Reed / Published on September 1, 2014
Everyone knows reputation is of essence, especially when it comes to owning a business.
Negative reviews and comments can harm your company meaning you may lose potential customers and in the long-term losecurrent customers to your competitors.
Nowadays, it’s easy to suss out a company’s reputation – all you have to do is go online and you’ll likely find comments from customers talking about their experiences with a company.
However, there are ways you can drown out any negativity and encourage people to leave positive reviews online.
1. Incentivise them
The best way to persuade your customers to post positive reviews online is to incentivise them. Every time someone buys something off you, send them an email thanking them and ask them to review your business.
For their time, offer them entry into a prize draw or a 10% discount off their next purchase.
Consumers love freebies so the more you offer, the more likely they’ll be to leave a positive review.
2. Promote your business
List your business on all the big online directories, especially the big social networks like Google+ and Facebook. Your business page will show up in any Google search and this will give people the opportunity to interact with you and leave positive feedback.
And don’t forget about LinkedIn. The business social network allows you to list products and services on your profile pages. It also allows users to make recommendations and write reviews.
3. React quickly to any negativity
Many businesses make the mistake of ignoring negative reviews and even worse, neglect to monitor what people are saying about them online at all.
There will always be someone isn’t happy with your business, whether it’s justified or not, so the best way to deal with criticism online is to face it head on.
Whenever you find a negative review or comment, you should respond immediately. Always apologise and ask for their contact number. Resolve the issue offline, and in most cases, due to delivering excellent customer service, the person will go back online and retract their comment and leave a positive one instead , saying how well you dealt with the issue.
Your objective when dealing with negative reviews should always be to turn the negative experience into a positive one, even if that means offering the customer a refund or a voucher.
We hope we’ve enlightened you with how you can manage your reputation online.
What do you think is the best way to deal with negativity on the web?
