Customer Reviews Online – Take the Good with the Bad in the Construction Industry
Customer Reviews Online – Take the Good with the Bad in the Construction Industry
When people research companies today, they often use the internet as both a search tool and a fact-checker to qualify their product or service options. Review sites like Yelp, Google Business Listings, and Amy’s List can be powerful listing tools that put your best foot forward; however, they also can rear their ugly head when customers aren’t satisfied with or misunderstand your services. Ironically, our current digital world is morphing into a strange era of social proof when it comes to businesses – we don’t necessarily trust what the business says, we trust what people have to say about the business. So how you do go about using customer reviews to your advantage without having your reputation sunk?
First Impressions Matter
When potential customers are in searching and in buying mode, they are most receptive to both positive and negative information about your business. Using Yelp as an example, 80% of active Yelp users spend an average of a week researching and browsing listings online before making a sizeable purchase decision. 4 out of 5 Yelp users start their searches online with the explicit intent of buying a product or service outright, with a mental outline of the features and service levels they desire already in place. On Yelp’s site itself, businesses report that just a one star increase in their overall review score can lead to a 5% to 10% increase in revenue depending on industry.
Essentially, this means the customer’s first impression eventually drives a purchase decision. As a business owner in a service realm, you must work diligently to not only produce good work, but also maintain a competent, positive online reputation. A few positive, honest reviews can really change how potential customers see and rank your business.
When the Rage Hits…
Sometimes the power and connectivity of the internet brings out the worst in people – disgruntled employees, unhappy customers, and even jealous competitors can you ruin your online reputation with a single anonymous post. In our digital world, a negative word travels twice as fast compared to a good word. A negative word also inherently has a more controversial impact on the potential customer’s perception. Consumers these days are emboldened by anonymity to leave scathing reviews online at a much higher rate. Interestingly enough, individuals tend to be more inclined to actually finish a negative review compared to writing a positive one.
Using data from the same Yelp study above, 24% of customers change their mind about a product or service after reading 2 negative reviews. 39% of customers decide against using a product or service after reading 3 bad reviews. Shockingly, despite the prevalence of fraudulent reviews online with little to no accountability, over 70% of global consumers trust online reviews for businesses, products, and services. This means that just a handful of negative reviews can cost you customers and revenues in the long run.
Dealing with negative reviews can be quite a headache – but if you handle them properly, you can change the direction and tone of the conversation. FIrst off, claim your Yelp, Google, Amy’s List, etc listing pages as your own, setting up secure logins and passwords that allow you to control the account itself. Set up alerts that ping you with a notification every time there’s a new review posted on your accounts – Google Alerts can be set up on a URL level to make this task easy. When someone does leave a terse review, respond in a calm, helpful fashion so that you can resolve the problem while appearing competent to other potential customers. Leave the sensitive information and back-and-forth to private messages with the wronged party – you don’t want to be seen hashing this out on your public page.
A Mix of Good and Bad
Review and listing sites are an interesting paradoxical beast – a plethora of positive reviews is good, a lot of negative reviews is poor, but the best businesses have a mix of many positive reviews with a few negative resources mixed in. Quite frankly, no business, product or service is perfect…a few negative reviews means the business is indeed run by humans. Too many positive reviews with glowing praise and no negatives can be a warning sign for potential customers – the old phrase “too good to be true” applies here.
So how do you go about getting good reviews? First and foremost, deliver excellent quality craftsmanship and customer service in your work; these are factors you can ultimately control. Secondly, send surveys internally to your happy customers to gauge their feedback and qualify whether or not you want a review from them. Lastly, provide digital links to your happiest customers to their favorite review site so they can share their honest experience easily on their own time. Don’t sit them in front of your computer or tablet (most sites filter reviews by IP address) or buy rave reviews online, these cheats will definitely be noticeable and penalized.
With these strategies in place, you can create the right image and reputation online that properly represents your business. It is extremely important to monitor and respond to your feedback in order to create an active record of both good work and responsiveness that future customers can trust.
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