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Responding to negative feedback from customers | PromotingTeam

Reviews arrive with both pleasure and pain to businesses, as it comes with both positive and negative feedback. Negative reviews are naturally unwanted, but they’re inevitable! No matter how much you hammer away, some customers will remain unsatisfied and burst into you with their gloomy words. As a result, you may get furious or frustrated and decides to ignore them! And this is one thing you must not do! Because the unhappiest customers expect your attention the most, and the happiest customers observe how you’re handling the situation.

And guess what? Responding to them smartly and courteously allows you to turn the unhappiness into satisfaction and happiness into loyalty!

Why businesses should respond to negative feedback

The success of your business not only relies upon “What do you provide” anymore, but also on “How and what else do you provide.” Because nowadays, customers have alternative options for almost everything, and it became a challenge to businesses. Offering the most superior and premium quality isn’t sufficient. And that’s where the quality of customer service became the most crucial part.

Ignoring negative reviews of customers means you’re giving up a portion of your customers to your competitors. Because in today’s world, responding to reviews considered one of the competitive advantages. A survey by BrightLocal revealed that 71% of customers say they’re more likely to use a business that has responded to their reviews. (Source )The quality of your customer service will make the customers come back to you even after a bad experience. It also helps you to build a good reputation, among others. But how to respond to those tragic words without sounding rude and turning the dissatisfaction into satisfaction?

Respond quickly and publicly

You should respond to the negative reviews as early as possible. When a customer is unhappy, he/she wants the attention of the seller immediately. And if you ignore them and take too much time to respond, it results in bigger disappointment. That customers may then post another review about how miserable your customer service is! So, never take that chance. Also, it’s easy to calm the customer if you take action instantly.

You should always respond in public so that others can see how much you care about your customers and how effective your customer services are.

Watch your tone and be professional.

No matter how upset you get, don’t try to be offensive or arrogant while responsive. Because when you’re acting as the service provider, people expect you to be professional. Always remember the thing that you’re presenting your whole business while responding online. Everyone will judge you based on how you tackle this kind of situation. So, you better not give people to have a second thought about your customer service. That’s why it’s crucial to choose the words carefully.

Never try to prove them wrong!

You must remember one thing, that’s “Customer is always right!” You’ve to listen and consider all of their problems even if you don’t feel like that. Your customer expects a solution, not a counter. And if you try to prove them wrong, it means you’re playing with the fire!

You can politely let them know about your policies or why their complaints don’t match with your services. But never try to counter them ever!

Show respect and ask for their advice

Be polite, humble, and show respect. Kind words have the most powerful effect of calming someone. The moment they realize that you’re valuing their words, their anger will significantly decrease, and they’ll happily cooperate with you.

If possible, ask for advice about how they want to solve the issue and what improvements can be made so that it won’t happen again. Once you make them feel included, your customers will never stop admiring you!

Solve critical issues offline and don’t rush

If the problem-solving process gets critical or lengthy, it’s better to take the issue offline. It’s not appropriate to publicly solve the whole process, and your customers also may get reluctant to share all his/her experiences. Many of them may seem extra hyper, and publicly solving their issues may hurt your reputation. Moreover, some business policies better remain confidential.

And don’t try to solve it quickly. Give time and listen to them. Sometimes the process may get complicated, but you’ve to be patient. Think about it as an investment for future positive reviews.

Offer to make it right or refund

Always keep an option or refunds. Don’t just save your back by saying you don’t have that service on your business policy. If you don’t have that, then you must include it. Because sometimes it’s easier and healthy to offer refunds to the customers. It works great for calming them and helps to get the trust because people will then know that they have no risk of doing business with you.

It’s better to customize your replies.

For the sake of quick response, don’t put the same reply on every feedback. It makes the customers more irritated. It’s unreasonable to think that all your unsatisfied customers are not facing the same problem. Then why should you treat them uniformly? If possible, hire one or two members in your sales team whose work will be to read the feedback carefully and provide customized replies. It shows how active your customer service is.

Don’t just respond. Fix it!

Don’t just think that after listening and replying to them, your job gets done. You still have to solve the issue. Because only listening to them doesn’t prove your care for the customers, they want their problems to be solved. And if you don’t do that, the outbursts will increase instead of decreasing. Yes, it’ll take a little bit more effort and time, but it’s worth it. It shows your customer service is not an empty pot. The more you fix the problems, the less you’ll get negative feedback.

It’s a blessing in a disguise!

If you look closely, these negative reviews can work as an opportunity for your business than defamation. With those feedbacks, you’ll know what the flaws of your service are and how you can solve those. It’ll have a significant role in the development of your business. If you started to gather this information in other ways, you’d see how much time and money it’ll cost. But now, all of this valuable information is coming to you without any effort. Also, you’re getting the chance to show others how much you care about your customers, and it has a high impact on holding your customer following. It takes five times more effort and cost to create a new customer, but by following some tactics, you can keep your current ones and turn them into loyal customers. So from next time, whenever you see negative reviews on your website, take it as an opportunity instead of being pissed off at those!

Never Fake Your Own Online Reviews

You may feel upset when you see a good amount of ratings and reviews on your competitor’s website, which your website doesn’t have. Because of that, you observe that the consumer following of that business keeps growing more than yours. You may start thinking desperately about how to beat your competitor and get more reviews than that. Well, there are plenty of methods to do that. But if you’re thinking of faking your online reviews to get more attention and traffic, you must consider it again! Because it comes with consequences that’ll taste mostly bitter than sweet!

Why Businesses fake their reviews?

Businesses compete with each other on almost everything. Whenever they see an opportunity, it becomes a race for them to win. Reviews are not exceptions to that. We’ve already shown above the scenario of how reviews can make businesses competing with each other, and it one of the most common causes.

There’s no need to explain how useful reviews are. Sometimes these are more effective than other promotional activities. Because reviews can build trust and reliability between a business and its consumers, which no other tool can really do. That’s why companies are getting desperate to get this advantage. And this mentality sometimes leads some of them to fake their reviews!

This tendency is mostly seen in small and new businesses. They feel insecure by others in the competition and tend to fake their own reviews to look good and increase the ratings. They do this by themselves or using third-party websites, freelancers, etc. But that doesn’t result in any good for them. And you may wonder why that so?

« It’s against the policies of review sites.

Google strictly prohibits the act of reviewing your site. It has a specific law against this kind of activity, and whoever tries to break this rule will face inevitable consequences. That website may get penalize and may lose its Local SEO ranking! Other review sites, such as Facebook, Yelp, etc. also have similar rules against this kind of activity.

« You may face legal consequences.

Authentic reviews are the right of the consumers, and if someone tries to fake it, it violates their right to have accurate information, which is strictly illegal in many countries. Believe it or not, businesses actually face legal consequences that pretend to be consumers as an attempt to manipulate and falsify consumer’s perception. The FTC or similar government institutions govern this kind of action and implies necessary punishments. Believe it or not, businesses actually faces legal consequences that pretend to be consumers as an attempt to distort perceptions of customer satisfaction.

« Your reputation gets damaged.

Faking your reviews means you’re breaking the trust of your customers and pretending to be something that you’re not. It will severely affect your business once you get caught; also, your whole reputation management will get destroyed. You’ll surely become the talk of the town but negatively. People will refer your business to others to ignore not to engage with. And it’ll become next to impossible for you to retargeting your customers again because you have already shown the deceiving side of yours to them.

« You’ll lose your competitive advantage.

Getting a competitive advantage in the marketplace is one of the biggest reasons for faking online reviews. But it’s not the right way at all. You may enjoy getting ahead of others for a short time by faking reviews, but ultimately, you’ll lose the race. In fact, you’ll then be giving your competitors a chance to catch your consumers and increase their business following. Because when you get caught, your customers will start to find an alternative to you, and eventually, they’ll be fished by your competitors. They may even use you as an example of fraud and advertise themselves as a trustworthy one! That’s why think before you do anything like that.

« “Too good to be true”- is not the desired image.

You’ve to understand that consumers don’t want a perfect business with overall complete reviews and ratings. A survey by Womply on the impact of reviews for small businesses showed that companies that have ratings of 3.5 to 4.5 stars earn more than any other rating. (Source: https://www.reviewtrackers.com/blog/5-star-rating/) That means it’s entirely unreasonable for fake reviews to look too good. The more you try to be flawless, the less you’ll attract them because it’s not that hard to tell if a website is producing fake reviews. Customers will figure out if your service doesn’t match the reviews on your site anyway. You can’t deceive them forever!

« It’ll get removed anyway.

Your fake reviews won’t stay on your website forever. Those will get scanned and filtered, and once you get caught, your reviews will get removed by Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other websites like these. Google continually changes its algorithm for detecting this kind of activity by businesses. So, no matter how smartly you try to fool Google, you’ll get spotted, your reviews will get removed, and all of your efforts will become meaningless.

The goal is to earn trust not to deceive!

Claiming to be something that you’re not will never result in something good. And you don’t even have to do that because there’s already plenty of options for you to get reviews without faking it. Those techniques may take time, but one thing is for sure that the results will be long-lasting. Even though fake reviews will boost your revenues, you can end up paying for more significant losses in penalties once you get caught and suffer tremendously. So it’s better not to put everything at stake by finding shortcuts. Be real, work hard, and reviews will come to you even before asking for it.

Dealing with Fake Online Reviews | PromotingTeam

Reviews can be both useful and misleading. But as it is one of the primary bases of trust between a business and its customers, any unwanted situation in the review section can cause great harm. Although it’s normal to have negative reviews now and then as you can’t satisfy all of your customers to the same degree. Also, it’s not beneficial to have overall positive feedback on the reviews and ratings.

That’s why businesses have to maintain a healthy ratio of good and bad reviews on their website. But what if suddenly you get overflowed with random negative reviews frequently and because of that your website’s reputation, ranking is getting crushed?

Every once in a while, businesses, especially small and new growing businesses, have to suffer from fake online reviews. And, as it is an open platform, anyone can use it in the wrong way and harm others. But don’t get frustrated. You can handle this disaster smartly and stand out again.

How to spot which one is fake?

Not all negative reviews are fake. Some of those can be from your actual customer who had a bad experience, which is normal. And if you mistakenly delete those, you may face more outbursts. So, it’s crucial to address reviews that are actually fake. And how to do so?

Lack of details: Most of the fake reviews won’t have any thoughtful information. There won’t be any actual reason why they are upset or of which specific product/service they’re complaining about. A genuine review always addresses the situation of where it happened all wrong. On the other hand, in fake reviews, there won’t be anything like that.
Not a verified customer: Check your records to be sure if the person giving constant negative reviews is a verified customer or has ever bought something from your website or not. Because fake reviews mostly come from non-verified accounts.
Timing: If you notice that some of the negative reviews are coming within a short time, then those are surely fake. It’s not really believable that a business has suddenly disappointed almost all of its customers at once!
Orphan reviews: Some negative reviews won’t show any comment, and there’ll be only 1 or 2 stars. Genuine unhappy customers always feel the urge to complain and make people know about his/her experience. So if there are a lot of reviews without any details, then be sure that those are fake.
Mostly similar: Almost all of the fake reviews are similar to each other. There may be a slight change of wordings, but the meanings are more or less the same. And most of them will be written in terrible English!
Check the person’s profile and history: Check if the person has a real profile and if there are any authentic information about the person. Also, how many and what types of reviews he/she has given. If that account has posted almost the same thing everywhere, again and again, then it’s fake.

Since now you’ve got a modest idea about how to recognize fake reviews, let’s jump to the tactics of how to handle them smartly!

q “Try reporting and removing the reviews.”

You can get those fake reviews removed from the review websites by reporting or flagging them. It can be advantageous before those reviews get noticed by a lot of people and avoid the damage! Facebook, Google, Yelp, and other known review websites have almost the same and straightforward process for reporting reviews. So it won’t be much of a difficulty for you.

Though it may take some time, as the sites will first assess and then they’ll take action. But the waiting is worth it, to clean out those trash from your website. And during that assessment time, you can try applying other ways mentioned below to handle the situation!

q “Always respond to the reviews.”

After identifying the fake reviews, don’t just ignore them. Because you know that the reviews are fake, your other customers don’t. And if they see that you’re avoiding negative comments, it may appear in their mind that you’re hiding something or your customer service is terrible and biased, which creates a negative impression about your business. That’s why you’ve to always respond to the reviews, both fake and authentic, equally. It shows how responsible you are.

q “Don’t attack or threaten them.”

It’s justified that you’re upset after seeing those fake negative reviews and how they’ve affected your website. But you’ve to control your emotion. You may take it personally but don’t show that publicly. No matter what, you have to maintain your professionalism. Don’t reply in an offensive or sarcastic tone. Every statement of yours will be observed by both your customer and Google. And already those fake reviews have done enough harm to your business, don’t risk getting more.

q “Show care and ask for more details.”

Just like the way you ask your authentic customers, “if there’s something you can do,” ask the same to your fake customer too! Surely, those fake customers won’t reply or respond to your comments, and that’ll automatically show how fake they are. Always thank them for sharing their experience and be kind. Even though it’s hard, but still sometimes apologize too. Don’t let people use anything against you. The more you show equality for your customers, the more they’ll trust you despite those fake reviews.

q “Let your actual customers know your honesty and sincerity.”

You can post valid reviews of your real customers and explain that nothing was intentional, and it doesn’t happen frequently. Show the clarity and authenticity of your service process from time to time so that the trust of your customers won’t break. And after Google has removed those fake reviews, you can show that to your customers and let them know that you were framed, and you had nothing to do with that. Then your customers will eventually be aware of the fake reviews and won’t trust those ever over you. By this, you can turn this loss into an excellent opportunity to get more traffic and reviews.

Take a deep breath!

It’s hard and painful to watch your hard work being taken down by some fake reviews. And it’s reasonable to lose your temper. But don’t let your feelings to provoke your actions. Don’t so something that’ll cause harm even more. You can always fight back and win the situation. There are plenty of ways to do that, legal forms too. All you have to do is take patience and clean the mess smartly.

Things you should always avoid while asking for reviews

Reviews are the reflection of people’s opinions. And we, as human beings, love to know the thoughts, opinions, and experiences of others, even if it’s from a stranger, while making a decision. As a result, getting reviews has become a vital part of the promotional strategies of a business.

Generating reviews may sound simple, but it’s not. There’s a lot of rules and regulation for reviews and businesses are bound to maintain them. Even after following those rules, many companies fail to get reviews from their customers, because of some inappropriate behaviors. Sometimes they don’t even understand what was their fault because they lack the knowledge of “Things they should never do while asking reviews.” It’s essential to know the Do’s as well as the Don’ts while asking for reviews from customers.

How knowing the “Don’ts” will benefit you?

Only knowing and following the rules isn’t enough anymore. These things let you know where your boundaries are, but knowing the Don’ts lets you know how you can improve yourself. You can still gather reviews without maintaining the “Don’ts” but not that many. And in today’s world, there’s too much competition that being creative is not enough if you don’t get what you shouldn’t do to make your customers nervous, uninterested, and irritated.

There are a lot of ways and techniques for “How to ask for reviews.” But today, we’re going to let you know, “What you shouldn’t do while asking for reviews.” So that your creative plans won’t fail, and you’ll successfully get your desired feedbacks from the customers.

#1 “DON’T offer incentives for reviews.”

Many businesses offer incentives such as discounts, coupons, gifts, public recognition, etc. to their customers to gather reviews. It’s like a bartering process, giving something and getting something in return. But this practice is strictly forbidden as well as illegal. It provides an unfair competitive advantage to some businesses, and it’s highly unjustifiable to other companies. Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other websites have strict rules against this kind of practice, and if you get caught doing this, your site will get penalized, and you’ll lose your SEO ranking too.

#2 “DON’T tell customers what to write”

You can only ask your customers for reviews, but you shouldn’t tell them what to write. Reviews must be given by the customer voluntarily, and each of them has the right to express their own opinion while providing feedbacks. Asking for something specific or telling them, “We’ll be delighted if you say positive things for us” or something like that is not acceptable. Your customers may get irritated with this type of behavior, and they may lose interest in anything at all! Even if they do by agreeing to your request, it will make your reviews section biased and less authentic. Because only having positive reviews won’t do any better to business; instead, it’ll make things worse. No one expects a business to be entirely perfect, and if they see something like it creates dissonance and suspicion, which is not desirable at all. Also, if your requesting messages get leaked among people, you’ll lose both the trust and reputation.

#3 “DON’T make the review giving process complex.”

You must remember one thing; people are not any more interested in spending their time on your website after their work has been done. But on the other hand, asking people for reviews just after their purchase or any activity is the most effective. So what should you do? You have to make them interested in giving feedbacks without making them feel that their time is being wasted. That’s why you have to make the review giving process very simple and easy. If customers find the process too much complex or you make them dig to find your review link, then forget about getting any feedback. Even if you get some, most of them will be negative! So, try to give them an easy “Call to action” or provide review link in pop-ups, or attach it in the after purchase page. In that way, you’ll get reviews quickly.

#4 “DON’T pressurize your customers.”

As I’ve already said, giving feedbacks is a voluntary activity by the customers. You can only ask them, but giving or not giving ultimately falls on the choice of your customers. All you can do is provide all kinds of assistance to them for giving reviews, but you can’t and shouldn’t try to pressurize them. Always watch your tone. Also, you shouldn’t frequently ask them for reviews by mass emails, texts, or every time they visit your website. Customers feel bothered by this type of attitude, and many even get angry. Instead of giving reviews, they may end up reporting your website! So, this type of behavior is a Big-No for you while asking for reviews.

Final Words

If you be honest, provide your services efficiently than your customers will automatically give feedbacks about you even before asking. But, yes, not all customers will be loyal towards your business, and getting their attention is not easy. A survey by Pew Research revealed that 7 out of 10 people are willing to write feedbacks, but only 1 of them does. So you have to ask the rest of them to turn their willingness into action. And for that, you’ve to know what you should so and, most importantly, what you SHOULDN’T DO. Only after that, your efforts for getting reviews will be successful.

Buying Reviews: 5 Reasons that it’s not a wise decision

In today’s world, there’s no need to elaborate on how important it is to have a good amount of reviews on your website/page. No matter how much effort you put into your business and service process, customers will judge you based on the reviews you have on your website. A local consumer survey, conducted by BrightLocal, revealed that 97% of consumers read online reviews before purchasing. Today’s customer trusts another customer’s word more than anything. Also, it has a significant impact on Local SEO Ranking. That’s why nowadays, businesses are putting a massive effort into the improvement of their online review portals than others in the competition. And to win this race, many of them take shortcuts, what’s called “Buying Google Reviews.” But will it be a wise step to take?

“Buying Google Reviews”- What does it mean?

At first, let’s know about what is “Buying Reviews” actually means. Well, it’s not a hard nut to crack. It’s more like manipulating a business’s website/page with fake reviews that aren’t written by actual customers.

Sometimes businesses get desperate to get more positive reviews for exposure or for reducing the ratio of negative reviews on their website. And how they do that?

They use third-party websites to write reviews on the site.
They use Freelancers and pay them to write fake reviews.
They offer customers incentives such as discounts, coupons, etc. so that they only provide positive feedbacks.

They try to make a review portal with feedbacks that may not be even true and manipulates both Google and their customers to build a reputation. Sometimes they also seek to remove bad reviews to maintain their status, which is highly unethical and misleading.

As I have already said earlier, reviews work as a bridge of trust between you and your customers. So, when you try to gain that in a corrupt way, it won’t be advantageous in the long run. Wondering why? Let’s figure out the five reasons why you shouldn’t buy Google reviews!

#1 “Buying reviews is NOT LEGAL.”

Google strictly prohibits this kind of activity in its policy. Google only encourages reviews that are given by actual customers that reflect their genuine opinion. You may enjoy more traffic and higher ranking in Google for some time, but if Google catches you (eventually that’ll happen), you’ll get penalized or worse; your website will be taken down due to violating terms & conditions.

Even in many countries, it is restricted to use fake reviews, and if someone disobeys the rule, it’ll be taken as the breach of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. The culprit has to face legal punishments.

#2 “You’ll lose your SEO ranking.”

You won’t be able to go far the fake and manipulative reviews. Because Google continually changes and improves its algorithms such as Panda and Penguin, to find decisive acts like these. And because of those changes, many businesses had lost its ranking and never been able to come back. So, when you buy or manipulate reviews, you put your whole business at tremendous risk. Google will eventually remove those reviews, and your SEO ranking will get hurt. And I guess there’s no need to explain how much it is essential and beneficial for you to rank on Google. So, if you lose it once, you may suffer forever.

#3 “You won’t be able to detect CUSTOMER INSIGHTS.”

Original Customer Reviews don’t only help you to gain trust among the customers; it also helps you to learn “Customer Insights. It tells you what your customers are thinking about your business and service, what are the complaints of your customers and is there any to improve yourself. And by “Buying Google Reviews,” those things will remain unknown to you. Because those problems may occur repeatedly, but you won’t be able to detect them, let alone solve them. It’ll also hurt your customer relationship or engagement. As a result, no matter how many good reviews you have on your website, you’ll eventually lose your customer following because they’re not satisfied, and you didn’t care to hear them. And your business will be doomed.

#4 “Too many positive reviews are SUSPICIOUS rather than CONVINCING.”

It’s not favorable to have an overall positive review on your website. Because it seems suspicious, no business can claim that all of its customers had 100% satisfaction from them. And if any of them do, that’s means something is not right. You won’t be able to pursue your customers to visit and buy more from your website. Instead, they’ll ignore you and will never come back.

Yes, customers look for positive reviews, but they also read negative reviews because they want to know what risks they’re going to take. And having negative reviews doesn’t mean you won’t get much traffic on your website. A survey by Capterra showed that 52% of consumers trust a product more if it has negative reviews as well. All you have to do is keep up a ratio of good and bad so that your customers can compare you and choose you.

#5 “Once you lose the trust, you lose EVERYTHING.”

Nowadays, it’s not easy to manipulate customers. The more businesses invent new ways to pursue customers, the more they get skeptical. And customers know that they’ll somehow get manipulated by your tricks, but still, they trust you. And the trust grows based on how much authenticity you’re showing them despite your tricks. And reviews are the central pillar of it. But if they get to know that you’re frequently deceiving them, giving them false information by faking reviews, that’ll be a disaster for you because the equation is simple. You lose trust; you lose everything. And retargeting them becomes next to impossible. All you’ve acquired will vanish!

Honesty is the best policy!

The truth is, there’s no need to get reviews by buying or faking them. They’ll come to you automatically. You have to work hard and be patient. Analyze why you have negative reviews, try to observe and know your customers intimately, compare the solutions, and apply them. Yes, it may take a lot of time and at first, and you may lag than others. But trust me, if you can show customers how much you care about them and honest you’re, then you don’t have to crave for the reviews, your customers will happily provide those.

How to Ask Customers for Reviews

In today’s world, reviews are so much powerful that it can both build and destroy a business or brand. And there’s no way to think that if a company is already well-known or established, getting more reviews or giving focus on this should be stopped. Because there’s so much competition that only building a good reputation is not enough; you’ve to maintain consistency. Nowadays, consumers trust an unknown customer’s opinion more than a renowned brand. In a study of BrightLocal, it was found that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. That’s why it’s essential to get reviews from your happy consumers. But don’t think that they’ll just come automatically. Getting reviews is a very challenging task without making the customers feel pressured or disturbed. So how to get meaningful feedback engagingly?

Never too soon. Never too late.

You have to ask customers for the reviews. Yes, people like to talk but not if they’re interested. But don’t get confused whether to ask or not. Reviews won’t come if you don’t start the conversation first. A survey by Pew Research revealed that 7 out of 10 people are willing to write feedbacks, but only 1 of them does. That means you’ve to take the first step to change this ratio for your website/page. But remember one thing, timing is very crucial for asking reviews. You shouldn’t ask for reviews immediately after purchase because the customer may not have used your product just after the purchase, and they may not be ready to give reviews.

On the other hand, if you wait too much, your customers may not be interested anymore to give feedback or may forget their experience to provide a detailed response. That’s give them some time to explore and build a time schedule for each customers and ask them on the basis of that planning.

Create profiles on review sites

More than 93% of people check for reviews while making a purchasing decision. So, it’s essential that you noticeably present your company’s reviews. Nowadays, people visit different websites to judge your company profile based on reviews. So make sure your profile is there. There are many popular review websites according to industry preference. You just need to choose that suits you best. Some are:

Google My Business (any business)
Facebook (any business)
Yelp (any business)
Trip Advisor (related to food, industry travel)
Angies List (service realated business)
Foursquare (mostly for restaurants)

Customers are more prone to visit these sites for both searching and providing feedback. So, your presence there is essential.

Be creative while asking for reviews.

Nowadays, only saying “Please” or being polite tactics are becoming cliché. Nowadays, customers are hard to convince. It’s imperative to be creative to get your job done. So here are some tips and tricks:

· Give them a reason to hear you and fill up the feedback form. Praise and compliment them, make them feel special. Be friendly and value their opinion.

Make sure that the review giving process is simple & swift. You can’t expect people to spend a significant amount of time on providing feedback. And if the customer finds the process too complex, then forget about any good reviews! Be straightforward and ask short questions. The less you waste their time, the more they’ll get interested to give feedbacks.
Try to develop personalized requests for each type of purchase or different messages for the same person. It’ll surely grab both the attention and interest of your customer.
Use famous influencer’s reviews on your page/website to make your review section interesting for others.
Lastly, ensure that your business has constant and fresh reviews because 77% of customers don’t trust or lose interest for those websites/pages that have reviews older than three months.

Google Reviews! One thing you shouldn’t miss.

If you want to rank your website, want more traffic and visibility, then you simply can’t skip “Google Reviews.” It’s one thing that your customers will trust without any doubt. Google reviews allow businesses to prove themselves to their potential customers. It also presents an excellent opportunity to improve your rant on local SEO. Google reviews work as an agent of your brand trust and online exposure so, if you have a good portfolio of Google reviews, then it’s powerful enough to make the conversation alone and to bring more traffic to your website. Because if your business has an excellent rating on Google, customers will find you reliable even if they’ve never read any of your reviews.

But of course, that doesn’t mean you can still rank by manipulating reviews because you may able to deceive your customers, not Google! So, be honest, work hard, and have patience. Google will find you and reward you the way you deserve.

Ways to ask & encourage reviews

Now let’s talk about the ways you can ask your customers to give reviews and the rules you should follow!

Ask via personal Email: Using email for feedbacks is one of the easiest and effective ways. Keep your mails short and choose your words correctly. Don’t choose a subject line with too many characters. Know your customer’s touch-point and compose it that way. Use personalized email and an apparent call to action link. Test different email copies to see which one gets the most response.
Ask in person: If you have an offline business, then nothing will work more than asking personally. Train your employees in a way so that they can bond with the customers. But don’t go overboard. Maintain professionalism with a touch of care.
Use feedback survey links: After purchase, you can use pop-ups for the customers with a survey link. You can use survey monkey or Google forms. But remember, make the survey short. The questions should be easy to read.
Google reviews: Google reviews is a popular way to get feedback. Use a short but catchy message and ask them to rate your product/service.
Facebook reviews: Facebook is an excellent medium for collecting feedbacks, and most people use Facebook to search for other reviews. So, gently ask for their reviews there.
Use discounts or recognize them: Placing a contest for reviews or publicly acknowledging the customer can be a great motivation for getting feedbacks. Customers who give feedbacks frequently can be appreciated by providing coupons or discounts.
Always send a follow-up email: After getting the review, send a “Thank you” note with a caring message to the customer. It makes them feel that their opinion is being valued.
Always reply: Make sure if there are any queries or complaints from your customer and get in touch with them. It’ll increase rate of positive feedbacks.

Are Reviews really worth it?

Just put yourself in other customer’s shoes and think, would you ever purchase from a website that has lower reviews or no review at all? Certainly no, right? In a study of RevLocal revealed that a single business review can lift its conversation by 10%. It even has SEO impacts on your sites. And Google cares about positive ratings too. And reviews help you get customer’s insight and data which may not have been as easier.

Reviews aren’t just some words or opinion; it’s more than that. It builds trust among your customers. Then again, no pain no gain! Customers are sensitive and demanding. So getting something done by them is highly challenging. It’s better to develop your strategy and then get to work

5 out of 5 or 4.5 Stars: Which works better?

When was the last time you decided to buy something and didn’t look in the review section or consulted with others? I guess it has left you in a baffling state; that’s because we don’t usually try something without checking its authenticity. And the most we depend on for this analysis is ratings and reviews.

Reviews create an impression on our mind for businesses, brands, products/services, etc. And in today’s world, reviews and ratings are most significant than ever. As a result, companies are trying hard to get a higher rating and positive reviews for google. But do consumers always choose something that has the perfect 5 out of 5 ratings, or trust an above-average rating more?

Impact of Reviews

Ratings and reviews have a noticeable impact on our decision making. Reviews are mainly impressions made by users, which is still a powerful offline marketing tool that made its appearance online in the name of reviews and ratings. Consumers form their judgment and refer products/services based on the reviews and rating section.

A local consumer survey, conducted by BrightLocal, revealed that 97% of consumers read online reviews before purchasing. Source That’s why businesses are continually focusing on building a good review portfolio. Hence, it may seem that having an overall perfect score will be a jackpot for companies, but the actual case is different.

Recent data analysis showed that Businesses that have 5 out of 5 stars on their websites or pages tend to create more dissonance among consumers than reducing it. People likely to get more convinced by ratings that show an above-average 4.2 or 4.5 ratings.

5 Stars vs. 4.5 Stars

In this digital era, consumers now know that they can get easily manipulated by businesses and their advertising tools while making a decision. People want to know the reactions and experiences of others. And as we all know that there are two sides of every coin; that’s why a complete 5-star rating is not very influencing.

It’s not believable that all the users had a satisfying experience. Consumers find it too good to be true, and it generates conflicts and dissonance, which is not suitable for businesses. In a study by PowerReviews, it was showed that about 82% of consumers actually look for negative reviews.

A survey by Womply on the impact of reviews on small businesses presented that businesses with a rating between 3.5 and 4.5 stars earn more sales than any other rating. Besides, stores with a 4.0 – 4.5 rating make an additional 28 percent in annual income. It’s even riskier to have an overall perfect score because it creates high expectations. And if the product/service fails to meet that benchmark, it results in a disaster on the consumer following.

Don’t Focus only on Perfection!

Having a rating of less than 5 is not a bad thing. It shows that people tried the product/service and shared their true experience and honest advice. Consumers believe other consumers. They like to read other user’s experience even if it’s a bad one. Because nowadays, consumers are surrounded by too many options to choose from, and that makes them more dissonant and skeptical than ever.

Even though people try to select the best from those options, something tagged as perfect makes it fishy and increases the number of avoidance for that product/service as they feel misguided. In fact, the mix of bad and good reviews makes the brand, product/service more transparent and trustworthy. It also shows that a business is concerned about its consumers and invites them to share their experiences, whether it’s favorable or unfavorable.

Win their trust

Manipulating the words or faking reviews won’t help in the long run. Consumers like to reduce their skeptic feelings and confusion through other’s words. It works even better when they see that the authority is responsive to reviews and maintains a good customer relationship. But when they feel that the words are fake or manipulative, they might never return to that page or website, and retargeting them becomes very tough because the trust is broken.

Bitter pills may have blessed effects!

Reviews can help to make data-driven consumer experience insights. And having some negative reviews will actually help there. Because by sentiment analysis or review management software, businesses can find what a consumer really wants and how to improve the product/service.

It also helps to make smarter decisions to increase the reputation of the business. By these, companies can generate new reviews and more positive feedbacks and better serve their clients.

Earn it Don’t Fake it

Reviews and ratings are the most natural and accepted part of any business. Other promotional tools can create attraction, but reviews and ratings build trust. That’s why this part should be as much as authentic as possible. Yes, negative reviews create a bitter impression, but only if it’s frequent.

And if that’s the case, then businesses should focus on the improvement of their product/service than filtering negative reviews. Companies’ have to accept that it’s not always possible to satisfy all the consumers. Some may get unsatisfied, but that doesn’t mean the end of the world. What’s more important is focusing on having a ratio of good reviews to those that are bad.

Making mistakes is better than faking perfection.

Finally, it’s always like Yin and Yang. There’ll always be something bad in good and vice versa. So better not fake it. Engagement with consumers should be natural and authentic. And reviews or ratings are the ideal platforms for that. The main focus should be on improvement, not perfection, because people like to connect themselves more with something familiar, not exceptional.

How to use social media platforms for business? & What’s best?

Social media marketing is the trigger of a Business gun! Just for it because small business can’t go for its success without being in the connection of Social media networking platforms. In today’s lesson, we are just likely to share our own knowledge that can drive a business to a huge profit!

For finding the best platforms of your choice, research is the best power. But, Our discussion can offer you free research on these following things and social media platforms. Let’s go and start!

Target your platforms:

Social marketing platforms are the crucial thing if you find the benefits from it once. You’re on fire because 93% of US marketers have at least one social marketing profile that engages them with even a million audiences. So, decide the matters, How you are going to use the social platforms for marketing and what is going to be best for you. It is essential for choosing the best platforms.

Because The right platforms can bring you success overnight, it’s not even impossible because rather than a website, for the small businesses, it is essential to have a social marketing profile. Most of the USA marketers are just friendly with Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, but there are lots of more platforms that let you get the right audiences for you.

We are going to discuss on the right platforms and even which one is suitable for you! For the first reason, be the decision-maker of the reason, Which platforms are fantastic for your business and marketing?

Follow great marketers:

If you follow a great marketer, you will see how they make the proper use of social media marketing networks. As well as all the marketers must get engaging here. High markets are always conscious of his social media networking sectors besides the website. Because a website that is necessary for the attachment. and display of a business as well as letting the audiences to read their valuable blogs.

But, the social media network has the power to engage a bulk connection with their users. Once you are in the relationship with volume audiences from different social platforms, trust me. You’re going to best response ever to your business. LinkedIn is in the trend of Today’s marketer trend, and You’re even going to love it besides the trendy networks.

Do the best posting from all the source:

Image, video, blogs, audio, and the infographic can be the best source to update your marketing media and the engagement of the customers.

Images can be the best weapon that lets audiences know about your market, businesses, products, brands, and efficiency not only that you can provide motivation and inspiring quotes to the viewers to engage them always in your touch. As well as, Images are the reflection of your business, and that represents your business to all the audiences among the networking sector.

Videos are important and let audiences know about the directories and the proper guidance of your business. And, the videos are very important for the marketing strategy. 83% of popular marketers make their best videos to expose their business, legality, guidance and the brand’s acceptance!

If you own a website, You’re surely enlisted with the amazing blogs?

As well as the traffic of your website is not only read your blogs, you can increase the blog readers to the thousand more with the social media platforms. Just use a simple trick, and that is to share your blog post’s link to Facebook, Twitter as well as pin them in the Pinterest dashboard. You can’t imagine how much success these can bring to your website. But, be careful about the amazing blogs exist on the website!

You can share audio sometimes, or the audio link exposes the secret and important details to your clients. There are many audio sharing sites that let you share your amazing concept and stories. Just provide the link through the social platforms and reach through engagement.

Infographics can be the best posture to make your audiences know all about your business within one portrait. It is amazing and efficient for this trending time to using the infographics. You can make many tools that allow you to make an eye-catching infographic! In addition, sharing these in social marketing media would be a great support to your business.

Okay now we are aware of the most beneficial parts of the social media sharing posts as well as it’s great for us to know, what are the great social platforms for marketing?

Facebook:

For the small businesses, Facebook officers the high opportunities, including its features. You can post images, videos and writing post and even your website link for uploading. About, 93% of marketers are much appreciated to use Facebook marketing, and it’s the strategy.

Statistics say that 63% of online shoppers go to buy something from here. Yeah, it’s true. You can go for the best marketing by creating a great page and attach all the services that include your offers for your business. Promote your page to the targeted audiences. Facebook has the opportunity to do the best for you. Try Yourself.

Twitter:

Twitter is amazing for the marketers that let audiences to use (#) hashtags for the relevant audiences. Also, depending on the trend, You can amazingly tweet about what’s on your mind. You can gain more real followers through Twitter because this platform lets you get the response of targeted audiences!

You can promote your website link, blog posts as well as Images and infographic for marketing sake. Also, you can be a verification badge holder if You’re great with thousands of real followers and create an efficient engagement in Twitter.

Instagram:

Instagram is another great platform that allows it’s users to share the story views that lasts for 24 hrs. Also, you can highlight the story views for more hours! As well as You can discover the most relevant clients from this platform and grow your business strategy.

About 63% of Instagram users are likely to watch marketing videos and choose a credible business to the shop. So, sharing marketing images and most importantly, videos can be the best trigger for you to develop brand promotion.

YouTube :

A blessing to all the happy marketers who would love to create a channel and boost it through other social media platforms as submitting the link or embed this video and share to the website. YouTube videos have more importance than sharing hundred of images sometimes.

It’s because, After Google, YouTube has the second-highest popularity for the most accepted by the audiences. So, boost your videos and promote your marketing through the YouTube platform. As well as get nonstop YouTube likes, comments, and subscribers that are the important ingredients of YouTube!

In our next Articles, we would like to discuss on the more important platforms to drive crazy traffics to your website and business. Till then, stay happy! Check out our previous article about Google reviews and business growth; it may help you more.

You can comment on us the valuable questions and know more queries. Thank you

How to earn Instagram followers and the total benefits

Instagram is the social platform that let audiences share their pictures, posts, videos, quotes as long as stories. With the great features, it helps a profile to get into the millions of people that can make a huge engagement. But, within all the best users, You should have done the best. But, how is this actually possible?

Let’s discuss the ways how you can develop the profile engagement as well as get good responses of audiences:

People are always trendy to find something new as well as finding something amazing to the posts. As well as when your profile is enriched with all the nice posts like beautiful days, passing moments and the story views attract people most of the time. People follow you once own the unique posts!

What are these posts?

Sometimes it can be the pictures you share to the Instagram and it says about the great moment you are passing with your friends, families, and businesses.

Or, the videos are most viral in the Instagram platform. So, you can easily let audiences know about something crazy going around you as well as entertaining them. So, videos can be the most strategic for engaging a bulk number of audiences.

“Quotes”. Another preferable word through the pictures that motivate people. And, You can notice the demand of the quotes not only in just Instagram but also in every social platform. Who doesn’t wanna gather motivation for free and quotes are the things that say a lot within some words?

So, share motivated, interesting and loving quotes that attract audiences easily. As well as be focused on the quality posts including the resolution because none likes the blurry pictures to see! Most importantly using the hashtag (#) can be the best strategy during the timing. Be aware of using the hashtags for the relevant keywords. Suppose if you are sharing a quote, You can use these hashtags like #quote #motivation #beinghuman!

It’s very effective for the reasons when people search for the same results, Your post appears for the very relevant result. So that you can earn appreciation as well as a great social exposure. Definitely, these help you to earn bulk followers as well.

Engage audiences through meaningful posts as well as entertain them. People would like to share you now and new people start following you and you earn a great number of followers within a very short period of time.

Let’s talk about the followers again for the reason we are all about explaining the best reason today.

How actually Instagram followers involve a business?

With the blessings of creativity, You can gain so many followers. But, the reason behind not gaining followers can be the obstacle like lack of popularity. It is important for all the Instagram profiles to have a great debut. As well as the new competitors are unsuccessful for most of the time. In case, as an opener, You can be the best part of Instagram followers just having some steps.

If you are not having enough followers, You can buy Instagram followers for the first time. It’s because as the new user if you debut in the Instagram platform, it really boosts your confidence for the first time. As well as you can create social exposure for a great time as well as new people start seeing your bio and posts and they follow you!

Now if you’re done with a great profile and followers, what kind of benefits you can earn?

· Appearing top in the Instagram search result:

Followers are the indication of your worth and it exposes the popularity you have gained in the Instagram followers. Instagram community measures the popularity of a profile through its followers. So, when you have 50k followers which are considered as the best among the all at the same community you prefer, You can appear for the very first time to the audiences when they search relevant to your profile.

· Global acceptance:

Global acceptance is the thing that includes the total connection between you and the audiences. As well as it drives the audiences like your page, comment and turn to the fan of you and have your services. It proves the total activity of your efficiency to the more audiences. As well as your profile works like the chain of command and connects the global audiences besides the domestic.

· Be trendy:

When you have better followers more than all the competitors around you, you are the trendy posture among your community or categories. So, people trust you more than other competitors more and you gain nonstop responses from the audiences. It makes you trendy among all opponents you have.

· Prove the efficiency and the capability:

This term is most appropriate for Instagram marketers to prove their business efficiency and the capability. Along with so many followers, it is possible to prove your business to the audiences. And, Instagram suggests you the best. You needn’t delay the timing of earning so many followers through the best services as well as maintaining the good communication skill with the audiences. Ask the followers through the “Tips and Strategic” portrait to share you.

So that you can earn too many facilities within a tiny time. Serving the best services and replying all the answers that asked to your business prove the capability of your business. And, It is only possible when you have the engaged followers who are active to your profile.

I believe you get the theory to earn nonstop followers through the entertainment and the explanation of the benefits of having good Instagram followers.

Thanks for being with us all the time!

8 Benefits of Google reviews that involve Google business

Both are different topics but involves each other all the time and all the spheres of the online business strategies. Google my business is the best platform to drive your business to a high position. So that a business can gain the best position with all the strategic confident.

How Google involves the business strategy? Read us!

Google has the most important opportunities to your business including Google reviews that influence Google map and for a website, higher rank. It can make you fly if you’re in the proper usage or You’ll be badly influenced no matter how well You’re doing genuinely.

About Google reviews

The most powerful strategy that represents a business with the positives or negative reviews. But, You’re obviously committed to getting positive reviews, right?

Everyone intends to get the best, definitely as you. But how Google reviews involve the business strategy?

A business needs caring for its website to grow faster. And 5-star reviews help a business to develop its ways for the very short time. As we all know, how much it’s necessary to have a proficient review of the business.

Because Global audiences are very trendy now to check reviews before choosing a business. The reason behind the reviews is business credibility, proficiency and the acceptance of the total audiences. As the positive Google reviews expose your business proficiency, same as that negative review decreases the reputation of your website.

How actually Google reviews are beneficial and growth strategy?

Disclose your business data:

When you’re efficient, You need to expose the business data to the audiences. Let them know about your business as well as make them convince about your strong acceptance. Business data is the thing that shows the clear insight of your business like how many are satisfied through your services and how many are badly influenced.

So, Google reviews prove the business data and customer satisfaction by exposing business data and says the audiences, I’m the best!

A clear sign to the question, “Are you capable”?

Yeah, Google reviews tell you every step, How to move further to a business. As well as it proves audiences about your business capability. How much you’re proficient to deliver the best services, audiences can find it by themselves through the Google reviews so that they find you quickly to pick services.

The capability is a big issue that influences your audiences. Whether they find your services amazing through the reviews, they come closer to your business and knock you fast!

Incredible response:

You get an incredible response from the audiences with the blessings of Google reviews. Google reviews offer the audiences to choose your business with no hesitation. 5-star reviews are the great achievement for any kind of businesses which are linked to the Google platform.

Negative reviews cause you a visual loss that decreases your reputation to the Google users. You can earn nonstop responses from Google users through the sake of Google reviews. Within so many responses you can get favorite clients that can force your business to go higher.

The clear indication of your success histories:

Success is the thing that has reflections in your business as well as when you have good reviews, people see the result themselves and decide to choose you if you have a positive knock!

You shouldn’t sit and write a blog to share the success stories at all because Google reviews explain the best successful histories with many people’s complications as well as their star reviews.

Positive Google reviews are the clear indication of your success behind Google my business and the success histories.

Engage global audiences:

When You’re indexed at Google, of-course You will be getting global audiences and How many of the websites are able to engage their global audiences?

Not the few even the great number of websites are available there in Google platform who engage their audiences for a long duration. Even they make their audiences impress to read their policies as well as their blogs. But, what makes them that much worthy?

It’s none other than their services, blogs, and facilities that offer the global audiences best connectivity. And, Attraction is the more powerful thing in case of choosing a business and websites relevant to the audience’s choice. So, when You have Google 5-star reviews, it helps your business to grow faster and engage global audiences. Undoubtedly Google reviews help audiences to find you.

Being credible portfolio:

Credibility is a thing that assures audiences about your business. And, when You have good reviews already that prove your proficiency among all the audiences. Google reviews are the strong evidence of your business natures and credibility. Accelerating the gear of a business is only possible with a credible portfolio.

If you have lack credibility, you have the lack of opportunities to prove a business. So, Go for the google reviews by asking your former clients and engaged audiences through E-mail campaigning or social media platform.

Visibility to the Google Map:

Using Google map can be the best successful trick for the success wishers. Because audiences find you easily through the Google maps and in case of direction Google map shows the clear paths to the audiences. In your town, You can be the most proficient and popular business if You’re using Google map.

These will develop your business to drive bulk audiences to the website. And in case of having good reviews are shown in the Google map clearly and that help your business to earn more capability to grow.

Reviews help you to earn a higher rank:

Google provides the best priority to a 5-star reviewed business and helps them to show in the higher rank of Google. So that, You can gain real audiences for the lasting plan. Be the best-reviewed business!

I wish we could explain the reasons behind the benefits of Google reviews that involve a Business strategy for a quiet period.

Thanks for being with us.