How to Get Online Reviews and Beat the Competition

Did you know that it’s possible to manage your online reviews with special software? It's not only possible but, in this day and age, it's practically mandatory. Read on for more information about online reviews and how they can help your business.

Why Reviews Matter

Reviews can say a lot — and this is especially the case if your business is on the small side and your brand is lesser known and standing against some big brands.

In the peer-to-peer marketplace, standing out is more important than ever. The Spiegel Research Center claims that some 95% of shoppers check out online reviews before purchasing goods, and BrightLocal claims that 73% of shoppers feel that they can trust a business after reading good reviews.

If you’re struggling to get reviews from your customers, keep reading to discover a few simple ways that your business can be discovered through the peer-to-peer review market.

Reviews can say a lot — and this is especially the case if your business is on the small side and your brand is lesser known and standing against some big brands.

How Do You Get Reviews?

According to BrightLocal, something in the realm of 70% of consumers have actually written a review after a business prompted them to, and Power Reviews claims that up to 80% of reviews come from follow-up emails.

Thus, it’s up to the business to encourage reviews from their customers. But with or without prompts, one of the things that business owners need to bear in mind is that people who have a negative time dealing with a company – or an extremely positive one – are most likely to leave reviews.

If you think about your own experience, you probably interact with several companies every day, whether on a personal or professional level. You may bother to leave a review if:

1. Something exceptional happens
2. You have the time
   

Using software that offers prompts to encourage people to review you covers both of these bases. First, prompts show that you care about what customers think and that is an excellent customer experience in and of itself. Second, providing a "one click" action saves them the time of looking up your business and then writing out a review.

How Review Management Software Can Help Your Business

In the pre-digital days, businesses looking for feedback would send out lengthy surveys in the hopes that customers would answer with valuable feedback.

These surveys would detail any significant negative problems or positive feedback that customers and clients would have to share. Agencies would then have the choice of whether or not to advertise their findings.

Today, everything is available online, which means that businesses need to be extra careful of what’s being posted. But monitoring this takes time.

That’s where review management software comes in. Software can help companies to acquire, automate, and amplify customer reviews via email (drip) campaigns, specialized features like widgets for websites and email, and dedicated review websites.

This type of software is automated to send a reminder to customers to review your business using a review funnel. Monthly reports allow you to monitor the reviews coming in and hone in on the best reviews to share on social media.

Businesses can't afford to miss bad reviews, and they can't afford not to advertise the good ones. Reviews management software can help manage, organize, and receive reviews to boost customer loyalty.

Want to know more about review management? Schedule a free consultation with Menadena today to learn about these new innovative review management solutions.