your customers feel? Customer feedback goes far beyond praise and complaints; it’s an opportunity to learn things about your business that you may otherwise not know.

At the core, customer feedback guides business decisions and helps you make improvements for your customers (and future customers, too). Even the smallest customer suggestion can have a profound impact on your business, so it’s important to pay attention to everything.

Take the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth, Michigan, for example.

A customer left a great review on Yelp after their stay. The customer mentioned that the coffee selection could be improved—something that seems pretty minor in the scheme of things, but for the hospitality industry, this is important.

The GM of the hotel replied to the customer’s comment thanking them for their review and saying that he would take her coffee recommendation to their food and beverage team.

This is a prime example of how one customer review or suggestion can make future customers’ experiences better, which only snowballs from there.

Prioritize customer service

Listening and responding to your customers’ feedback shows you care about them and their experience with your company. Mistakes happen, but if you can show you’re working on a solution or have resolved the issue entirely, that goes a long way with customer retention.

The Hotel del Coronado, which is owned by Hilton/Blackstone Group, is a great example of customer service in action.

At the time of this review, the hotel was undergoing construction while simultaneously trying to provide customers with a fantastic experience despite the fact. One customer, in particular, was not happy with their stay.

But Hotel del Coronado was quick to reply, encouraging the customer to reach out so they could right the wrong.

Because the customers are the ones immersed in the brand experience, what you may think to be the solution may prove not to be enough, which is where customer feedback comes in handy.

With review management software, you can be sure you’re up to speed on everything your customers say. That way, you can be quick to respond and make things right or praise them for the positive review.

Manage reviews with integrated software

As your business grows (and especially if you outright encourage customers to leave reviews), it’s important to have a pulse on what your customers are saying. Plus, with 86% of customers reading reviews before they proceed with a purchase from a business, it’s all the more important to stay up-to-date on your reviews.

Whether you have multiple channels, location pages, or receive a high volume of reviews, using a review management software can make a positive difference.

Review management software helps in several ways:

Improve your response times
Organize your channels and gain insight into which are most popular for reviews
Respond to reviews all from one dashboard
Save time on review management

Use review management software to keep track of what your customers are saying about certain aspects of your business. With an all-encompassing dashboard, you’ll never miss a beat. You’ll improve your response times, and—most importantly—keep your customers happy.

Use social proof in your marketing

Social proof, like word-of-mouth marketing, plays a massive role in building brand loyalty. But how do you know about all the positive things your customers are saying about you unless you have some way of keeping tabs on it?

That’s where review management comes into play.

Cherry-picking your best reviews and using them in your marketing can make a significant impact.

For example, the direct-to-consumer turned brick-and-mortar mattress company, Casper, knows a thing or two about social proof. After all, before they opened up their first physical store, they had to convince customers to buy a mattress without having laid on it first!

From their website to their social media posts, Casper incorporates social proof at key customer touchpoints. They do a great job of not only leveraging their social proof but delivering it in a way that makes it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for all in one place.

What’s unique about Casper’s social proof usage is their ability to incorporate both helpful, tactical feedback and fun, playful feedback on the appropriate channels.

Not only does social proof validate claims your brand makes about your product or service, but it can help reduce customer objections (or the things that make customers run in the opposite direction).

Customer loyalty can make or break your business

Just as you spend time working on your products or services, you must put just as much (if not more) effort into your customer service strategy. Keeping your customers front and center of every business decision will have a sizable impact on your success.

Ready to get serious about your review management strategy? Book a call with us today, and our team will help you find the right solution.

The Definitive Guide to Google Reviews

January 9, 2020 by letusrespond Leave a Comment

Any savvy business owner knows that reputation management is essential to growing. The role reviews play in reputation management is not one to overlook.

According to the Spiegel Research Center (SRC), 95% of shoppers read reviews online before making a purchase. What’s more, the SRC also found that by displaying reviews, businesses can increase their conversion rates by 270%.

When it comes down to online reputation management, Google is king. If Google determines your site to be high-quality, as per its criteria, your ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) will improve. However, if Google deems your website to be fraudulent or if it has lots of errors—like bad links—that can harm the ranking of your site. The more issues your site has from Google’s standards, the less discoverable you are online.

In other words, Google plays a significant role in strong reputation management. So how do businesses, especially those with multiple locations, leverage Google?

In this guide, we’re breaking down everything you need to know about Google My Business Reviews and how you can get the most from this tool.

Ready to dive in?

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business (GMB) is an essential part of any brick and mortar business’ marketing plan for many reasons. GMB helps customers find your business, learn about your company, and find information like your phone number, website, hours of operation.

Also, Google My Business ensures you show up on Google Maps and that you can engage with customers through Google Reviews.

However, Google My Business only pertains to brick and mortar companies. There are a series of guidelines that outline what types of businesses can use GMB.

Why Does Google My Business Matter?

According to a study from BrightLocal, 5% of Google My Business listing views lead to a website click, direction request, or call. In short, it only makes sense that Google plays a significant role in how people find your business each time they search since it’s the leading search engine.

Showing up in local search engine results means more foot traffic, and subsequently, more business. A study from HubSpot found that 72% of customers that searched for something local visited a store within five miles of them.

To put it simply, Google My Business matters to the growth of your business. If your business doesn’t show up on Google, it won’t get seen by potential customers.

A complete GMB page helps Google understand what your business is so that when it goes to crawl your site, it gets as much relevant information as possible. The more Google knows about you, the better your SERP ranking, which we’ll talk more about later on.

The Impact of Google My Business

Google Reviews is much more than a way for customers to voice their experiences and opinions about your business. It’s a tool for companies to set themselves apart from their competitors on an organic playing field while providing customers with the information they need.

But before we dive into how businesses can leverage Google My Business, there are a few essential things to cover first.

The Power of Google’s Local 3-Pack

Though it’s every marketer’s goal to rank on the front page of Google’s SERP, what sets brick and mortar businesses apart is if they are included in Google’s Local 3-Pack.

Google’s Local 3-Pack, or the top three results a user sees when they search for something on Google, is prime reputation real estate.

The top three results are the businesses Google determines to be the most relevant to the search query based on the user’s location and other factors.

The reason why being in Google’s Local 3-Pack is such a highly sought after accomplishment is simple: it’s helping customers find you, which can lead to more foot traffic, an increase in conversions, and more. If you’re lower on the search query list, you’re competing with other businesses for customers’ attention.

Does Zero-Click Searching Mean Zero Opportunity?

The zero-click searching phenomenon has many marketers worried that, despite their best efforts, potential customers won’t click to their site.

Zero-click searching is a response to the formatting of Google’s SERP, which shows snippets of information (most likely the answers to popular search queries), eliminating the need to click on the results. This type of searching has cropped up as a response to voice and mobile searches that are typically short and quick.

There are a few types of zero-click searches:

Location-based searches: searches that involve directions and other local search queries.
Database searches: searches around dates, times, conversions, etc.
Dictionary-type searches: searches that typically start with “what is” or “what does.”

However, despite the threat of zero-click searches, if you optimize your site for featured snippets and continue to update your GMB profile when needed, you’ll provide potential customers with the information they need to act.

Adam Dorfman of Reputation.com had this to say about how customers use Google and zero-searching:

“Even if [customers] are looking for a specific business, they’re not going to your website first. They’re actually typing in your business name on Google. What that means […] is that your website is no longer your front door. Google has become so good at taking information from multiple places [and] creating what they call […] entities, which are clusters of information from different sources about a specific object—or in this case a business—and being able to deliver not just a series of links to find more information, but answers. [Google] is able to deliver [the] knowledge that people are needing right then and there right within [the] search results.”

So how can brands get the most from Google My Business Reviews? Let’s take a closer look.

How Can I Make the Most of Google Reviews?

There are several ways to leverage Google Reviews. No matter what tactics you use, it’s important to remember that being transparent with your customers and providing them with the information they need goes a long way.

Show Your Customers You Care About Their Experience

We know that people turn to Google more than any other search engine. Google Reviews for your business might be one of the first things potential customers see when they search. Therefore, excellent reputation management starts with responding to reviews.

No customer experience is going to be perfect, especially if you’re working with several locations. But if a customer does have a negative experience with your brand, there’s no better way to communicate that you care than by responding to their review and offering to make things right. This is also a great way to build trust among your customers and show them you have their back if something isn’t up to par.

The same can be said for positive reviews. Responding to reviews shows customers you see them, hear them, and care about them.

But it’s not enough to respond to reviews whenever you remember. You must do so promptly. Hiring a review management team to handle this not only means that nothing will fall through the cracks but that you’ll maintain a consistent online reputation.

Improve Your SEO Ranking

Aside from maintaining your reputation, managing your Google Reviews is an excellent way to boost your SEO.

How? If your profile is complete, meaning you’ve verified your location, update your hours of business when needed, add photos, etc., it will help Google determine what your business is as well as the associated search queries.

Local SEO rankings are important, especially for businesses with multiple locations. You must show up high on the SERP for customers to find your business, let alone consider it.

Also, it is not enough to have a stockpile of reviews. Brands must always be seeking new Google Reviews from customers. Consider relevancy in this case. Most customers deem reviews older than a month to be irrelevant. In fact, 84% of consumers agree that reviews older than three months are obsolete. As a result, it’s important to encourage new customers to leave a review.

Build Trust With Your Customers

Brands that are transparent and upfront with their customers are leading the charge when it comes to positive online reputation management. There is so much information at customers’ fingertips these days, so making honesty a priority for your business is a smart move.

You can display that transparency by engaging with your customers through Google Reviews. Plus, customers are more likely to trust the reviews of customers like them over a promise from a brand.

Gain Valuable Insight Into Your Customers’ Minds

There’s a lot of insight to be gained from your Google Reviews. Think of these reviews as short surveys, or a direct line to the mind of your customers.

Detailed reviews will often tell you a lot about what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. As we mentioned above, encouraging every new customer to leave a review helps you stay tuned on what your brand is excelling at, as well as what needs to be improved.

The insight you receive from customer reviews could be information you otherwise would not have access to (and information that can help grow your business), so it pays to pay attention to what your customers have to say.

Take this customer interaction with Domino’s, for example. A few customers expressed they had recently received cold, burnt pizza after placing an order. From this information alone, Domino’s team members can see that there’s an issue during the cooking and delivery phases in those customer areas.

Both customers were allowed to share their experiences in more detail with the Domino’s customer service team. Once the customer issue was resolved, Domino’s can use this information to contact those store locations and get to the bottom of the problem. Without that customer feedback, the Domino’s team might not have become aware of a potential problem.

Put in the Effort, Reap the Reward

Google Reviews are a crucial part of growing a brick and mortar business because they allow you to boost awareness, increase customer trust, and build a transparent brand.

Google is the most widely-used search engine, and there are countless opportunities for any brand to succeed.
Ready to take your reputation management to the next level? Our team can help. Contact us today to schedule a demo or to learn more about our services.

The Importance of Responding to Reviews and How to Respond Effectively

December 19, 2019 by letusrespond Leave a Comment

Brands only have so much control over what’s said about them online. From reviews to social media posts, customers have several ways to share their experiences with a brand on a multiple of public forums.

What customers say online can have a significant impact on a business. In fact, in a survey from BrightLocal, 76% trust online reviews as much as the opinions of family and friends.

However, brands do have control over how they respond to and manage their reviews.

In this article, we’re taking a look at why it’s important to respond to reviews and why brands with several locations should have a review management strategy in place.

Let’s get started.

The Benefits of Managing and Responding to Reviews

One of the worst things you can do for your online reputation is to let your reviews go unmanaged. Unanswered reviews, especially negative ones, leave customers wondering what action—if any at all—was taken to fix a problem or if the customer was ever acknowledged for leaving a review.

Failing to answer reviews may cost you the customers you worked so hard to get as well as new customers. Because acquiring new customers can cost five times more than retaining a current customer, it’s important to grow the relationships you’ve already made.

Plus, most customers won’t purchase until they read reviews. In fact, My Testimonial Engine found that 72% of customers won’t take action until they read reviews. Therefore, it’s crucial to make sure you’re controlling as much of the dialogue as possible.

Responding to reviews paves the way for a strong foundation with your customers, builds trust, and shows them that you genuinely care about their experience with your company.

In addition to managing your reputation, responding to reviews is a great way to boost your local SEO. Reviews help search engines like Google determine that you’re a legitimate, quality business. A study from Darren Shaw of Whitespark found that reviews make-up 15.44% of how Google ranks a local business.

What’s more, according to the Google My Business help page, “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”

Because Google plays a huge role in customer decision making, it’s imperative to play their game right. Google’s mission is to show its users the best search results that align closest with what they’re searching for. If you can verify that you are a quality company, there’s no question that it’ll help boost your local SEO.

So how can brands do this?

Complete your Google My Business profile and keep it up to date
Regularly respond to reviews, both positive and negative
Verify your business location(s)

Now that we understand why responding to reviews is important, let’s take a look at how you can do so in the best way for your brand.

Create a plan for all scenarios

One of the best ways to tackle review management is to come armed with a plan. That way, when you do respond to customers, you know exactly what to say.

Creating several canned, brand-approved statements for various situations prepares you for every customer encounter. Be sure that each statement is consistent across your customer service team before you start using them.

Also, it’s important to customize your response to each customer. Cookie-cutter responses aren’t always well-received and can come off as disingenuous, which will put a wrench in your attempt to form relationships with your customers.

Pre-written responses are valuable, but it’s also a good idea to determine the proper chain of communication per the situation. How will negative responses be handled? If you receive a high volume of reviews, what’s the most streamlined way to manage them? It’s essential to consider every aspect of the review management process, so your team doesn’t duplicate efforts or let anything slip through the cracks.

Beehive Kitchen, a health-conscious restaurant franchise, does a great job of keeping up with monitoring and responding to reviews they receive on Yelp, Google, and Facebook.

No matter if the review is positive or negative, the Beehive Kitchen team leaves a professional, kind response to every review and offers a solution when relevant. We’ll discuss the importance of providing a solution to unhappy customers later on.

The responses from Beehive Kitchen aren’t long-winded or complicated, but they go a long way when it comes to maintaining their reputation, staying transparent, and righting any wrongs.

Offer a solution to your customers

When a customer has a negative experience with a brand and chooses to share that experience publically, it can be detrimental. Rightly so—a BrightLocal study found that negative reviews stop about 40% of customers from making a purchase.

All hope isn’t lost. In reality, it’s an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you’ve heard them and want to make the situation right. That’s why whenever you respond to a negative review, offer a solution.

For example, Target does a great job of responding to negative reviews or posts. With Target being such a large company, mistakes happen. But they make an effort to provide customers with a solution.

This customer received a “tester” product in their online order, and Target replied within a few hours:

Target offered two ways for the customer to contact them regarding the order issue. This allowed the customer to get in touch in whatever way worked best for them. By offering a few ways to contact them, Target made it clear that they wanted to fix the issue in whatever way is most comfortable for the customer.

Did this work? The proof of effectiveness lies in the strong customer loyalty Target has built as a result of approaching review management this way.

Consider using a service to help you monitor and manage your reviews

Review management is a big undertaking, especially if you have multiple locations or are growing at a rapid pace and receive tons of reviews.

If review management is stressing you out, or you think your brand would benefit as a whole if you took a more dedicated approach, consider hiring a review management team to help.

There are several reasons why hiring a review management team is good for business. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest ones.

Be Consistent and Build Trust With Your Customers

Never worry about responding to reviews promptly again. Having a dedicated team that monitors reviews across all your channels daily and who can be consistent in responding is crucial to successful review management.

Also, there’s no denying it: Customers buy things from brands they trust. If your brand comes across as deceitful or disingenuous, then you’ve got a problem on your hands.

A review management team helps you build trust with your customers by ensuring they are heard and that any negative situations are resolved.

Boost Your Bottom Line

Review management goes beyond responding to reviews and making things right with customers. Though those things are important, it’s about creating a brand that people trust and want to buy from.

When it’s all said and done, how people perceive your brand online has a considerable impact on your bottom line. In fact, a study from the Harvard Business School found that even a one-star increase in a company’s Yelp page can result in between a 5-9% increase in revenue. With review management software, you can be sure you’re giving customers a reason to make a purchase with confidence.

Customer Reviews Grow Businesses

Taking the time to respond to reviews can make all the difference to increase your sales, grow your customer base, reduce churn, and more.

Don’t let your reviews get out of hand. It could be impacting your business more than you think.

At Let Us Respond, we help brands monitor and manage their reviews so they can focus on growing without compromising on their reputation. Contact our team today, and we’ll work together to find a review management solution that’s right for you.

Social Media Monitoring in the Age of Instant Expectations

October 29, 2019 by letusrespond Leave a Comment

Do you know what your customers are saying about your brand online?

These days, customers have a public platform to sing your praises or express their disappointment in their experience with your brand. And you better believe customers are paying attention.

According to Nielson, 92% of people trust the recommendations and opinions of family and friends over any other kind of advertising or content. What’s more, 74% of customers claim that word-of-mouth as a major influence in their buying decisions. Despite this, just 33% of brands are actively collecting and responding to reviews.

So how are companies supposed to keep tabs on their online reputation? Social media monitoring.

Social media monitoring allows you to track mentions of your brand across platforms. Instead of digging around for conversations, any activity concerning your brand comes directly to you.

This tool is excellent not only for understanding what your customers are saying about you, but it can help you react to instances that require a timely response, like negative conversations, faster. It makes it easier to engage with customers, so you don’t miss a thing.

But with roughly 42% of the human population using social media, it can be challenging to keep up with the avalanche of mentions, messages, and reviews. Not to mention, once you have this information, what are you supposed to do with it?

There are many ways to approach social media monitoring. Our Social Media Monitoring In the Age of Instant Expectations guide includes insights, data, and best practices that will help you take your strategy to the next level. Download it today and get started.

How can LetUsRespond.com help?

Hiring a dedicated team to take the reins for you is the first step towards strengthening your online presence. At LetUsRespond.com, we offer completely customized social media review response team to take control of your social media response strategy.

We’ll work with you to develop a customer experience strategy, so you’ll never go it alone. We provide brands with competitive intelligence insights, which can help you keep a pulse on your competition. Does your customer service team know what is expected of them? We can help you create or monitor customer service expectations.