There was a time when online reviews were only for restaurants. Other businesses were relying on word of mouth for business referrals. The trend is fast changing with virtually all segments of business turning to online reviews to drive their sales. From salons, auto repairs, medical doctors, among others are all using online reviews.
To a layman, online reviews help businesses to know and gauge what their clients are saying about them. Online reviews are like a double edge sword. Positive reviews can grow your sales while negative reviews can make you remain in the doldrums for many years. The internet has made it possible for clients to log onto the service providers social media or website and check what other clients are saying. From there, the client can then make a decision.
Further to this, the internet never forgets. A negative online review can be pulled down, but somebody else could have shared it already. Find out How online reviews affect businesses.
Bad Experiences Are Always Shared Widely
Statistics show that when a client is frustrated with a product or service, they are likely to share that experience more than the ones they were satisfied. Bad experiences tend to help people vent out their frustrations.
Marketers encourage businesses to ask their clients to leave positive online reviews continually. When happy clients write a lot of positive online reviews, they tend to hide one bad review that somebody will make.
Consumers Will Always Trust Online Opinions
The internet is a minefield of opinions. Various companies have developed websites and applications that help track reviews of products and services. The websites have specialized such that technology products and services have their own websites for tracking reviews. With heavy traffic to these websites, potentials clients are likely to trust what they read on these sites.
Negative Reviews Can Be Turned into Positive Ones
As mentioned earlier, negative reviews can kill your business. Negative online reviews should never be taken to be a blemish. Instead, use those reviews and improve your products, services, and processes. If your customer care is not well oiled, work on that.
You can respond to the client who has given you a negative review by offering them a discount or other freebies in the future. Alternatively, you can explain what transpired and the necessary steps the company has put in place to ensure that a recurrence of the same is avoided.
Consumers Trust the Recommendations of Strangers
A huge majority of potential clients will rely on the opinions given by the strangers they met on the internet. Strangely, even those online reviews that have been done by people who are anonymous or using fake accounts, they can easily swing the choices that you are about to make regarding the products and services.
In conclusion, before a client steps into your business, they have read all the online reviews and made opinions already. Always take a positive interest in what people are saying as this will help convert the traffic on your website to actual sales. Take a leading role in the process by sending out surveys and providing customers with comment cards.…