In today’s new media age, more consumers can review your brand and express their opinions on a variety of highly popular online review sites.
Reviews can be important to your brand. According to a Nielsen study, two thirds of respondents trusted consumer opinions posted online. This was the third most trusted source for advertising.
There may be review sites unique to your specific industry, such as TripAdvisor for travel and OpenTable® for restaurants. There may also be sites that review brands and businesses in your local area.
Your brand, however, may also be reviewed on larger, more prominent sites, such as Yelp, which allows users to set up profiles and rate businesses on a five-star scale and leave comments.
The one site that may carry the most weight, however, is Google Reviews. In some cases, these reviews show up on the first page of Google searches for your business. That’s why it’s important to pay close attention to the reviews that may appear there.
To monitor these review sites (and mentions of your brand on other sites), Google Alerts can be a useful tool that keeps you informed when your brand is mentioned. Tracking these alerts from review sites can help you measure how many people know of your brand and what they think of it.
Handling Poor Reviews
In some cases, you’ll receive negative reviews, particularly if your brand is well known and popular. If you receive a significant number of negative reviews, it may demonstrate changes you need to make to your product or service.
While it’s not pleasant to see negative comments about your brand, you can use the opportunity to politely reply to customers and attempt to address their issues. At the very least, this demonstrates that you listen carefully to what customers and prospects have to say.
It’s a good practice to respond quickly, make sure the audience knows that you represent your brand, avoid being defensive, and assure the reviewer that you’re happy to do all you can to resolve issues.
