Customer feedback or reviews are the personal opinions of your customers on the services you offer. The objective behind providing feedback is to assist others in gaining clearer insights into the quality of your services. On the other hand, potential customers rely on reviews to learn about your business and services.
Customer feedback is a powerful element. With the right strategies, it can help you drive more jobs. This guide provides you with valuable tips to achieve exactly that.
Building Trust So New Customers Feel Confident Choosing You
The most important benefit of customer feedback is helping build trust. Reviews help new customers feel confident before they choose you.
There are different ways that customer reviews help build this trust. Customer feedback helps establish the following points about your business, which can further lead to building trust:
i. Business Legitimacy
Online reviews from customers provide clear proof that your business is genuine, selling services, and active. Maintaining a stream of reviews sends out a message that others have placed orders and received goods or services from you. This is a crucial point in building trust among your first-time customers.
ii. Business Transparency
When you are open to customer feedback, it shows that you are a transparent business. This requires having a regular stream of authentic reviews, including both positive and negative ones. It demonstrates that your business values honesty. Both prospects and existing customers trust companies that do not attempt to hide criticism.
iii. Deeper Insights
Customer reviews provide more and deeper insights than service pages. Feedback can often mention service speed, packaging, and other info usually not included on websites. It is user-generated content that provides insights, reducing uncertainty and building trust.
When customers see your replies to reviews, especially the critical ones, it demonstrates accountability and genuine care for customers. It sends out a clear signal that if they are not satisfied with your service, you will be there to hear and help them.
How To Handle the Occasional Bad Review Without Hurting Your Image?
All businesses, despite the quality of services they offer, will get bad reviews at one point or another. It is recommended to follow these tips to handle the occasional critical reviews without hurting your brand image:
i. Respond Promptly
You should take bad reviews with a sense of urgency because they have the potential to affect your image. When you respond promptly and professionally, it demonstrates your dedication to customer satisfaction. Harvard Business Review reports that businesses that respond to bad reviews within 24 hours experience 16% higher customer advocacy. You can expect greater customer trust levels and retention.
ii. Humanize & Personalize the Response
Avoid producing automated and generic responses, especially to critical feedback. They can worsen customer dissatisfaction. Make sure every response addresses the customer by name while providing actionable solutions.
iii. Move the Conversation Offline
Once you have responded publicly, encourage the customer to engage offline via phone, messaging, or email. This can help avoid escalations while showing that you are committed to personal resolution.
How To Turn Compliments into Powerful Testimonials?
You can always use positive feedback from customers to build a stronger brand image on social media and your website, and drive more jobs and sales. When your prospects see your positive reviews, they feel more confident to move forward and buy from you. So, you should share such feedback in your marketing wherever your prospects are vetting you.
Use the following tips to turn the compliments into powerful testimonials:
- Capture screenshots of the reviews and share them on your business’s social media profiles.
- Showcase the reviews on your most visited webpages, including the homepage and contact us page.
- Get the help of your graphic designer to create elegant graphics showcasing your positive reviews. Share this content through email marketing, ads, social media marketing, and text message follow-ups for leads.
Simple Ways to Ask for Feedback Right After a Job
There is a very limited window after a job is completed that is optimal for asking customer feedback. You do not want to be too late or too pushy. Ask for a review within a few days of the job. This is the time when the customer is likely to be still engaged with your service and has not forgotten your brand. It is also important to consider customer preferences. For example, they may not feel eager to answer your questions if they are busy. Also consider whether they will need some time to use your service before seeing the results.
It is recommended to seek permission before you send a review request. As a general rule, follow these additional tips when asking for feedback right after a job:
- Keep it Simple: Use quick questions or short surveys.
- Personalize: Mention personalized details about their order.
- Automate: to send follow-ups through messaging or email.
- Offer Different Options: Allow them to choose between different feedback formats, including ratings, text, and video.
- Make it Easy: Let them share their feedback using simple forms or one-click options.
Free Tools to Keep Track of What People Are Saying About Your Business Online
It takes years of effort and strategies to build a great reputation. Bad reviews have the potential to make a big impact on your image in a very short period of time. Online reviews, both positive and negative, affect how people view your business. Besides, it is important that you realize that this information resides in an environment that stays open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
83% of consumers report that online reviews affect their perception of brands. 80% claim that negative comments have changed their buying decisions. So, it is important that you keep track of what people have to say about your business online. Here are 5 tools you can use for the purpose:
1. Google Alerts
This tool allows you to keep track of brand mentions and helps you monitor your brand’s online reputation. You will have to create an account and search for your company’s name. The platform can provide you with detailed information on your brand’s mentions through email.
2. Mention
Mention can keep track of chatter on social media, app store reviews, and other platforms and provide you with the information on an easy-to-use dashboard. It provides real-time updates and valuable, AI-based insights.
3. SEMrush
SEMrush also makes it easy to track your online brand mentions. Things you can do with it include:
- Measuring estimated reach
- Observing key industry players
- Gaining resource authority
- Accessing sentiment scores
Getting More Reviews Without Being Pushy
Overall, you should keep things kind, human, and simple when asking for reviews. Never let the customer feel like you are ‘begging’ for feedback. Instead of creating a sensation that you are chasing validation, create an environment where you are trying to build a connection. Every time you ask for a review, make the request feel like “you care” and not that “you need approval.”
Keep in mind that most customers are ready to support and all they need is to know how. If you need help in building a strong online reputation, the Clear Imaging, Inc. team can help you. Contact us at (800) 380-6942 or send us a message to learn about our range of services and to find out how we can help.
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