Customer reviews have a significant impact on your customers’ buying process, both online and in your physical outlets. Indeed, according to the EMarketerZ study, 88% of consumers consult online reviews before doing business with a company. However, it can be difficult for some to understand why it is so important to respond to customer reviews, as well as determine the ideal wording to use when communicating with your customers.
Why is it important to respond to customer reviews? How to reply to customer reviews? What’s in it for us? To help you understand, we will explain the importance of customer reviews to your business, as well as the best practices to follow when learning how to reply to customer reviews.
The buying experience is a process that has grown on the web. Instead of relying strictly on close family members (friends, family), they can now benefit from the advice of strangers! Customers provide online reviews to share their lived experience of their experience with your business. With the growth of web platforms and the growing use of smartphones, consumers are increasingly being asked to leave customer reviews in order to increase the visibility of the brands with which they do business.
However, what reasons can your consumers leave a customer review? To help you better understand your customers, here are the top five reasons to write an online review.
1. To share the quality of the customer experience: If no solicitation is made from the company, your customer may leave a notice online because the experience they have experienced is particularly good or bad. A customer is more likely to share their opinion if the emotion they have experienced is strong. For example, if the experience is negative, they will want to share their emotions with the rest of the consumers. On the contrary, if their experience has been very pleasant, they will want to share a sense of well-being to express their attachment to your brand.
Remember: a customer may forget your services and interactions, but will always remember how you made them feel. This is why learning how to reply to customer reviews can help them change their opinion after a bad experience within your business.
2. To help the company improve its products and services: In some cases, your customers may also leave you a customer review to recommend certain improvements to your products and services. This type of feedback comes mostly from your loyal customers who, disappointed by one aspect of their latest experience, prefer to see a change in your service offering rather than having to turn to one of your competitors.
These reviews are a real gold mine for your customer experience, as they allow you to adapt to the needs of your customers according to constructive and concrete feedback. By signaling to your clients that their views are being heard, you will also show them that their well-being is at the center of your priorities. This demonstrates how to reply to customer reviews, and why it can help your customer experience!
3. To help other consumers make an informed choice: Your customers can also share their feedback online to help others. They reflect on the type of information they would have liked to have known before their purchase, and then proceed to write a review to help other consumers make a more informed decision. These opinions benefit the company through the information given, as well as the Internet users through the impartiality of the information.
4. To express gratitude: Contrary to popular belief, the majority of customers are more likely to share their opinion if they have had a positive experience with your business. A study shared by Forbes shows that 49% of satisfied consumers publish their opinion online, while only 30% of dissatisfied customers do so.
In this vein, your customers can write a review simply to share their satisfaction with your services, or even with one of your employees. These recommendations are invaluable in order to win new prospects, or even to motivate your team by sharing their successes! That proves the importance of learning how to reply to customer reviews, since it is a great way to contribute to the well-being of your customers and staff.
5. To be heard by your business: If consumers are predisposed to leave a review during a positive experience, this does not prevent dissatisfied customers from sharing their opinion online.
When a customer does not get the service they want, they may try to give you their feedback directly to express their dissatisfaction. However, if they feel they’re not being listened to, your consumer can make their story public to inspire more responsiveness from their peers and your business. Try to avoid the shot by providing adequate support to better manage customer dissatisfaction; hence why you should observe how to reply to customer reviews!
When your potential customers plan to do business with a company on the web, several online review platforms are available. These portals allow them to read your customers’ assessments of your products and services, as well as your overall customer experience. At the marketing level, these platforms have a major impact on your consumers’ buying decision. A favorable positioning will allow you to acquire new customers, while poor feedback will deter potential customers from doing business with you.
Your online presence is a considerable asset for your ranking on these platforms. Inviting your satisfied customers to leave a positive opinion on these websites is a good marketing strategy to appear in the first results and improve your SEO. Also, responding to reviews on these portals can improve your e-reputation, as you show your customers that it is at the center of your priorities. That’s how replying to customer reviews is essential on online review platforms!
To help you optimize your online presence, here are six online review platforms to know about and their specialization.
Google My Business allows businesses to create a profile to share their schedule, location, products, services and prices, all without a fee.
Once your information is up-to-date, Google My Business will post a profile for your business. It will be shared on the Google search engine, as well as on Google Map. This is an essential asset to increase your visibility on the web as well as to simplify access to your information!
However, that is not all. By inviting your satisfied customers to leave a positive review on your Google My Business page, you will improve your place in Google’s natural SEO. This will allow you to maximize your visibility, as well as gain new potential customers.
This platform is known for its geolocation. As proven by PR Newswire, 97% of customers use online media to shop locally. If you are a local company or want to appear on the famous search engine, Google My Business is for you!
Did you know that you can invite your customers to leave a review on your corporate Facebook page? With an average of 2.91 billion active users per month, this platform gives you high visibility and more interactions with your community. Why respond to customer reviews via Facebook? Definitely, this can help you attract new potential customers!
Moreover, Facebook reviews can improve your position in Google results. By gaining notoriety, your company will appear as a snippet on the first page of the search engine. Your star count will be displayed and will encourage consumers to visit your Facebook page. Here’s a great way to connect with users while increasing your visibility on Google. You should keep this in mind when you learn how to reply to customer reviews!
Did you know that you can invite your customers to leave a review on your corporate Facebook page? With an average of 2.91 billion active users per month, this platform gives you high visibility and more interactions with your community. Why respond to customer reviews via Facebook? Definitely, this can help you attract new potential customers!
Moreover, Facebook reviews can improve your position in Google results. By gaining notoriety, your company will appear as a snippet on the first page of the search engine. Your star count will be displayed and will encourage consumers to visit your Facebook page. Here’s a great way to connect with users while increasing your visibility on Google. You should keep this in mind when you learn how to reply to customer reviews!
Known to technology companies, G2 specializes exclusively in software and application evaluation. It is a reference for consumers who want to know the customer experience with certain technologies before obtaining a licence.
G2 is a platform recognized around the world. By inviting your satisfied customers to leave a positive opinion, you will get new prospects for the purchase of your products, including companies interested in your software and new technologies!
Tripadvisor is one of the largest travel platforms in the world. With more than 900 million establishments reviewed to date, this is an indisputable benchmark in tourism. Their portal has more than 859 million travellers to rate and comment on the different destinations available to them, whether it is accommodation, restaurants, the quality of the establishment or even the activities offered. The website also offers the opportunity to easily compare prices for hotels, flights, cruises and tourist activities, all in 28 different languages. This is a good evaluation portal to compare yourself and differentiate yourself from your competitors!
In addition, Tripadvisor has excellent quality control over their online reviews. According to Le Figaro, only 2.3% of the reviews posted on Tripadvisor were fraudulent, and 73% of them were spotted and blocked before they were posted online. Thus, you do not have to fear crossing spam when using it!
Founded in 2004 by Russell Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp has become one of the best online notification platforms in the hospitality industry before diversifying into other service offerings. The platform now offers solutions for home services, food services, regional brands and marketing agencies.
The rigorous conditions of use and the quality control of the portal make it a respected reputation: the reviews written there influence 92% of its users. Moreover, it is one of the few platforms that allows Internet users to communicate with each other, an important detail to obtain more information regarding the quality of the customer experience at certain companies. It also facilitates communication between the customer and the company, who can learn about the reason behind customer dissatisfaction. This is one of many reasons why it is important to know how to reply to customer reviews on online platforms.
Finally, like Google My Business, Yelp is also directly connected to Google Map to facilitate the geolocation of Internet users. This is a must for local businesses that want to increase their visibility!
You now know the impact online reviews can have on the acquisition of potential customers. However, do you know why responding to customer reviews is important to your business?
With the emergence of online notification platforms, it can become difficult to manage your consumers’ feedback. Whether negative or positive, these opinions have a double-edged impact on your e-reputation. While positive reviews can attract large numbers of new customers, a few negative reviews are also enough to cause your prospects to drop significantly. In this sense, it becomes vital for your business to monitor and respond to reviews on various online portals. This is a good example of the importance of learning how to reply to customer reviews.
In addition, each of your opinions deserves an answer. A customer who shows their gratitude highlights the good service of your company: it is important to give them your time to take the time to thank them. As for an unsatisfied consumer, it is imperative that you provide him with support in order to correct the situation. These interactions reflect your values: they play a crucial role in your brand image. Therefore, when you ask yourself why responding to customer reviews is essential, keep in mind that it proves your professionalism to Internet users!
Here are several reasons why it is important to respond to customer reviews:
Whether they are positive or negative, learning how to reply to customer reviews is not always easy. Knowing the ideal reaction based on your customers’ comments is a long-term learning process: this is why responding to customer reviews can be difficult for the less accustomed. There are many examples to make it easier for you.
How to reply to customer reviews, positive as well as negative? Here are some good practices to follow to help you write your online review responses.
If you don’t know how to reply to customer reviews, or if you’re worried about running out of time to manage your feedback, our customer review improvement solution is for you!
With our fully automated solution, you can invite your customers to leave a notification at the right time, one to two hours after the customer experience. This good practice will allow you to collect more positive reviews: our response rate of 49% by email and 57% by SMS attests to the effectiveness of our methods!
In addition, the InputKit solution enables the detection of dissatisfied customers in real time. This feature, along with a centralized management of your Google reviews and a non-response review filter, will help you greatly in managing your feedback. This will allow you to respond quickly to customer reviews and communicate with your dissatisfied customers before the situation escalates.
You don’t know how to reply to customer reviews? Don’t worry: our solution is also equipped with an artificial intelligence capable of responding to customers as soon as reviews are issued. We also have a wide variety of fully automated and customizable response templates that will meet your needs and those of your customers. Optimizing the management of your customer reviews will save you valuable time in order to turn to more complex tasks, such as improving your customer experience. Therefore, you’ll learn how to reply to customer reviews in no time!
In short, why answer customer reviews? This question has multiple answers! As examples, responding to online feedback allows you to improve your natural SEO (SEO), build trust with your customers, rectify some customer dissatisfaction, as well as motivating your satisfied customers to leave future positive reviews about your business. It’s also important to learn how to reply to customer reviews, since it can even make you stand out from your competitors with your simple online presence!
How to reply to customer reviews? The key practices are to remember to personalize your message, thank the customer for their time, use a professional tone and keep your response brief. If you respond to negative feedback, apologize to the client and offer them an alternative contact to find out why they are dissatisfied. Maybe they’ll give you a second chance. Keep this in mind while you get to know how to reply to customer reviews!
If you don’t know how to respond to customer reviews, or want to increase your number of positive customer reviews, take advantage of our free demo. Our team of customer experience experts will be happy to help you!
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