It all comes down to the review. Positive customer reviews supercharge your marketing.
All your marketing efforts lead to your customer reviews. They are the decision point for new customers.
The typical sale transaction is a three part process. First you advertise to attract and make people aware of your company. Second potential new customers check out what you have to say (your website). Then, once they decide whether you can do what they want, they check your reputation. That is where your online public reviews help you. No reviews? People wonder why and are left without a feeling of trust. Just a single nasty negative review: obviously you don't have many fans so they quickly move on to one of your competitors. Lots of positive reviews, with maybe a poor review or two, tells new customers you are concerned about your reputation, and that you are a trustworthy business. What is your public reputation telling people?
Marketing is expensive. Get the most ROI you can.
You spend a huge amount of time and money on attracting new customers. Your employees make that extra effort to provide fabulous service. And somewhere along the sale funnel there is a service failure. It's inevitable. Stuff happens no matter how hard you try. And that single negative customer review can kill your expensive marketing campaign. What you need is an abundance of positive reviews to out-weigh any negative review you may get. Be proactive. Don't wait until you get a bad review and have to do damage control.
Customer reviews are the key to high marketing ROI. What can you do to ensure maximum return for your marketing?
What To Do
- Get more positive reviews.
Yes, getting reviews from customers is difficult. But the rewards are amazing. People rarely give positive reviews. You will have to ask for them.
Check out TrustBuilder Solutions. It makes asking your customers for reviews super easy. It's automated and up to 70% of shop customers will provide reviews for you! And their free testimonials widget adds tremendous SEO power to your website (it will work on almost any website). Did I mention that it is very inexpensive and great value!
- Respond to negative reviews.
Be humble. Take your lumps or defend yourself with grace. Explain in simple terms what happened and what you did to make it right for the customer. What you do when something goes wrong is far more telling of what customers can expect. That is called trust building. Check out the TrustBuilder Blog for tips on dealing with reviews and building your reputation.
- Don't give up.
Reviews are worth the effort!