Have you ever ‘Googled’ your business? Has customer said something about you, you didn’t even know about? Good or Bad? What would you do if someone did say something negative about you? Do you have the tools in place to handle and turn it around for a positive outcome?
Reputation Management is a hot topic, and a lot of marketers don’t even know what to do to manage it successfully. Working with retailers for over a decade, I know the importance of a good online customer service and reputation process.
In this blog I will reveal to top things you need know about managing your business or Customers Business Reputation and the exact strategies we implement for our clients that have resulted in a 100% customer satisfaction & 100% removal of bad reviews.
What a bad reputation can do for your business?
If you think a single bad review can do no damage to your business, think again.
A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9 to 15 people about their experience while about 13% will tell more than 20 people about their poor experience. So every time you lose the trust and respect of one customer; you’re actually losing the possibility of gaining 20 new customers.
Still not convinced? Let’s paint a picture…
Say one of your customers had a bad experience about your business. This customer (let’s name him John) posted a bad review on your site. You choose to ignore John’s complaint because “it’s just one customer”.
Now John tells 20 of his friends about the bad experience, 10 of which are your current customers. What does this mean? You now lost 11 customers and 10 potential leads.
But the dilemma isn’t done yet…
John then posts a public status about your business on Facebook and tags your fan page. This status is seen by 345 of his friends and 15% of your fans.
Outrageous isn’t it?! How 1 bad experience can turn into a fiasco is an instant. Will you wait for any bad review to become viral before you’d respond?
Why you need reviews
Customer feedback is gold! Whether bad or good, these feedback tell you if your business is on the right track or if there is anything that you need to look into.
Reviews will go a long way in ensuring that you know exactly what your customers want. With such information, you can then tailor your services or products to meet their core needs heightening your chances of business success.
Got a fire? What to do with bad reviews
Before anything else, let’s establish a common ground: bad reviews are normal. As they say, you can’t please everybody. BUT, you can do something to make your unhappy customers change their minds.
So what do you do? Reach out to them privately, and DO IT FAST.
More research from Lee Resources tell us that “70% of complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favour” while “95% of complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint INSTANTLY.”
Don’t let an aggravated customer go through a needle just to get in touch with you. Here are more of our tips as mentioned on our social care post:
- Have a dedicated highly trained team to support channels beyond phone and email to ensure engagement through live chat and social media
- Ensure seamless customer interaction making sure that the engagement specialists can follow the conversation across social channels
- Always suggest an offline forum to resolve the issue. Be responsive, not reactive.
- Define a strategy based on how your consumers are using each channel
- Go beyond traditional phone engagement ensuring that consumers can reach trained specialists through each channel
Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. It should always be your first priority to attend to their needs, especially if they feel that they have been wronged by your business. So go out of your way to reach out to them and make them feel important. If you need to discuss your customer service strategies with an expert, please us our contact page and send me an email. I’d gladly see what I can do.