Have you ever gone online to check out the consumer reviews of a local restaurant?
Oh, there are dozens of sites collecting user reviews these days, so it is easy to do. For most people, it is tempting to think that the ones with the most positive reviews are the better restaurants to visit, but people are much more likely to steer clear of those with many negative reviews.
But what if you are the owner of that restaurant and you do not feel that these reviews fairly reflect your business?
First, it is important to recognize with the internet’s evolution, advertisers are losing their ability to influence. Power has shifted to the consumer….get used to it! People are tuning out the proliferation of advertising noise. Instead, they want to know what other ‘real’ people think about a business. And thanks to the internet and social media websites, it is far too easy for people to get these opinions.
Once you come to this important realization, the next step is to determine what this means to your business. Hopefully, if there are reviews about your business online, most of them are positive. However, you cannot simply expect that all reviews will continue to be positive…that is just not reality. Smart business owners will instead incorporate these online review websites into their overall marketing and advertising plan. How?
1) Monitor online review websites. You need to know what people are saying about your business online, so set aside one day a month (minimum) to get online yourself. Has anyone posted reviews about your business? If so, you want to get a sense of the percentage of positive vs. negative reviews. You will also want to get a sense of the negative comments – Which ones are legitimate? Which ones look like they were written by complainers, or worse…your competitors using some dirty tactics? What is the candid feedback that you need to hear anyway to improve your business? Regardless of what you find, you must not ignore these online opinions about your business, especially the negative ones.
2) Craft a strategy to encourage more “positive” opinions on these sites. This requires some creativity today (although in full disclosure, WOMbeat! is working on some new features for our website that will do just that legitimately for your business!). The good news is that in many cases, you can do this for free or “nearly free”. Start with asking friends, family and employees to post their opinions online…although we encourage transparency with these type of reviews. They should mention that they are related to your business in some fashion so as to appear very open and honest. Otherwise, you could be subject to backlash if users get wind of “fake” reviews. But also, don’t be afraid to find ways to ask your customers to post their opinions too.
3) Craft a strategy to combat any “negative” opinions or user reviews. While trying to increase positive reviews would make sense, ignoring negative reviews can be fatal. Again, the good news is combating bad negative reviews is often free or nearly free.
One tactic is to post your own comments on these sites for people to read that are in direct response to negative reviews. Again, just be sure to make it very clear to everyone that you are the business owner. Also, be sure to avoid trying to say things like “that review is not true or unfair”. Instead, be tactful and include comments that describe how you resolved the issue and invite people to come see for themselves. Often business owners win fans not by appearing perfect but by appearing to work hard to please their customers.
Of course, prevention is better than damage-control, so be sure you have business practices that prevent negative word of mouth in the first place. Be sure to visit my other post “Turning Angry Customers into Your Best Evangelists“.
Is all this worth it?
Youbetcha! According to Denise Shiffman of the Engage Daily Blog, a London School of Economics study found that, “Every 1% reduction in negative word of mouth correlated to .41% growth, while a 1% increase in positive word of mouth correlated to just .14% growth. In other words, reducing negative comments could grow revenue by 300% over increasing positive comments.”
Truth be told, you will not be able to make 100% of your customers happy. If you have a great loyal customer base, a few unhappy ones won’t kill your business. But it is worth your time to ensure those few unhappy ones do not get too big of an online audience if they express their opinions on one of these websites. You don’t want to be caught off-guard, so have a good strategy in place, and you will be fine.
As you know, word of mouth (WOM) is extremely powerful! Fortunately the internet and various online services not only allow you stay informed of negative WOM, you can combat it online and perhaps even use it to get great candid feedback from your customers. Even better, the internet and these sites also now allow you to actually grow your business by generating more positive word of mouth – reaching hundreds or thousands more people than ever before.
So get online and use these sites to generate more WOM for your business!!
