UPDATED: 8/23/2021
Customers and search engines make decisions about your business every day based on ratings and reviews. If you don’t actively manage your reviews, you are effectively letting others weave the story of your brand online, and it’s safe to say that this story can be shaped by only a handful of detractors.
People are increasingly focusing on reviews nowadays to gauge the trustworthiness of businesses and make the decision to get in touch. Needless to say, this means that you need to focus on managing your reviews as well.
To help you do that efficiently and effectively, we’ve created a handy guide on the Review Response Best Practices to help you and your staff respond to online reviews in the best possible way that will lead to more satisfied customers, more sales, and better brand trustworthiness in your market.
Why Should I Respond to Reviews?
Responding to reviews is an opportunity for you to engage directly with your customers and win them over. However, you can only achieve this if you commit to responding quickly and resolving issues in a way that benefits your customers and shows the rest of the online audience how much you care.
Promptly responding to reviews and resolving issues as quickly as possible is powerful. In fact, businesses that respond to reviews are 68% more likely to raise their rating by a half-star in 6 months.
It’s also a clear signal to potential customers that you care about the overall customer experience. In fact, 84% of consumers actually expect businesses to respond to complaints, and keep in mind that not responding is still a response.
Your customers can be your biggest advocates, and this is your chance to build meaningful relationships and lifelong brand loyalty. Responding to reviews can inspire customer loyalty and increase customer lifetime value.
As data shows, businesses that respond to reviews have seen a 16% increase in customer advocacy. Make sure your customers are helping to put the best version of your brand on the digital map!
Which Reviews Should I Respond to?
ALL REVIEWS! Responding to any review – positive or negative – is an opportunity for you to engage with a customer. Responding to negative reviews should be a top priority. It allows you to resolve issues as they arise with the goal of winning those customers over and making your business run more smoothly.
Remember, you have the opportunity here to transform almost any negative review into a customer success story. This will not only earn you a lifetime brand advocate, but it will also attract new customers, as news of a customer-focused business spreads quickly in the online realm.
That said, you need to approach negative reviews carefully. While you do need to address all negative reviews, whether you do it publicly or privately will make all the difference. Certain negative reviews you can address as a part of a public discussion in which everyone will see how you ultimately resolved the issues.
Other, perhaps more sensitive issues, you’ll want to address privately and only respond to the review when the issue has been resolved. You can reply with the news that you have resolved the issue, and the steps you have taken to satisfy the customer.
Keep in mind that you can also ask customers to withdraw a negative review and replace it with a positive one, if they are really satisfied with how you handled the issue.
It’s important not to neglect positive reviews, either. Responding to positive reviews allows you to show your loyal customers some love and appreciation.
If nothing else, people want to know that you have noticed their review, have taken the time to read it, and ultimately appreciate their business enough to respond to their kind words. It’s the kind of interaction that builds brand loyalty and trust, but also shows everyone looking at those reviews that your business is customer-focused.
You can do all of this efficiently and effectively with a tool like DPM. Our Digital Presence Management tool allows you to monitor and respond to all reviews from a centralized location. You can even use the response templates we provide to align your reply with the customer’s sentiment and engage them in the best possible way.
Continue reading to find out how DPM can help you boost your online presence and reputation in record time.
How Should I Respond to Reviews?
Any response has three key factors: empathy, humanity, and speed. Acknowledging the customer’s feelings can go a long way. Address the issue at hand, be empathetic in your response, and put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
In crafting a response to a customer complaint, the right words and phrases can help you turn dissatisfied customers into advocates, but oftentimes the use of certain words can undermine your well-intentioned effort to connect with the customer. Here are 13 words never to use when responding to a customer:
- Fault
- Policy
- Blame
- Department
- Our
- Misunderstanding
- If
- But
- Per
- Just
- Try
- Consider
- Seems
It’s also important to keep any back-and-forth communication limited. For complex complaints, try to take the matter offline and then re-establish communication online with how much you appreciate the opportunity to address their concern and look forward to helping them again should any other issues arise.
Additionally, whether it’s several or a single person responding to reviews, messaging should stay consistent while remaining personable and relevant to the customer’s unique experience. Avoid templated responses that don’t directly address the distinct issues cited in the review. Whenever possible, note specific changes or improvements that your business has made as a direct result of a reviewer’s feedback.
Lastly, always remember to show appreciation regardless of sentiment. Telling customers how much you value their feedback can go a long way in minimizing the impact of negative reviews and signaling to potential customers how much you care.
How Quickly Should I Respond to Reviews?
Time is of the essence and you want to ensure your response has maximum impact. Responding to reviews within 24 hours allows you to address issues while the customer’s experience is still fresh. In fact, 62% of consumers expect a response within 24 hours, and a fifth of those customers have even higher standards, expecting a response within an hour!
While 24 hours should be your benchmark, respond to reviews within the fastest timeframe your organization can support. It’s important to be consistent: don’t respond today within hours and then wait a week to respond to the reviews you receive tomorrow.
How to Respond to Reviews Quickly and In the Best Possible Way?
Using the right set of digital tools for your sales, marketing, and support needs in the online world can go a long way in taking your business forward, earning the customers’ trust, and boosting brand authority. If you want to stay on top of all reviews to reap the benefits we talked about, you should start using a tool like DPM (Digital Presence Management).
Our Digital Presence Management platform allows you to monitor all reviews and reply to them quickly using a number of built-in tools to help you pick the best possible response for every customer and their review type.
At PSG, we know how important it is to manage reviews promptly to build a powerful online presence, which is why we have built DPM to make this process quick and rewarding. No matter how many reviews you have coming in, you will have no problem responding to them quickly and in the best possible way that leads to more conversions by using our feature-rich tool.
Feel free to get in touch with us today to see how DPM can take your business forward in the online world, and how we can help you build a powerful online presence despite the competition!
