Count me as one of the 92% of adults in the United States who use the Internet to research what they want to buy before they actually purchase it and one of the 55% who use a review to help make that purchase decision — much to the chagrin of a dental insurance practice my wife and I were recently researching.
You see, what started out as a "likely sale" turned into a no-sale — all in the time it takes to read 5 Google Reviews. On its Google Place Page, on a 5-star scale, their average star was 1-star!!! Comments on the reviews themselves would likely persuade even the most loyal customer to think twice about their carrier of choice.
Now granted, 5 reviews does not represent a statistically significant number. With no other reviews, however, this was our only glimpse into the opinions of their customers. Online reviews represents, in essence, an online word-of-mouth — and generally speaking, people trust word-of-mouth more than company-published literature or company-generated press releases.
So what does the business who has bad reviews do:
- Monitor – First and foremost, make sure you know what is being said online about your company. There are many monitoring tools available. Google yourself. Google the name of your company. Do a Twitter search. What do you see? Positive sentiments? Negative sentiments? It is likely that the dental insurance practice I mention above doesn't even realize what is being said about them.
- Respond Instantly – A response matters. And a timely response may matter even more — even if all you can say at the time is ‘We are looking into it.’
- Get Reviews from Satisfied Clients — It's true that you're more likely to write a review after an unfavorable experience. That's why it's important to put extra efforts into getting positive reviews. Let your positive reviewers become your brand ambassadors. This will also help push negative reviews down the page or to the next page on the search engine results.
This dental insurance practice is not alone. Companies far and wide have online reputation "issues." However, there are steps you can take to minimize the potential impact. (1) Make sure you know what is being said about your brand online. (2) Make sure you respond immediately to negative feedback. (3) Finally, make sure you have a strategy in place to get positive reviews.
If you would like assistance in managing your online reputation, please give us a call at 248-841-8795. We can help!