How You Get To Shape Your Customer Feedback
It’s Important To Acknowledge All Customer Comments About Your Local Service Business
Do you know that the way you respond to the comments your customers leave tells more about your business than the original comment itself?
Customer comments have a tremendous impact on the way people see your business.
However, the other half of that equation is what you bring to the discussion! You can inspire loyalty from existing customers by showing genuine interest in their experiences. You can also scare off new customers by being absent from the conversation, or worse, escalating a negative situation.
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Here are the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to customer feedback.
Do’s & Don’ts Of Fielding Feedback
DO
- Actively work to make customer satisfaction your main priority.
Great service delivery has the highest likelihood of getting positive feedback.
- Solicit feedback from every customer you service.
Getting feedback from every customer is the only way to truly understand your current customer satisfaction level. It also makes sure that you are not review gating.
- ACKNOWLEDGE each & every review.
At the bare minimum, you want to leave a reaction like a thumb or a heart. In a perfect world, you also want to include a written response thanking the client and reminding them to tell their friends about you!
- Make sure your publicly viewable reviews are through a 3rd party and legitimate.
Consumers are savvy. They’re unlikely to be swayed by unverified reviews or 1st person testimonials added to your site. On the other hand, 3rd party verified reviews build trust.
DON’T
- Let anyone post reviews to external review sites on behalf of your customers.
This is a direct violation of every guideline in the industry. Violating these rules can get you banned from Google – which is very difficult to come back from!
- Escalate a negative situation with the wrong kind of response.
We have plenty of advice on dealing with negative reviews, but the most important thing to think about is how new customers will think about you after your statement.
- Incentivize, discount, or pay any of your customers to provide a review for your company.
This turns them into a paid endorser which requires notation as such. We have even seen this turn into extortion for a client!
Tovah Coats, Client Success Manager at LeadsNearby, says, “The way people feel about your company will always come down to their expectations compared to their reality.”
The closer their expectations are to their reality, the happier they will be.
“Answering customer feedback is a killer way to continue to push that happiness meter up.”
Response Required!
Greg Shadik, SEO Manager at LeadsNearby, says that there are tangible benefits to responding to your reviews, as well.
“When a customer writes an online review, whether good or bad, it tells Google that real people have interacted with a particular business. In turn, your responses prove to Google that your business is active, which is favorable for your SEO strategy and search ranking.”
Greg adds that these interactions also help with Google and Local Service Ads.
We have a blog that details great ways to earn more reviews, as well as the tools you need to gather reviews. All you have to do is figure out a system to turn that feedback into a conversation that benefits your company.
Responding is a crucial way to get the most out of your best reviews and also to minimize the damage from any less-than-positive ones.
If you’re having problems with your public perception, then you need to call 919-758-8420 for a free, 25-minute marketing consultation. From comments to campaigns, the team at LeadsNearby has been helping to shape the image of local service providers for decades. We can do the same for you!
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