As a contractor, reviews are important to your business leads. Your website is no longer the only place that customers can go for information about your business. Sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, Facebook and Houzz have all given the power of reviews to the consumer, allowing your customers to connect with each other to share stories of the successes and failures of your business.
Bad reviews can have a serious effect on your business. The SEO giant “MOZ” recently reported that 67% of customers are influenced either positively or negatively by reviews. With your customers in control of the conversation, it is important to understand how to respond to reviews. To help you control the conversation, and maintain your reputation online, here are 5 tips for dealing with customer reviews.
- Take Your Time: While you want to have a consistently rapid response to any reviews you receive, don’t let emotion drive you. Take your time to respond to reviews, allowing time to cool off if the review upsets or excites you. This will allow you to craft a more professional, poised response.
- Be Kind: If you did something wrong, apologize for the mistake. When responding to any review, the idea is to let the customer know that you’re on their side and want to do everything you can to make things right. Be kind, even when the reviewer is not, and your potential customers will be more willing to work with your business.
- Be Specific: If a customer mentions an issue in their review, use it in your reply. It will help the customer feel heard, and it proves that you’re taking the time to look at your customer feedback, rather than copying and pasting a response.
- Take the Conversation Offline: The last thing you need is a negative, drawn-out conversation for the whole world to see. When responding to reviews, especially negative reviews, offer a way that the reviewer can get in touch with you or your business to resolve the issue one on one.
- Never Ignore a Review: it doesn’t matter if it’s a positive review or a negative review, always make it a point to respond. Responding to reviews shows that your business cares about supporting its customers and is willing to listen to feedback. Not responding to reviews can signal that you don’t care.