Businesses nowadays know that a few bad online reviews can make or break you. As negative reviews rack up, businesses are frequently unaware until it's too late that their potential sales are being driven away by lingering negative reviews. We've heard frequent tales from clients who had complained of business slowing down but had no idea they had a bunch of negative Yelp reviews that were impacting sales.
Here's one thing that businesses need to understand. Customers are comparison shopping online and trying to filter undesirable candidates to do business with by reading past customer experiences - in short these negative reviews are killing them slowly and silently. We've run the gamut when it comes to negative review horror stories - from past disgruntled employees posting reviews, to disgruntled customer reviews, to competitors hiring review companies to post fake reviews, I mean you name it, chances are we've heard it. So what can companies do to combat negative reviews from destroying their online reputation?
Drive More Positive Customer Reviews Using Workflow Automation
Here's the thing about reviews. If you ask for them, you'll get them! The thing is, more businesses don't know the right time to ask for a review, ask them on a channel that has no social currency (like a paper comments card), or forget to ask for them altogether if you can believe that! This is where workflow automation is essential to closing the loop on creating more positive customer reviews. Studies show that syncing a workflow automation to trigger an email or text message to the customer requesting a review will increase positive customer interactions by over 75%.
Marketing Tip:
Don't buy into a review suppression service. They seldom work and are a complete waste of money. Want to suppress negative reviews? Drive more positive customer reviews and you'll bury the negative ones in a heap of glowing reviews from recent customers.
Real World Case Study on Workflow Automation Driving Customer Reviews
When Acme Heating & Air completes an installation work orders, this triggers a text message to be sent to the customer asking them to rate Acme on a scale of 1 to 5 and reply "1" - "5" and click send. Workflow logic will send a customer a link asking them to provide more information about their customer experience (a nice way of sending them to a complaint form) if their experience was anything less than a 4. Customers who respond that their experience was a "4" or a "5" are automatically sent back a text asking them to submit a Yelp review. This can be intermittently cycled with other review platforms such as Google Places, or Facebook or practically any review site you can think of. The primary purpose is to mitigate the number of bad reviews from showing up online and ensure that positive customer interactions make their way to publicly visible review platforms.