For our next service explained, we want to focus on an often-confused set of metrics and the power they can have for your business. Reputation management covers the solicitation of, and the process of dealing with, customer reviews and ratings. Later in the process, referrals are a direct result of good reviews and they can have a powerful impact on yoru bottom line.

Every business, in some form or another, gets reviewed online. Customers can “review” your business by continuing to patronize it in person or by buying services. If that were all there is then there would not be much to discuss, but countless avenues have appeared on the internet where people can share their experiences in your business with strangers. While most reviews are seemingly negative ones because people who are mad want to vent, those organizations which foster a culture seeking positive reviews and a positive customer experience reap the rewards. Recent research reveals that people are more than 60% likely to buy from a business with positive reviews. When the review or recommendation comes from someone they know, people are far more likely to buy but we’ll discuss that below.

A reputation management system is a combination of software we put in place to solicit reviews from everyone who comes in contact with your business past or present. The opportunity to leave reviews quickly and easily is placed in front of them to capture the “non-urgent” folks who had a good experience and add the small, unobtrusive step of a notification, to those who didn’t have a good experience. Actively holding up or diverting negative review is called “review gating” and it’s unethical at best while violating Google’s terms of service at worst. The bad reviews still go through, but you know about it as it happens and can reach out given the customer’s contact info, to try and remedy it so they change the existing review. We also work with you to foster a culture of good customer experiences which is truly the best prevention against bad reviews.

Now, we are pleased to offer a new strategy for getting referrals. These are, by their very nature, postiive reviews and direct recommendations of your business by your customers to other people. New Customers who are referred are more than 70% likely to buy from you which makes referrals all the more powerful. Plus we borrow a little from Network marketing tactics to get referrals as soon as possible. Our clients have seen amazing success and a dramatic reduction in client acquisition costs since your happy customers do the sales for you.

Like the Online Presence last week, Reputation management is available on all of our core systems of Brand Works, Digital Works, Website Works, and Profit Works. If this sounds like something that your business could profit from, let’s talk about it.