Online Reviews

Digital channels such as online reviews, search engines, news sites, online communities and forums have the power to make or break the reputation of any brand.

Today’s digitally savvy consumers will often go online to review products, places or services before they buy. Recent studies show that the purchasing decisions of more than 93% of consumers are impacted by online reviews. That’s not to be sniffed at.

It’s also the place they’ll go to vent frustrations or complain if things don’t go right, and we’ve all seen the news reports of failed service, dodgy products or poor customer care when they do.

It’s crucial, particularly if your brands’ perceptions are determined by review sites, including sites like TrustPilot, Reovoo, Facebook Reviews or Google Reviews among others, that you treat them as key channels of engagement with your online communities, or existing and prospective customers.

When focused upon and carefully handled, the benefits of online reputation management – and looking after your online review pages – can create better trust from customers, make you more profitable, attract brilliant staff, enhance your SEO rankings and reduce the chances of reputational risks impacting your business.

If you get it right, it can help your brand secure more five-star reviews, build positive sentiment and help you stand out in a competitive online marketplace.

Good SEO monitoring and routine check ins (having someone accountable) can flag issues in real time, or emerging trends that need to be tackled… or celebrated. Ensure you have SEO and ORM working together. If you’re not sure how, we’re happy to explain how it works!

But it crucial that reviews site and the feedback your brand is receiving is monitored, measured and looked after.

If the complaint is unfounded, say so.

If it’s true then apologise, and show how you’ll remedy it.

If people love you, thank them.

And always, always, always think about building a community of happy customers who are happy to leave positive reviews, because in time you can reap the rewards!

We can help you understand how to appropriately incentivise people to do this, make it frictionless to harvest great reviews, and then share and promote them through digital PR and paid, earned, shared and owned channels – we call this ‘Creative Delivery’.

If you’re looking to drive better online reviews for your business (whether it’s TrustPilot, Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews, Reevoo or any other), we can show you and help you with some top tips, advice and actions. We can also show how review activity can work alongside other channels, such as ecommerce SEO, to maximise results.

Feel free to get in touch… and then don’t forget to leave us a good review about your experience!