Every entrepreneur’s nightmare: negative reviews on Google. Anyone can read it and your company risks a bad name. A company can forget about prosperity if the reviews on Google are all negative. The average online rating plays a vital role in the customer’s decision-making process. This article discusses the reliability of online reviews and how a good feedback strategy can lead to a good representation of the quality of the products and/or services.
Research shows that consumer confidence immediately increases when the company has a good average online rating. The consumer feels that it is almost a guarantee of a good experience.
Yet this is often not a fair representation of the quality of the product or service of a company. Bad reviews are posted faster than good reviews. Customers with a good experience don’t often leave a good review on their own. That is why the image can quickly be unjustly damaged. Although the proportions are not always representative, the impact is significant. It is important to respond quickly to negative feedback to not lose trust. Here are some recommendations for dealing well with negative feedback online:
- Keep a close eye on the major review websites.
- Implement other feedback channels. With FourSmileys products, there is another opportunity for customers to express dissatisfaction. At that point, the customer will in most cases be less likely to post it on Google as well.
- Always respond with empathy, even if it is an injustice. Immediately offer a solution to your customer.
- Make sure you contact the customer directly instead of starting a conversation on the review website. This prevents further negative publicity. Do this well after responding to the negative feedback.
- Make sure you also respond promptly to positive feedback, so that this is avoided and there is a good representation of the experiences.
- Use positive feedback in marketing materials. Process this in a good case study, come up with unique content, and tell (potential) customers about the enthusiasm of other customers.
- Create a feedback process. Ensure that negative reviews are used to improve products and services. In this way, negative reviews will decrease, and brand loyalty is increased.
It is also important to set up a complete feedback strategy, which also includes customer surveys, internal evaluations, and direct feedback. In this way, you can actively optimize.
To get better reviews, the entire customer journey must be mapped as well. What can you improve? How can you make the customer loyal to the organization? What are the opportunities to create a wow effect? Then determine the moments when customers are actively asked to leave feedback. Is collecting feedback not quite working yet? Then try to activate the customer with incentives to leave feedback. The number of 5-star reviews will certainly increase.
