Reviews and Reputation Marketing

We have written a lot about the value of responding to negative reviews, but putting theory to practice is never that simple. Sometimes the review is unfair.  What’s worse, many reviews sites do not allow you to challenge erroneous reviews — the kind written by competitors and former employees. In these situations, it is not clear how to proceed. So, it is worth looking closely at real examples.

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will examine some of my favorite owner responses.

Even when someone has the facts completely wrong, it is important not to get defensive. Your response is more about you as a professional than the particulars of the review. In this example, C and M Moving of Houston have established an excellent online reputation, and they do an incredible job of assuring their prospects without necessarily calling the reviewer out. In fact, despite the harsh language, they even offer to work with the reviewer again.

Summary: We got Ripped OFF!

Review: Once our move was completed we were over charged by nearly $700.00! We tried to work with Ron the owner and were treated very unprofessionally. I would not ever trust these people with your credit card number. They have no honor to what they tell you.

C and M Moving and Storage response:

Mr. Lewis, I hate to hear that you were dissatisfied with the price of your move. When our customers are not satisfied, I am not satisfied. After 11 years we had hoped that by giving our customers a final price estimate before the move, a contract that includes the final price before the move, and an invoice detailing all charges after the move that we could eliminate misunderstandings about the cost of a move. Apparently, we have more work to do on that front. Meanwhile, we appreciate your business and dont want to lose you as a customer. When your current apartment lease is up, call us back. We will meet or beat any move estimate that you get. Satisfaction Guaranteed!

C And M moving achieve three things with their response:

1. They Assure their Prospects
The most clear takeaway from this response is that C and M moving is upfront about their costs. Anyone who reads this review will know what to expect from C and M Moving; i.e., “final price estimate before the move, a contract that includes the final price before the move, and an invoice detailing all charges after the move.”

It is not necessary to dispute every claim made by a reviewer, and in fact, explanations can seem like excuses. However, it is very important that you assure your prospects that they will not have a similar experience. In many cases, the best strategy is to own the mistake, but when the reviewer has the facts wrong, business owners can respond by politely and succinctly reminding the reviewer how their service works.

2. They affirm Their Standards
C And M Moving understand that their response is a unique opportunity to demonstrate their professional ethic to their prospective customers. Lest there be any mistake, the owner affirms his personal standards right at the top: “When our customers are not satisfied, I am not satisfied.”

One of the essential elements to any good response is brevity. People are less likely to read long responses, so you have to make your point quickly. C And M Moving do not post their entire mission statement, but they do set the stage for their comments by sharing a brief insight into what makes them special.

3. They End it with a Gesture
The most important objective is reassuring your prospective customers. After that, you want to build affinity. You do that by demonstrating your professionalism. Especially industries like moving, the ability to engender trust is a powerful differentiator. But, C And M Movers take it a step further by ending their response with a gesture.

Sometimes the best gesture is simply offering to work with someone again. This is an especially meaningful gesture when the reviewer is harsh or unfair. More importantly, it is important to end the response on a strong, positive note if possible. This is the very last thing prospective customers will read in this review, so it worth leaving an impression on them.

For many small businesses, summer can be a slow time with clientele out of town or if your work is seasonal. However, this does not mean that you should let your marketing efforts lag. There are several things you can do for your business this summer that will pay off in the months that follow:

Keep in touch. Don’t underestimate the value of repeat business. By staying connected and optimizing your relationship with your existing customers, you can build your business in the most cost-effective way possible. Let your customers know what’s new, what you’ve changed or updated. Provide them with useful, relevant information via newsletter, blog, or Facebook. Consider holding a contest or including a giveaway. In a recent newsletter that we sent to Customer Lobby members, for example, we offered a free Customer Call review to the first 10 people to respond. The response was fantastic!

Build up your contact database. Before you send out that newsletter or email campaign, you need to build up your database of customers and prospects. Not only do customers prefer email marketing, but it’s by far the most cost-effective way to communicate with your customers. If you don’t already have an email list, now is a good time to start creating one. For more information on building an email list, read Ted’s blog post.

Get creative.  Reach out to your customers and prospects with a gift offer for those current customers who refer new people to you. Make sure that your customer reviews are featured prominently on your website, on major search engines, and on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to convert prospective customers.

Update your website. Make sure that your website is optimized and that all of the contact information is correct. For some simple but critical conversion tips for local business websites, read Kevin’s latest blog. Local SEO expert Andrew Shotland also blogged recently about the importance of making sure your website works.

Get new reviews. Ask your customers for feedback. Even those on vacation may have a few minutes to do a review for you from their laptop or mobile phone — This may actually be the best time to reach them! What’s more, you may find that you are more available to make improvements to your business and implement changes based on their feedback while you have some downtime.

Google engineer, Matt Cutts, was recently asked how local businesses can compete for search recognition against companies spending thousands of dollars on SEO. His answer was quite simple and one that local businesses should find pretty encouraging.

You Won’t Win By Gaming

Cutts basically said that businesses that try to game search engines by loading up their pages with inauthentic and too many links and keywords, will ultimately be penalized. Over-optimization will cause Google to leave a website. There is no such thing as a shortcut to a number one Google ranking. In order to get and stay there, businesses need to produce relevant content that uses keywords naturally. Building and maintaining a compelling website of interest to your audience is the best thing you can do to be competitive.

Being Real is Compelling

Creating compelling content is easier than more local businesses think. It is all about having a real, human voice and rather than the voice of a business trying to sound human. Answering customer questions, posting verified customer reviews, highlighting employee stories, and sharing industry expertise are all examples of content that your audience will find interesting and Google will reward from a search position perspective.

Simply Beautiful is an example of a business website with genuinely interesting content. They share the story of the founder, host personal videos, feature several photos, answer frequently asked questions, outline facts about their service, and highlight verified customer reviews.

In a previous post, I noted 5 reasons to build a customer email list.

Communicating with your customers via email is important because:

1. Repeat customers matter – Email reminders are one of the most effective ways to drive repeat business.
2. Referral customers matter – The most impactful way to get more referrals is to periodically ask your customers… via email.
3. While you are working on capturing more market share, so are your competitors.  That means they are working to take your customers.  Periodically emailing your customers reminds them that they are your customers.

Already have email addresses of your customers?  It takes less than 5 minutes to set up your Customer Lobby account to automatically send your referral request emails and customer retention/reminder emails.

Need to build an email list of your customers?  Call our member services team for how we can help!!

In part 2 of this post, I will share some thoughts on what to say in your email marketing.  Stay tuned!!

Local businesses are spending a lot of time and money to increase traffic to their websites, but traffic is only half the challenge. Good business websites are designed to convert web traffic into leads. If you have a local business, conversion is when a visitor to your website calls, emails, or fills out a form for an appointment or quote. To that end, your website needs to keep visitors from bouncing.

Here are a few tips to help with conversion:

Contact Information

Most of the leads local businesses get from the web are going to either call or email. It sounds beyond obvious, but make sure your contact information is featured somewhere near the top of each page of your website, preferably in the header, and include a call-to-action, such as “call today for a free quote.” Lead capture forms that allow customers to submit an appointment are also a good idea, but most people want to pick up the phone and call first, so your contact information should be the most accessible content on your site.

For conversion purposes, you want your website as easy to navigate as possible, so stick with a common navigation design, such as a horizontal menu bar at the top of your site or a vertical one down the left side. Most visitors to your website are accustomed to finding a “contact us” section in the menu, so it is a good idea to include one.

Note:  For local search purposes, it is especially important to put your name, address, and phone number (NAP) together above the fold. Aside from your customers reading this information, Google also uses this data, so avoid vanity numbers and use text instead of a graphic to display your number.

Customer Reviews:

No other single piece of content is going to impact prospective customers more than third-party customer reviews. Consumers seek out third-party reviews instead of testimonials because they want to see the unfiltered opinion of your customers. According to a recent study, 72% of consumers trust customer reviews as much as personal recommendations. So it is important that you feature a link to your positive reviews prominently above the fold on your homepage.

Conventional wisdom holds that you should direct web traffic toward one particular action. This is usually embodied in a button or text with a particular call-to-action, such as “click here for a free estimate.” However, you must still have content that compels your prospects to click, call or email for that quote. So aside from putting a link to your reviews, include a secondary call-to-action for your visitors, such as “read customer reviews.”

A word of caution: be careful not to send your prospects to your competitor’s reviews. Too often I have seen local business websites with a link to their directory reviews page only to follow the link and discover 2 customer reviews and links to their nearest competitors. One way or another, a prospective customer has found their way to your site. They are now in your sales funnel. Do not drive them to your competitor’s ads.

Headlines

It is widely understood that visitors to a website will not spend more than about 3 seconds orienting themselves. Your prospective customers need to be able to find what they need at a glance or you are in danger of losing them. Make sure that your content is separated with clear headlines. As this eye-tracking study reveals, most people who visit a website scan the headlines before even looking at the photos. Make sure your headlines tell the story and convey the essential information you need your prospects to know quickly.

Aside from your prospects, search engines use keywords in your headlines for search purposes. Avoid the temptation to stuff your headlines with keywords. It is more important to write headlines that are meaningful, helpful, and clear for your prospective customers.

I was recently faced with the task of choosing a health care provider online. Going through this selection process, I gained extra insight into what works and does not work when it comes to customer reviews. 

Here are the top 5 things that matter most:

1) Reviews, not testimonials. Third party-hosted reviews have greater credibility with prospective customers and higher read rates than testimonials. Quotations from satisfied customers pasted onto your website look cherry-picked and are not the powerful conversion tool that 3rd party-hosted reviews are.

2) Quantity and quality. While most people only look at 2-3 reviews before deciding which business to use, that doesn’t mean that having just a handful of reviews is sufficient. According to a recent Search Engine Land study, the quantity of reviews that a business has is important because it gives users more confidence in the star ratings. The more review content you have, the less likely you will lose that potential customer. However, don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. Longer reviews are more credible.

3) Current, fresh review content. Prospective customers are looking for recent content. Make sure that you have a review from the current year or, better yet, the current month. People will search for your latest reviews and those reviews will be the ones frequently clicked on and read. Also, fresh content will actually help you rank better in search results. Prospective customers will be more likely to find and read your reviews online if you have recent ones.

4) Positive reviews should outnumber the negative. According to a recent survey, 52% of consumers said that positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business. This doesn’t mean that negative reviews are a bad thing. If you have enough positive feedback, then negative reviews actually confer value because they show transparency and honesty, especially when you engage with your reviewers by commenting on those reviews.

5) Reviews in multiple places online. Reviews are the #1 factor someone will consider when choosing whether to use you over another company. So, it’s important that you make sure your reviews are in key places: on your website; indexing in Google and other major search engines; Facebook and Twitter; and local search sites like Google Places or Yahoo Local.

Many small businesses are cutting back on marketing as a result of the economy. Are you one of them?

Marketing becomes even more critical in a down economy. Rather than doing less, you should really be thinking about more effective marketing. Here are our top 3 suggestions on how to stretch your dollars and get more online business:

1. Take advantage of free tools:

• Make sure your Google Places and Yahoo Local pages are as robust as possible with contact information, photos, videos, subject tags and customer reviews. The name of your profiles should match the name of your business. Consistency of brand is important for customer recognition, but also search engine optimization.
• Post content that positions you as an expert in your field and that helps to drive traffic to your website: YouTube.com for videos, Flickr.com for photos, Slideshare.net for slide show presentations, and Free-Press-Release.com for press releases.
• Create and keep updated a Facebook and Twitter account. They help you communicate with prospects and customers, but also help search engines view you as a credible business.

2. Get and publish customer reviews:

• Third party hosted customer reviews will help prospects find you, but more importantly, will help convert prospects to paying customers.
• Reviews in multiple locations (3rd party hosted, Google, Yahoo) will strengthen your online presence and help you build a good reputation.
• Reviews can serve as fresh content automatically syndicated to your social media profiles so that you don’t have to create content to keep them updated.

3. Use your customers to help get business:

• Remind your existing customers when they are due for a visit. Staying in front of them with email reminders will keep your business top of mind.
• Incentivize your existing customers to help spread the word. Offer them a small thank you gift for referring their friends and family to you. Even better, give new customers a special discount that your existing customers can pass along.

Your customer email list can be one of your most valuable assets.  But, building the list can be hard, right?

Here is a little extra motivation in the form of 5 reasons to build your customer email list:

1. Email is the most cost-effective means to communicate with customers.

   Most local businesses live and die by repeat and referral business.  Emailing your existing customers is by far, the lowest cost, most impactful way to generate repeat and referral business.  Simply put, if you don’t have their email address, you can’t send them an email and you are likely missing out on additional business.

2. Enables “Revenue on Demand”.

   Revenue on Demand is the practice of offering a limited time deal on your product or service.  If the deal is good enough, presto…revenue on demand.  Groupon, Living Social, and many others offer this service to local businesses.  But how can having built your customer email list help with this?  66% of Groupon customers are existing customers of the business they buy the deal from.  So, if you have your own customer list you can save lots of money by simply offering the same deal directly to your existing customers  and not share the proceeds.

3. Get more referral business.

   Once you have a customer email list, create a referral program (you already have one…right?) that automatically asks your happy customers for referrals.  Customer Lobby has an automated referral request program to make it easy!

4. Social media is more “one-way” than you think.

   Someone reading this is thinking, isn’t Facebook an eaiser way to do this?  Can’t I simply get all of my customers to “Like” our business page and then just post updates there?  Nope.  Turns out that less than 10% of your Facebook posts show up in the Facebook feed of your fans.  That means that although social media pages can be a great place to post information that potential customers can find if they are looking for it, don’t count on your message getting in front of people if they are not specifically searching for it.

5. 20% annual churn!

   You are thinking to yourself, ‘but I already have my customer email list’.  Not really.  The good news about your customer email list is that it is very valuable to you; the bad news is that you have to keep working at it.  Why?  Lyris, a large email marketing company, reports an average rate of 20-30% churn of email addresses.   Your customers are periodically changing their email addresses and so you have to keep asking for email addresses to keep it up to date.

Want to build your customer email list?  We can help!!  Talk with our Member Services team about how we can help you build your customer email list!

How do you build your customer email list?

We have written a lot about the value of responding to negative reviews. A short response to a tough review is an incredibly effective way to get in front of your prospects because, frankly, bad reviews get read. But, while negative reviews are especially prime marketing real estate, there is a lot of value in responding to some positive reviews as well.

When we looked at the read times for our own reviews, we found that people spent more time reading one particular 5-star review over all the others we had received.  The review itself is not particularly long, but we wrote a comment below it and the results have been surprising. It seems clear that people re-read the review after seeing our response:

Third-party reviews are read in a way that ads are not. Your prospective customers seek out your reviews, and they spend more than two minutes on average reading them. (Eons in Internet time.) So, think about what you want your prospective customers to know about you and your business, and respond to third-party hosted reviews written by your customers. Here are a few tips:

Keep it Short

Just as we advise when responding to negative reviews, it is important that you keep your comments brief.  When people are confronted with a large block of text, they often don’t bother reading. A couple of sentences will suffice in most instances.

Be Authentic

One of your primary objectives is to build trust. The more your prospective clients feel like they know you as a professional, the more they will trust you. To that end, it is important for your prospects to see you actively engaging with your customers. Direct your response to the reviewer and make your comments particular to the customer experience described in the review.  People read reviews to get a look behind the scenes. Give them a sense of what they can expect.

Show Responsiveness

Even if your customer ultimately gave you 4 or 5 stars, they may have also included some constructive criticism. Maybe there was one aspect of their experience that was less than satisfactory.  Even if the criticism is unfair, don’t waste time setting the record straight. It is better to focus on the positive. This is your opportunity to assure your prospects that their experience will be even better.

Affirm your Values

If you are passionate about providing the highest quality work, mention it. If you are a family business built on old-fashioned values, consider working that into your response. Be mindful of the qualities you want your prospects to identify in you and your business, just be careful not to stray off topic. The emphasis must be on engaging naturally with the reviewer.

We’ve blogged about the importance of referral marketing and strategies for getting the most out of a referral campaign. We know that the idea of creating a referral marketing strategy from scratch, let alone implementing a campaign, can be daunting. But it is important to kick-start the process now.  According to the New York Times, 65% of new business comes from referrals.

Here are 5 steps to get you started:

1) Build a list of email contacts. Start building a database of your best customers that includes their email addresses. Email is the best, most effective way to send them referral deals. There are several methods for collecting email addresses. Customer Lobby’s Handwritten Review option is an incredibly effective tool for building an email list.

2) Create a deal for new customers. Your offer should be compelling enough that your customers will want to pass it on to their friends and family. For example, offering 50% off first-time service with your business is a special offer that will motivate your customers to pass it along.

3) Properly thank your referring customers. Give a real gift, like movie tickets or a gift card to a restaurant, instead of just a discount off your service. This will feel more like the genuine “thank you” that it is rather than an incentive for bringing you a referral, which is not really the motivation.

4) Spread the word. Let your customers know that you have a referral program and don’t be shy about asking them for referrals. If you have a large customer base or are unsure about whom to ask for referrals, start by asking customers who have already given you a positive review. Email is a great way to get the word out and so is Facebook, so if you don’t already have a Facebook business page, create one now.

5) Make the referral process easy for everyone. Your clients are more likely to pass on the deal you’re offering to new customers if you make it easy for them to email or print out the deal, or share it on their Facebook pages. Be sure to include a tracking code on the deal coupon that you create so that new customers can claim it. Also, don’t forget about the referrer! Follow through on the gift that you promised and make it easy for them to redeem their gift.