Regardless if you're listening or not, your customers are talking. They're expressing their opinions to your potential market, and these days no one is holding back!
Your customers will talk to their friends, blog, tweet and post their opinion about you and your company on any review site they can get their hands on. This can be scary, if you don't get the chance to respond to their positive or negative review! Well, it gets even better because sometimes, the most authoritative review sites can rank higher than many people's own business name.
Potentially, while doing a search for your business name the search results could return the Meta Description of these same authoritative consumer review sites that displays an aggregate of all your customers' reviews (good or bad). To make it 100% clear...this means that these reviews show directly in the search results! Combine that with the fact that these sites tend to rank at the top of the SERPs, and it's very easy to see how they would have such a huge impact on your ability to attract new customers online.
The growing strength of online consumer review sites can either be very scary for you and your business or very profitable! Now is the time to incorporate the strongest of these consumer review sites into your SEO or Online Reputation Management strategy before your good name gets away from you. Let's lay out the consumer review sites that really matter!
The top three consumer review sites (based on the most influential and consistently high ranking in all of the search engines) are:
Yelp is pretty much the most influential consumer review site out there. Who can say for sure if their popularity has anything to do with their Google partnership, but I'm pretty sure it's not a mark against them. Google's Local Business Listings and Yelp are always on the first page of Google. So, if you forget anything else I write here, remember this...
Make sure your listing on Yelp.com is accurate!
One of the most important deciding factors for many buyers is what people are saying about the product or service. While doing a search for a hotel in Hilo, Hawaii, I found numerous top listings for Yelp reviews. One hotel I was considering was quoted to have a 'wierd musty smell'. Naturally, I clicked through to Yelp.com to see more of what people had to say. I quickly saw that many people mentioned the same 'wierd musty smell'. Those reviews made my decision for me. Who wants to spend their days on sexy beaches and their nights in a smelly hotel room?!
Recently, Yelp made a change allowing you, as the business owner, to provide direct feedback to any consumer review, positive or negative. Thanks to their newly added feature in Yelp, that same 'smelly' hotel still had a chance to win me over.
If you're able to resolve an issue with a customer on Yelp.com or even thank them for their kind words, these conversations become very valuable assets to your online reputation. Even when you are unable to win a customer over, in the least, you make yourself look good online because you did try to make sure your customer is happy. Most times, that is all a customer wants: to be heard. Potential customers will feel much more confident in your business knowing that you care enough to listen and make them happy!
Let's say that I saw direct comments from the hotel manager about the strange smell at the Hilo hotel. If I saw that they just completed hotel renovations and had taken care of the smell issue, then chances are I would've given the hotel a chance and booked a room. The point to remember here is that there are two sides of every customer service issue. Make sure that your side is always posted for all to see. Be transparent, be genuine and let them know you hear what they are saying and you want to help - no matter which medium your consumer chooses!
Now, to show you the power of these consumer review sites within the search results, take a look at this search for the keyword phrase "Lakeside Collision Center".
As you can see, Google's Local Business Listing is injected in the middle of the SERPs, but CitySearch.com, JudysBook and Yelp are also strong on the first page. Would you go to Lakeside Collision Center in Bellevue or the one in Kirkland? One of them is managing their Online Reputation much better than the other.
To protect your online reputation and gain future customers you need to leverage those eager-to-post customers to your advantage. All they need is a little direction and you're exactly the person to give it to them. Here's a quick checklist to be sure you're taking care of your business's reputation before it gets tarnished:
- Do a search for your business name and the variations your customers use to find you. Look to see what is ranking on the first page of the search results. Everything from Yelp to SuperPages.com needs your attention.
- Check your business profile in these top reviews sites to ensure accuracy. If it's not accurate then claim it as your own and correct the misinformation and be sure the listing (profile) is easy to understand.
- Set up a Google Alert to track your company name, products, and services. You can receive these alerts as they happen, as soon as your name is mentioned.
- If you don't find your listing on the top review sites - go ahead and add it in there. Don't add a review to your own business profile, just add it in as a business for others to review. The consumer review site will have a place for you to tell your consumer about your business, just don't be the first to write a review about your business. Doing so will only make you look desperate to your consumers.
- Set up a profile on all the review sites that are active in your area including: JudysBook, CitySearch and Yelp.
- Monitor and respond to all of your reviews. This shows your consumer base that you are listening and you care what they have to say.
- Make sure you encourage your consumer base to share their positive experiences on the right review sites: JudysBook, CitySearch, Yelp and any others that are active in your area.
- Give your customers an incentive to share their positive feelings. Encourage them with a 10% discount on their bill, a coupon to use during their next visit or even a free t-shirt. Let them know you care that they're happy.
- Have a good competent customer service team ready to respond to EVERY comment that you get, regardless if it's negative or positive.
- The worst thing you could do is nothing. Ignoring the place where your customers go to vent or rave about their experience with your business can literally boost or kill your profits. You have to pay attention to what they say and where they say it. The undecided buyer will go to the place with the good repuation. And your good reputation doesn't mean you have perfect reviews, it means that you have a healthy amount of positive reviews. It also means that you have a customer service representative who responds to the reviews in a genuine way.
In these tough economic times you need to cater to your customers; otherwise, they'll take their hard earned money somewhere else. Online consumer review sites are just exposing businesses for what they are and for everyone to see. All you need to do is leverage these sites to your advantage! Then those buyers will choose you over your competition because you've done your part to show your online market the best side of your business.
In the end...you are who the Internet says you are.
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Kristi Hagen Planet Ocean Communications |
P.S. Still unsure of the ranking power of Yelp.com?! Here's a quick comparison of Yelp.com and Judysbook.com using your Site Strength Indictor Tool.
