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Why Choose Rize Reviews as an Alternative to Mailchimp for Email Marketing

Establishing long-term relationships with your customers requires sustainable solutions. For this purpose, using automated email marketing software is necessary to keep in touch with your customers at any point in their journey with your brand. 

Email marketing methods like email drip campaigns enable you to thank your customers after a purchase, ask for a review of your product or service, tell them about a product or service they might be interested in and keep them in the loop on huge company updates. 

Most businesses use popular email marketing automation software like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, AWeber, Constant Contact or ConvertKit. All these companies provide various features like drip email marketing, user segmentation, automation and recovery of abandoned carts. 

However, these services are still limited to sending customer emails based on a set of rules and conditions. Despite all of these tools trying to be the best email marketing software, some simply fall short.

Many companies might look for a Mailchimp alternative that meets even more of their needs. One example of a stellar substitute is Rize Reviews, an email marketing agency. Rize Reviews offers its clients email marketing automation and so much more.

In this article, we’ll learn why email marketing is important for businesses and why Rize Reviews email marketing company is not only better than Mailchimp but any other email marketing automation software out there. 

Why Email Marketing Is Important For Your Business

Creating email drip campaigns for your customers has many benefits. Some of the most important ones include:

Personalize Customer Service

Customers respond positively to a personalized communication that uses their names and they appreciate it if your drip email campaigns are relevant to their needs. Email automation software can apply a rule to segregate customers into different lists, and you can send different types of email marketing campaigns based on their assigned list. 

This feature is a valuable one for keeping your customers feeling like you know them well and understand their needs. Personalized communication and services build customer trust and loyalty, increasing your customer’s lifetime value and return on investment (ROI).

Save Potential Customers

The best email marketing software for eCommerce sites has an “abandoned cart” feature. When your user abandons their online shopping cart, your email marketing software can be set up to send an email to a potential customer reminding them that they left something on their cart. The potential customer is then given another chance to check out the item/s, with some brands offering a discount.

This is just one of the many examples of how drip marketing automation can help save a sale and boost conversions. 

Conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Asking customers for feedback is part of a proactive email marketing strategy. Surveys are great tools for gathering customer data and using it to improve your brand. Most consumers prefer email as a way to receive correspondence from companies, so emailing feedback requests can be the most effective way to get responses. A customer feedback survey provides valuable information over time and is worth adding to your drip marketing automation campaign.

Drive Traffic to Your Site

Whether or not your customers have used your company recently, sending them regular emails about your products and services can provide a steady stream of traffic to your website. It can also strengthen your content marketing efforts by sending out your latest published blogs or showcasing your social media campaigns. Email drip campaigns that include regular website content like a new product or promotion update help bring in more customers and increase your revenue.

What Is the Best Email Marketing Service?

Now that we’ve discussed why email marketing is important and explored the benefits, you might want to know what is the best email marketing service out there. 

Depending on your needs and budget, there are many automated email marketing software companies that provide various features that suit any size business. From a solo entrepreneur to an enterprise account, different automated email marketing firms have ready-made solutions.

Most email marketing services like Mailchimp, AWeber and Constant Contact all have basic and advanced features to implement powerful drip email marketing campaigns. 

From professional email templates to advanced audience segmentation, these tools help marketers execute well-designed email campaigns. But beyond these strong features, these services have limited capabilities due to being a software. 

So, what does Rize Reviews offer that these popular email marketing softwares don’t?

Let’s find out.

Why Rize Reviews’ Email Marketing Company Is the Best Alternative to Mailchimp

While Mailchimp provides drip marketing automation and email marketing automation with a lot of bells and whistles, they are not always what business owners need or want. 

Some brands want to use SMS together with email in their drip marketing campaigns. Other businesses want to create surveys and include them in their email drip campaigns. 

Most importantly, many business owners are conducting drip email marketing because they want to improve customer satisfaction and customer experience. In this case, Rize Reviews’ email marketing services are better than Mailchimp.

Why? Rize Reviews provides basic email marketing plus Survey Campaign Management, making it a winning alternative to Mailchimp. This feature focuses on collecting customer surveys and feedback to improve customer experience and generate more positive reviews online.

Let’s dive deeper into why Rize Reviews is an ideal Mailchimp alternative with the best email marketing software to boot.

Rize Reviews vs Mailchimp

When businesses ask “What is the best email marketing service?” they want to know exactly what every company offers and how it differs from others. Here is a comparison chart to further illustrate why Rize Reviews is better than Mailchimp as an automated email marketing software and service.

Features Mailchimp Rize Reviews Drip Emails Audience Segmentation Customer Support Analytics Unlimited Emails and SMS Review Management Customer Surveys SMS Surveys Mobile App Campaigns Loyalty Rewards Program Campaigns

Rize Reviews’ Survey Campaign Management includes:

Customer Surveys

Our email marketing agency at Rize provides three different types of customer surveys:

•  Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey – Customers are asked questions to rate how likely they are to recommend a business to a friend or family member. •  Customer Effort Score (CES) Survey – Customers are asked how easy or difficult their experience was while interacting with a business. •  Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) Survey – Customers are asked about their level of satisfaction with a specific experience with a business.

SMS Email Marketing

Rize Reviews does not limit its method of communication to only email. Our email marketing firm also sends timely and relevant SMS surveys and other content to the right customers who prefer to receive updates on their smartphones. Brands who like to communicate with their customers via SMS might find Rize email marketing services a great Mailchimp alternative.

Mobile App Campaigns

Rize Reviews drip email marketing campaigns provide specialized campaigns for mobile app installations. We provide effective email marketing strategies to encourage email subscribers to install your app. 

Loyalty Rewards Programs Campaigns

Rize Reviews can help you implement an engaging loyalty rewards program via email and SMS marketing. We create personalized messaging to impress your customers and build long-term relationships that sustain your bottom line.

In addition to our email marketing services, Rize Reviews offers more methods to improve online reputation and boost customer satisfaction. These are:

•  Rize review widget – Display your best reviews on your website •  Reputation management software – Monitor and manage online reviews in one place •  Review response service – Interact with customers using personalized replies to all your online reviews •  Review generation service – Increase your positive reviews

Conclusion

For most business owners, automated email marketing can be a daunting concept. It sounds complicated and technical, which is why most companies need help when using email marketing automation software. 

With Rize Reviews, users are not left to their own devices when conducting their email marketing campaigns. Our email marketing company provides human assistance together with an easy-to-use software. Our email marketing firm ensures that our clients understand how everything works and are guided through the process step by step, which makes Rize Reviews the best alternative to Mailchimp for companies who want in-depth assistance with automated email marketing.

Ready to try the best email marketing service for your business? Contact Rize Reviews’ email marketing agency for a free demo today.

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Why a Franchise Business Review Is So Important

Online reviews are a proven driving force behind business growth, particularly for local businesses trying to claim their share of the market. With more and more people recommending products and services on social media and review sites, other consumers are using online reviews as a way to decide whether or not to make use of a business. 

Franchise reviews, in particular, should be part of online brand reputation management for franchise owners to ensure long-term and sustainable growth. For businesses with multiple locations, having an enterprise reputation management goal is a must. It is extremely important to get more Yelp reviews or get more Google reviews to successfully create a reputable brand, build customer trust and apply it across different locations.

In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of franchise reputation management and how to get online reviews for franchises that can benefit the entire brand.

Why Reputation Management for Franchises Is Important

When you have dozens or hundreds of locations, building a brand that is widely recognized with a consistent brand image can be a challenge. Often, franchise business owners are not aware of the benefits that come with managing franchise reviews. Without a clear understanding of enterprise reputation management, they cannot expect to achieve stellar results, let alone implement an all-encompassing reputation management strategy to get more Google reviews.

Here are some statistics that illustrate the impact of online reviews on local businesses:

•  Eighty-seven percent of consumers read online reviews for local businesses (Source: BrightLocal)

•  Reviews rate as the third factor for ranking on search engines (Source: Moz)

•  Around 15 percent of consumers don’t trust businesses without reviews (Source: Status Labs)

•  Ninety-eight percent of Yelp users used a business they found on the site (Source: RevLocal) 

•  Five or more negative reviews can bring down sales by 70 percent. (Source: Martech Zone)

Judging by these facts, we can narrow down the main reasons why a franchise business review is crucial to business growth. Focusing on online reviews for franchises benefits not only your business but also your customers and prospective customers who are looking for the best product or service online.

Build Customer Trust

Customer trust is essential to an online brand reputation management strategy. Without it, your business might find it hard to succeed.

There’s no doubt that positive franchise reviews can encourage more customers to use your business. For franchises, having positive reviews on Google My Business (GMB), Yelp or Facebook can significantly increase customer trust and lead to more conversions. 

BrightLocal’s Consumer Review Survey indicates that 31 percent of consumers visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews, and 16 percent visit a business’s physical location.

Clearly, having many positive franchise business reviews is key to earning the level of customer trust that leads them to choose your business over your competitors. 

Get Better Search Engine Visibility

Moz has revealed that online reviews are the third-most-important ranking factor search engines use to rank businesses on search engine results pages (SERPs). This simply means that the more positive franchise online reviews your business receives, the better your search engine rankings will be. Better rankings mean showing up on the first page of search results, which helps attract more traffic and leads to your website. 

However, you need to ensure that most of your reviews are four-star or five-star – this is what tells search engine algorithms that a business is worth the high-visibility status. The purpose of ranking businesses based on online reviews is to present the best options for a person looking for this business. 

Increase Your Revenue

We’ve discussed the many ways that online reviews impact a business’s bottom line, but the most compelling proof comes from a Harvard Business Review study. It collected restaurant reviews from Yelp and compared it with the business’s revenue based on data collected from the Washington State Department of Revenue. The study found that a one-star increase in review ratings results in five to nine percent higher revenue. 

While this study may not apply to all businesses, it confirms the theory that positive franchise online reviews and ratings earn customer trust that leads to them making a purchase. If this is applied to a franchise business with the potential to scale, then even a small percentage of sales increase can be greatly significant if achieved in multiple locations. Ultimately, positive reviews impact corporate reputation management, provided the right strategies are implemented.

How To Get More Franchise Business Reviews

Many franchise business owners struggle to get more Google reviews, while those that do can’t seem to keep them coming on a consistent basis. Restaurants and service-based businesses also find it difficult to get more Yelp reviews. These are just some of the many challenges of generating online reviews for franchises.

Here are some tips that help with generating franchise online reviews that support corporate reputation management campaigns:

Provide Exceptional Customer Service

There is no fast way to get Google My Business reviews that speak positively about your business. Before you can create a franchise online reputation management plan, you need to set the highest standard for customer service in all of your locations. 

Every store in your franchise has to provide the best possible customer experience to earn positive reviews that strengthen your online brand reputation management campaigns. Training employees, gathering feedback and monitoring customer reviews are just some of the measures you can take to ensure your customers are treated well throughout their interaction with your business. 

Encourage Happy Customers To Leave Reviews

It is wrong to assume that all customers have the time or motivation to leave reviews – especially happy ones. Most often, it’s the disappointed customers that write reviews, which makes a negative impact on your reputation. 

One of the simplest franchise online reputation management tactics and review generation techniques you can implement is to ask customers to leave a review. 

Teach your store personnel to identify happy or satisfied customers and ask them to leave a review right after their purchase. If the transaction happened in store, then filling out a review survey can be a great move to immediately capture a positive review. 

Customers who are in a hurry can receive an SMS or email, allowing them to leave a review in their own time. Also, offer alternative channels on which to leave reviews, such as Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor or Google.

Develop Adaptable Review Management Strategies for Every Location

Most reputation management for franchises falls short because it is often too complicated or difficult to implement on a large scale. While every store might not be able to implement all your corporate reputation management tactics, at least make your plan flexible enough to suit the unique nature of a location. 

Get the buy-in of every store manager and listen to how they can personalize your strategy to suit the location’s target market. This process eliminates miscommunication and friction when implementing your strategy while making it more effective for that particular location.

If you are unsure how to do this, you can consult with a reputation management expert and get guidance on implementing a franchise online reputation management strategy that works for you.

Franchise Review Management Best Practices

Rize Reviews has worked with several franchise businesses over the years. In having done so, we have discovered many effective ways to get Google My Business reviews that are positive and make a good impact on a business. Here are some of the best practices we have implemented as part of our franchise reputation management services:

Personally Ask for Reviews

Nothing beats person-to-person interactions. Instruct your store employees to ask for customer reviews right after customers make a purchase, usually during checkout. You can use a simple review form or offer digital surveys like an email or SMS. 

For physical stores, Rize Reviews reputation manager expert Tim Clarke also recommends providing printed review generating assets, like a printed QR code or business card. 

Put a Review Button on Your Website

Just in case a customer wanted to find your business online and write a review, having a review button functionality on your website can help. You can use a review widget and install it on your homepage to make the process easier for your website visitors. This presents an opportunity for you to gain social proof right there on your site’s homepage, visible to all visitors. 

Always Respond to Every Review

Focusing solely on positive reviews is not a beneficial strategy for your online reputation in the long term. Responding to all reviews, especially negative ones, is crucial to the success of your enterprise reputation management campaign. Research shows that 45 percent of consumers will give businesses a chance if they see how well they respond to negative reviews. 

More importantly, responding to negative reviews can turn the customer experience around 360 degrees. The best-case scenario is that the customer changes the review from negative to positive. 

To make sure that all reviews get a response, you need a review management system that is easy to use and can be implemented across your organization. Rize Reviews offers a streamlined reputation management software and a team of reputation management experts to help you easily manage your reviews and boost your reputation online.

Get Started With Franchise Review Management Today

Whether you’re aiming to get more Yelp reviews or increase positive Google My Business reviews with consistency, it will be hard and challenging work. From having an efficient review monitoring system and review generating tactic to making sure that all your store locations are following through, there is so much that needs to be done.

If you want to secure the best possible results, you need the help of a reputation management expert with experience in providing effective franchise reputation management services. 

At Rize Reviews, we have highly qualified and experienced reputation management professionals who will offer their insight and expertise. We’ve helped multi-location business owners create a reputable online presence with our winning reputation management campaigns.

Get in touch with us to learn how our franchise reputation management services can help your business get more positive reviews today.

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What is a Customer Satisfaction Survey and Why it’s Important

Customer experience (CX) is fast becoming the key differentiator among brands, and searches for what is CX? have been blowing up for good reason. Studies show that 86 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, proving that customer experience – and customer satisfaction (CSAT), by extension – can make or break a business. This is why companies should prioritize CSAT and continuously monitor reviews and feedback.

One way to do this is through surveys. You’ve likely received these surveys yourself after purchasing a product or interacting with customer support. If you’re a business owner, perhaps the experience made you start questioning 1) the importance of CX and 2) what is CSAT. Let’s take a closer look at these concepts, as well as their benefits and methodologies.

What is CX?

So, exactly what is CX and how does it impact your business? CX refers to a customer’s experience with a brand. Customer satisfaction and positive customer experience are among the most important assets a company can have. Satisfied customers or customers who have a good customer experience are likely to stay with the brand, purchase more products and refer more people. It’s hard to retain dissatisfied customers, and poor retention may result in a reduced customer base. 

What is CSAT?

What is CSAT as a customer experience metric? It measures your customers’ sentiments regarding your products or services for a specific situation. A customer satisfaction score tells you if your products or services in such instances exceed, meet or fall short of your customer’s expectations. A CSAT score can also help you identify potential issues and resolve them at the individual and aggregate levels.

CSAT can be measured through a customer satisfaction survey. While modern companies understand the importance of gathering CSAT survey scores, not everyone knows how to create a customer satisfaction survey. Having a better understanding of customer satisfaction marketing and the different customer satisfaction metrics can help you create good CSAT surveys.

There are several agencies that provide survey campaign management services who can help you. Hiring a survey campaign management company can help businesses who do not know how to create a customer satisfaction survey and companies who need help with customer experience marketing..Furthermore, they review the results and respond appropriately to feedback, ensuring their clients have and maintain a positive online reputation.

What is a Customer Satisfaction Survey?

A customer satisfaction survey, also called a CSAT survey, is composed of open-ended and closed-ended questions about a business’s product or service, a customer’s brand loyalty and their experience with customer support or complaint resolution. A CSAT questionnaire may include other questions to better understand the customers’ wants and needs. 

Companies may have varied customer satisfaction score systems and they’ll need to factor this in when drafting their CSAT questions and creating their CSAT questionnaire. A customer satisfaction score could be tied to a numerical value based on customers’ feedback. In this system, a nine or 10 out of 10 (or a 4 or 5 out of 5) is a good CSAT score. Another company might instead base its CSAT score on retention and repeat customers. 

Benefits of Launching a CSAT Survey Campaign

Running a CSAT survey campaign has several benefits. Whether or not you get a good CSAT score, the survey campaign can generate a wealth of knowledge to draw upon.

With customer satisfaction at the core of product innovations, the feedback you get when customers answer your CSAT questions can help you improve your product or service. 

CSAT surveys also help identify potential brand advocates and improve targeting.

Data derived from customer satisfaction surveys can drive relationship marketing and customer retention.

Customers’ insights based on your CSAT questions can help you make informed business decisions.

How to Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey

Survey design is vital in survey campaign management. A survey campaign management company can take care of this for you. If you have an in-house customer experience marketing team or if you prefer to do it on your own, you’ll want to have a clear focus on the survey design and content to get the data that you need.

You have the option to use online survey tools that can help you with this. Most of them will have a customer satisfaction survey template ready, making the task even more convenient.

If you opt to do so, select a customer satisfaction survey template that matches your business type and survey campaign goals. Customize this customer satisfaction survey template by adding your company logo and changing the colors and design elements to reflect your brand ahead of inputting your questions.

Before you start formulating your survey questions, you need to set your goals and plans so you can design your survey around what you want to accomplish. What customer satisfaction metrics will you need to measure to give you the data you need? 

You need to be strategic because asking too many questions will make your customers abandon their surveys. One advantage of hiring a customer satisfaction survey company is they are well-versed in tactics that increase survey responses. Included in the survey campaign management services is sifting through your options and asking your customers the right questions.

Your survey method will depend on the customer satisfaction metrics you want to use:

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – This measures the customer’s sentiment regarding a specific interaction. Here are a few common questions that gather CSAT scores:

•  On a scale of one to five, how satisfied were you with your experience today? Please share additional feedback if you have any.

•  Were you satisfied with the level of support you received from our customer service agent?

Customer Effort Score (CES) – This measures the customer’s ease of experience in completing an action, such as completing a purchase or resolving an issue. Questions regarding this metric include:

•  Overall, how easy was it to book your online ticket with us?

•  Were you able to find the resolution you were looking for on the self-help page?

•  How easy was it to resolve your concern?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) – This determines referral potential and customer loyalty by asking how likely a customer would be to recommend a business to friends or colleagues. The survey question could be:

•  How likely are you to recommend the company to a colleague, friend or family member?

NPS respondents are categorized based on their scores:

•  Promoter – Good customer feedback examples are scores of nine and 10 (out of 10) or “Very Satisfied.”

•  Passive – Customers rate the experience with scores of seven and eight (out of ten) or “Satisfied.” This may seem like good customer feedback examples, but they’re not. These are the customers who may transfer their business to your competitors when offered something they perceive to be better than what they’re getting.

•  Detractors – Customer ratings are below seven out of ten. These customers are likely to leave bad reviews, not recommend the brand or transfer their business to your competitors.

There are various question types you can use for your CSAT survey.

Binary Scale: These questions generate dichotomous answers, such as yes/no or thumbs up/thumbs down answers. 

Semantic Differential: You can ask binary questions and use semantic differential scales in your CSAT questionnaire that allow gradations to your score.

Multiple Choice: This gathers categorical variables. Customers are presented with at least three mutually-exclusive options. 

Scale Questions: This is a commonly used survey design. Most NPS surveys ask customers to rate how likely they are to refer people to the company using a scale of 1-5, like a Likert scale.

Open-ended Questions: This type of survey gathers qualitative feedback that answers “why” to understand the customer’s value proposition.

How to Send Out a Customer Satisfaction Survey

Determine your survey recipients and decide on when to send out your survey. Most companies ask too late. Your customers’ feedback will have no impact in such cases.

Ideally, the surveys should be sent at different stages of the customer lifecycle. Covering more touchpoints gives you a better picture of your brand’s customer experience. A survey campaign management company or a customer satisfaction survey company can send surveys to all your customers, making sure no one is overlooked and no touchpoint is missed. Customer satisfaction marketing teams can segment your customers and send different surveys per segment, as well. 

A general rule of thumb is to send customers a survey immediately after a phone or chat interaction, after a purchase or after several days from when they log a complaint. Some companies send surveys to their customers six months after a transaction to check for customer loyalty. 

Comprehensive surveys are usually sent via email, although many companies are already utilizing mobile apps to collect consumer feedback. 

Regularly collecting customer feedback tells your customers that you are constantly working to give them a positive customer experience. If you only send surveys when customers are having poor experiences, they will get the impression that this is just a save effort and that you don’t really care about their satisfaction. 

And one final tip? Don’t forget to thank them for responding.

This may sound like a handful, but consistency is key. Many companies hire agencies that provide survey campaign management services. These professionals can take care of giving you relevant data from CSAT surveys conducted.

What to do Once You’ve Received Your Responses

It is important to analyze the data gathered for trends. If a significant number of respondents have given feedback regarding the usability of your product or on the customer support they received, it would be a good move to look into these. 

Driving customer satisfaction should be a company-wide effort, so it would be helpful to send relevant feedback to the concerned departments. 

Low CSAT, NPS and CES scores should be handled with care. It is important to reach out to the respondents and understand their reasons behind these scores. Implement customer experience marketing techniques and turn these experiences into marketing and retention opportunities.

A seven or an eight is not a good CSAT score. While the customers may have nothing negative to say about your company, these scores indicate that they may take their business elsewhere if they are offered something better. 

Hiring an online reputation management agency can take care of customer satisfaction marketing for you. These agencies use reputation management software and customer satisfaction marketing tactics, so you can turn a passive NPS score into a promoter score. Online reputation management agencies can also monitor feedback and reviews posted online and reach out to your customers.

That is not to say that you should disregard your satisfied customers. These people deserve more focus because they can potentially become your brand ambassadors – they are the likeliest to purchase more products from you and bring in more customers through word of mouth.

Most companies choose to display reviews on their websites with widgets. It’s a good marketing practice to ensure the visibility of good customer feedback examples because many people look to online reviews and recommendations to make their buying decisions.

Conclusion

Having an ultra-connected customer base makes it more important than ever to ensure customer satisfaction and to maintain a positive online reputation. Customers these days can conveniently share their experiences on social media and third-party review sites, and this can impact brand perception. Seventy-four percent of buyers consider word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their buying decisions and 92 percent trust their families’ and friends’ recommendations.

When you send and monitor CSAT surveys, make sure to close the feedback loop. You have the opportunity to resolve the issues of your dissatisfied customers and make them feel valued. You can even turn their experience into a positive one, and gain insights on things your brand still needs to work on. 

Bad reviews and negative feedback are inevitable, but when people see the company’s efforts to remedy the situation, they are more likely to have a better appreciation for the company. This is why many companies hire online reputation management agencies like Rize Reviews. 

Our Rize team of professionals can retain dissatisfied customers and grow a company’s consumer base. Rize Reviews uses technology and techniques to generate more feedback than any DIY campaign could. More importantly, we can constantly monitor feedback on all platforms and review sites and respond appropriately. 

By being ahead of your customers through strategic survey campaign management, you can improve your brand’s overall CSAT score and maintain a positive online reputation. In the highly competitive digital landscape, having a positive online reputation is key to your online success. Don’t know how to get started? Contact us today and we’ll be happy to help!

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How Online Reviews Influence Customer Lifetime Value

Online reviews and reputation management do more than just boost your business’s growth and conversions. Consider this long-term benefit: Online customer reviews have a significant influence over customer lifetime value (CLTV or CLV).

If you don’t know what CLTV is, or if you are not familiar with the concept, then it’s time to think about adding this valuable metric to your business strategy. Knowing how to increase customer lifetime value will help you understand the level of satisfaction your customers have in your company and what you can improve to serve future customers better.

In this article, you’ll learn how to increase customer lifetime value as well as how to calculate customer lifetime value. We’ll also illustrate how you can leverage online customer reviews to shape your business’s CLTV marketing tactics and increase your customer lifetime value.

What Is Customer Lifetime Value?

Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV) refers to the total revenue that you expect to generate from a customer. This is not an exact value but a predicted value based on the customer lifetime value formula (CLV formula). 

To get a better CLV, company owners implement a customer-centric approach to marketing, making sure that their customers are satisfied and plan to use a company’s products and services repeatedly over time. This is why successful companies learn how to calculate customer lifetime value. They invest in customer satisfaction and customer retention strategies to keep one customer happy for as long as possible.

Why Is Customer Lifetime Value Important?

Now, you should have a better answer to what is customer lifetime value? But you might have doubts about whether or not it should matter to you.

There are many reasons business owners should learn how to increase their customer lifetime value and use the customer lifetime value formula to determine an accurate figure. Here are some compelling statistics that demonstrate why understanding lifetime customer value is a big deal for any business:

• Existing customers are 60-70 percent more likely to use your business (Source: Altfield). • The Pareto Principle applied in marketing states that 80 percent of your revenue comes from 20 percent of your customers (Source: Marketing Insider). • Increasing customer retention by five percent can increase profit by up to 25 percent. (Source: Brain & Company). • Ninety-three percent of consumers are more likely to do repeat purchases from companies with excellent customer service (Source: Microsoft).

In a nutshell, businesses that implement an effective CLTV marketing strategy reap many benefits, including customer loyalty, revenue growth and a lower cost of customer acquisition. 

How To Calculate Customer Lifetime Value

What is customer lifetime value, and how can it be calculated? To answer these questions, you need to study the customer lifetime value model and the customer lifetime value formula. Here’s how it works:

Using the Customer Lifetime Value Model

The customer lifetime value model comprises the following values:

• Average purchase value – Total revenue in a given period divided by the number of purchases over the same period • Average purchase frequency rate – Number of purchases divided by the number of unique customers • Customer value – Average purchase value divided by average purchase frequency rate • Average customer lifespan – Average number of years the customer buys from you

With all these values available, we can now calculate the customer lifetime value with this CLV formula:

CLTV = Customer value x Average customer lifespan

Now that you know how to calculate lifetime value of a customer, you can assess whether or not this metric meets your standards and what you can do to create a customer lifetime value marketing strategy. Mastering the CLV formula can help you gain a deeper understanding of your business and whether or not your customers are valuable enough to bring you continued revenue.

Cost of Customer Acquisition vs Customer Lifetime Value

Another reason marketers learn how to calculate lifetime value of a customer is to compare it with another metric called cost of customer acquisition, or customer acquisition cost (CAC). Businesses look at CLV vs CAC to assess their lifetime customer value and how much they spent to acquire them.

Here’s how to calculate CAC:

According to HubSpot, an ideal CLV:CAC ratio is 3:1. This means your customer lifetime value should be three times the value of your cost to acquire them. 

If your CLV:CAC ratio is 6:1, then it might mean you need to put more effort into acquiring customers. If it’s the opposite, say 1:6, then you might be overspending on acquiring customers that don’t use your business for too long, as evidenced by the low lifetime value of customers.

How To Increase Customer Lifetime Value With Online Reputation Management

There are many methods of CLV marketing to increase lifetime customer value. Customer lifetime value marketing experts implement multiple methods to improve customer experience, build customer loyalty and bolster customer retention. 

In this resource, we’ll be focusing mostly on online review management and tailoring your reputation management strategy to strengthen your CLTV marketing efforts.

Here are some reputation management tips that you can use to improve your CLV marketing campaigns. 

Use Online Reviews To Segregate Customers

Most customer lifetime value marketing experts perform customer segregation as a means to personalize email and SMS marketing campaigns.

You can also apply segregation using customer online reviews. Based on your online review management data, you need to group your customers into three based on their feedback:

•  Satisfied Customers

Satisfied customers can be your brand’s best advocates. When getting positive company reviews from these customers, encourage them to share their experience with their friends and their social media pages, if possible. You should also feature their feedback on your website, blogs and social media pages.

Happy customers promote your brand to their friends and family, which is a huge asset to customer acquisition and increasing lifetime value of customers.

•  Neutral customers

If you have online customer reviews that are neither positive nor negative, take this as an opportunity to reach out and convert them into your brand’s advocates. Maybe they just had a small concern that prevented them from providing positive company reviews. It’s your job to find out how you can serve your customer better and these are the ones that are worth the effort.

•  Dissatisfied customers

Not all unhappy customers can be turned around, but despite their negative company reviews, there is hope. You can still use your best judgment to gauge those who have the potential to change their minds and become one of your company’s biggest fans. This takes a lot of creativity and caution, but when done right, gives you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to boost your customer lifetime value, one customer at a time.

Showcase Your Best Online Reviews on Your Site

Create a dedicated page on your website that features your best customer online reviews. A testimonial page is a great way to demonstrate social proof and gain customer trust. 

If you have WordPress, you can install a review widget to easily add customer reviews to any page on your site. Check out Rize Reviews’ review widget and see how easy it is to build a page that shows all your positive reviews from multiple sources like Google, Facebook and the Better Business Bureau. 

With a review page, you’re telling a story about your brand and how it has helped others in a way that feels genuine and authentic.

Respond To Customer Online Reviews on Time

Our reputation management agency, Rize Reviews, recommends responding to all customer reviews within 24 to 48 hours to boost customer trust and demonstrate your willingness to help.

Companies with an online reputation management strategy and review response in place understand that responding to reviews quickly and appropriately builds customer trust. More importantly, a BrightLocal survey shows that 97 percent of consumers read the company’s response to a review. Consumers are now paying close attention to online reviews and making their decisions based on them.

To ensure that you see all your reviews, you need a reputation management software like Rize Reviews’. Having an organized dashboard to view, respond to and monitor your online reviews is essential to quickly address all your customer reviews.

When prospects see that your company is actively responding to reviews, it lets them know that you care about your customers. This impression can push them to choose your company over a competitor because they trust that you are ready to fix problems if and when they arise. When you follow through with their expectations and deliver exceptional customer service, you’ve already helped your business boost the lifetime value of customers.

Use Customer Feedback To Improve Your Brand

Your negative or neutral online customer reviews can help you identify common pain points that your customers experience when engaging with your company. Being able to hear feedback directly from customers is valuable to your growth as a brand. 

With accurate data from your customers, you can use online reviews to improve your product or service, revamp your customer service processes or revise company policies to achieve better customer satisfaction and retention. 

Conclusion

Companies that recognize the value of existing customers know that providing the best customer experience pays off in the long run. This is why online customer reviews should always be a factor when implementing a CLV marketing campaign. The process does not need to be complicated, and any business owner can learn how to calculate lifetime value of a customer.

If your company does not have the staff or resources to implement online review management, you might consider partnering with an online reputation management agency like Rize Reviews. 

Rize Reviews offers review monitoring, review generation and reputation repair for any business that is serious about increasing its review ratings and online reputation. Check out Rize Reviews and get started with a better online reputation that improves your customer lifetime value.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/308ycyV

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How to Grow Your Franchise Business With Reputation Management

Online brand reputation management for franchises is a must in the digital age. It could be just what your franchise marketing team needs to unify network-wide efforts, boost individual franchisee performance and deliver on growth goals.  

Right now, your overall strategy may be cluttered, with each franchisee doing their own thing. Your current and potential customers may be confused about how to perceive you as a brand. It’s not going to change these conditions in a snap. Still, franchise online reputation management (ORM) can efficiently and sustainably transform critical aspects of your business, mainly brand image, search ranking, conversion and revenue. 

There are many steps to take before you can enjoy the rewards, but here’s the beginner-friendly route to achieving a stellar online reputation.

Why Is Reputation Management Important for Franchises, Specifically?

No matter if your online reputation is nonexistent, minimal or fragmented, your franchise business needs online brand reputation management. Ninety percent of consumers check the web and rely on reviews in making purchase decisions. Additionally, Google uses ratings and reviews as ranking signals to present relevant search results.

Harnessing the power of online reviews and having a cohesive strategy in place gives you at least two things: a consistent brand image and search engine visibility. By extension, you also standardize branding, marketing and customer service for your franchise holders. 

What Impact Can a Bad Reputation Have on a Franchise Business?

Low ratings and negative franchise reviews can drive away potential customers. Put yourself in the patrons’ or buyers’ shoes for a moment: If you find more and more people ranting than they are raving about a product, service or branch, that tells you something is wrong. You’d rather not give the brand or business the time of day if you could get a better experience from its competitor.

This kind of scenario shows how increasingly vital it is to focus on managing online reviews for franchises. Just as conversations are happening on the internet, usually at the local franchise level, so are complaints. Bad feedback can go viral quickly and shape public perception of your franchise brand. One misstep, and you can be caught in a social media storm, especially if it affects your customers’ lives directly.

Your bottom line could suffer from the damage, too. Learn from the Taco Bell crisis, in which a photo of a then-employee licking a stack of taco shells went viral. The image was shared and first spread on Facebook, putting Taco Bell’s food handling and sanitation measures in question. While the franchisee fired two employees, including the one who took the picture, the food chain reported a decrease in average sales per restaurant that year. 

How Can Reputation Management Help Franchise Businesses Grow?

Effective reputation management for franchise businesses requires a cohesive strategy. With this in place, the corporate office informs and trains subunits regarding best practices. At the same time, subunits freely share local franchise reputation management services and knowledge that would benefit the entire organization. The end goal: brand image consistency across the network.

A recognizable brand should also have a robust search presence. Good thing Google counts franchise online reviews and ratings in determining your search ranking. Franchise business review management can bolster your local search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, and the higher you appear in the search results, the greater your chances of being considered by high-intent leads. 

Your overarching franchise online reputation management strategy establishes brand control over your local SEO. In turn, franchisees still retain autonomy over their local activities, building trust among customers, generating conversions and boosting profits.

5 Tips for Effective Franchise Reputation Management

In maintaining a positive brand image across a franchise network, where do you begin? We put together this primer on reputation management for franchises to help you take initial steps:

1. Claim Local Business Listings

Make it easy for your target audience to find you. On top of having a corporate website, listing individual franchises on local business directories amplifies your visibility and expands your reach. Think about local directory sites as the Yellow Pages of the internet, which include Google My Business (GMB), Bing Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp for Business, Facebook, Apple Maps and Foursquare.

These platforms can be used as a franchise reputation management tool. Once you’ve claimed your business listing — which means registering and verifying your profile — you can enhance your profile by engaging customers through reviews. We’ll talk more about franchise online reviews below.

2. Perform a Local Franchise Online Reviews Audit

Whether you have 10 or 100 franchisees, being honest about where you are in terms of review response can go a long way. An audit can be a useful franchise reputation management tool. It entails some digging into how your subunits are replying to online reviews for franchises. 

Seeing how one location may be diligently responding within 24 hours while another does so irregularly can help you craft policies and guidelines for franchise online reputation management and responses to online reviews for franchises. From here on, you can incorporate them into your franchise agreement.

Some audits can be complicated and may require the skills of a reputation management expert.

3. Respond to Negative Reviews

Knowing how to manage all kinds of franchise reviews should be integrated into your strategy. Train your subunits to respond to negative feedback with promptness and care. Even when a user is aggressive or disrespectful, some level of franchise business review preparation affords you to be calm and aim to correct the situation. 

Remember that the exchange is happening online where potential customers lurk. The way you behave can show others how you treat customers, irate or not.

Meanwhile, responding to all reviews sends the message that you genuinely care about customers. It can also increase your ratings by 0.12 stars, according to a Harvard Business Review study. It may not seem much, but it makes a difference when you’re on a platform that rounds off average ratings. On TripAdvisor, 4.24 stars will be rounded down to 4, but 4.25 stars will be rounded up to 4.5.

4. Streamline Online Brand Reputation Management

Even if ORM is its own digital marketing channel these days, it’s inevitably linked to others such as SEO and social media. For instance, social media networks are instrumental in garnering franchise reviews and ratings.

One viable technique is to allow individual franchisees to handle their social media accounts and reply to their reviews, while the corporate level monitors reviews to ensure a developing crisis does not blow out of proportion. 

Of course, it’s easier said than done. Just remember what happened to Taco Bell. A slip like that, when a corporation already has an established system, can be costly, so do small and mid-sized businesses stand a chance? Definitely – if you’re willing to invest in an in-house ORM team or hire a reputation management expert.

5. Automate With Franchise Reputation Management Software

Proactivity is a valuable aspect of reputation management for franchise businesses. While you can wait for customers to leave feedback on your products or services, you can also prod them to do so immediately. Franchise business review generation is a legitimate franchise reputation management service. 

It would be tedious if you did it manually. But franchise reputation management software now exists for efficient rollout across your service locations. This franchise reputation management tool enables you to focus both on the quality and quantity of your reviews.

When To Work With a Franchise Reputation Management Service Provider

Reputation management for franchise businesses can be time- and resource-consuming. The strategy has to be unified, the standards high and the implementation impeccable. It’s an enormous responsibility for even a deep-pocketed corporation with a sufficient workforce.

If you’re wondering whether you need the help of a reputation management expert or agency, here are some guidelines you can use:

• Consider outsourcing franchise reputation management services if you have low human resource capacity for monthly franchise online reputation management audit. • Try automating processes using proven and efficient franchise reputation management software. • Tap into the strengths of an agency or consultant for a single franchise reputation management service, such as managing online reviews or online reputation repair for franchises. This should free up your resources to focus on sales, operations or a different marketing channel.

Key Takeaways

In this post, we’ve outlined why you need to do reputation management for franchises and do it now. But we’ve saved the best for last.

A Cornell University study in the hospitality industry showed that customers are 13.5 percent more likely to book a hotel with a one-point increase in rating based on a five-point scale. It also found that hotels with higher ratings and better reviews could charge more. This potentially considerable impact on your bottom line means your ORM efforts won’t be in vain.

We’ve also laid down the franchise reputation management tool kit for beginners and those who want to revamp their strategy. Our goal is to truly gauge how ready you are to employ this beneficial method for your franchise business. So if you believe getting help from someone who has done it all before will jumpstart your journey, collaborate with Rize.

Rize Reviews is a company that provides holistic franchise reputation management services to ensure your entire network maintains a positive brand image that leads to profitability. Our offerings range from franchise reputation management strategy optimization, review generation and review monitoring to reputation management tool rollout.

The free Rize review widget lets you display reviews on your website with ease and convenience, bolstering your credibility and ramping up our revenue. Through our reputation management software, you can tackle the unique challenges that come with monitoring and multiplying customer reviews for a franchise network.

Contact us to schedule your free audit and learn more about maximizing reputation management tools and techniques for growth.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/2OZ7XbQ

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Why It’s Important to Generate Reviews for a New Business

Business owners often struggle with learning how to get reviews when they’re just starting out. While most businesses understand the value of new business reviews, they are often at a loss for how to get them. So, how do small businesses get online reviews?

In this article, we answer the how and the why of business reputation management and review generation. We’ll study the common challenges and strategies to get reviews for small businesses and multi-location businesses.

Before we delve into how to get reviews for a new business, let’s first take a look at why it’s important. 

Here are some convincing statistics that prove how online business reviews can be of great value to your company:

Eighty-two percent of people read reviews about a local business.

On average, people read 10 reviews before trusting a business or brand.

Ninety-one percent of people are more likely to use a product or service if it has lots of positive reviews.

Why New Businesses Should Focus on Getting Reviews

Getting online reviews is challenging enough for a tenured brand, so generating reviews for new businesses could prove twice as challenging. However, experts and successful marketers have found that there is not much difference in approaching business reputation management for an established business from a new one. It might take longer to get reviews for small businesses at first, but the methods remain the same.

One advantage of small businesses over big brands is its freedom to be as creative and unique in implementing marketing strategies like review generation. While popular brands might be doing what’s expected, a new business has the opportunity to do the exact opposite, gaining attention as a result. 

Three Reasons You Should Get Online Business Reviews as Soon as You Open Shop

Online Reviews Drive Local SEO

Google has said, in so many words, that online reviews help increase your visibility in search results. The search giant has encouraged business owners to respond to online business reviews as a way to boost visibility across the search engine results pages (SERPs), and to get as many online reviews for your business as possible.

Listing your website on Google My Business (GMB) increases your chances of getting discovered by people near you. If you have great Google My Business reviews, people are more likely to click on your site. This platform is the most common resource to get reviews for small businesses.

The more interaction there is on your review page, the higher your chances of ranking on the first page of Google SERPs. Updated Google My Business reviews can also boost your website’s domain authority, which is another ranking factor for Google SERP visibility.

To get more information about setting up a business listing on Google and getting Google My Business reviews, visit the FAQ page for Google My Business.

Online Reviews Build Customer Trust

If you’re a new brand, chances are most people have not heard about you. With the power of online business reviews, your potential customers can discover the quality of your product or service from customers who have bought it and experienced your brand firsthand. The advantage of this is you don’t have to make much effort in convincing people to buy your product. You get reviews for your business by simply providing a great product and making your customers happy.

Online Reviews Boost Conversions

Studies show that online reviews have a direct effect on conversions and sales. Get one or two glowing reviews and you’re on your way to getting more leads and conversions. The more positive reviews, the more sales and revenue growth. A Spiegel study found that a business is 270 percent more likely to sell if a product has at least five reviews.

How To Get Good Reviews For Your New Business

Now that you’ve learned about the benefits of online reviews, the question remains: How do small businesses get online reviews? 

It’s easy to doubt your ability to get reviews for your business when you are just starting out, but remember that all successful businesses started out just like you – with a grand total of zero reviews. Most business owners, even popular brands, had to learn how to get reviews for a new business when they first started. There’s truly no secret formula for how to get good reviews, but you do need to understand what shapes a customer’s opinions and what leads them to writing a review.

The important thing to remember is that reviews don’t happen without investing time, resources and strategies. You have to proactively push for your customers to leave reviews. Getting reviews from customers is not as hard as you may think. In fact, BrightLocal’s 2020 Consumer Review Survey shows that 72 percent of customers will write a review when asked, which brings you to the initial step in getting your first online business review:

Ask Your Customers for Reviews

It sounds obvious, but it’s surprising how many businesses fail to do this. You likely want a steady stream of customer reviews, so you need to learn how to increase reviews over time.

Asking customers for reviews is the simplest way to consistently get online reviews for your business. There are many ways to implement this online review strategy. Here are a few examples:

Via email campaigns and customer feedback surveys

Via SMS after completing a transaction or purchase

Via a review page on your website or product page (on eCommerce sites)

Via a digital review form at the checkout lane (for physical stores)

Note that third-party review sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp have their own review guidelines, so study these to avoid violating review rules. Take Yelp for example: This platform, specifically, does not allow businesses to ask their customers to leave reviews as they want reviews to be fully organic and authentic. 

Focus On a Goal-Oriented Online Review Strategy

If you don’t know how to get online reviews for your small business, you might be tempted to try one approach after another, without getting solid results.

Rather than be in a constant trial-and-error phase, specify a goal that seems realistic to you. How many reviews do you want to get in a month? A great way to answer this question is to track how many sales you made and how many of those sales you would want reviews from. When you have the answer, create a strategy for generating these reviews that makes sense for your business. 

It would help if you devised a step-by-step method of creating your online review strategy. Basic review generation tips for an online review strategy start with:

Choosing a Review Platform

Which review platform do you think is easiest for you to get online reviews for your business? Choosing the right review platform might show you how to increase reviews for your business.

Do you want more reviews on Google My Business or other sites like Yelp or Facebook? Are you thinking about getting more authentic reviews from your customer via email, SMS or in-person surveys? Your choice of review platform can help you focus on a strategy that delivers better results.

Selecting a Review Management Tool

People are often at a loss when brainstorming how to get reviews for a new business because they don’t realize that there are tools to make it easier. Most businesses use a reputation management software to monitor and manage online reviews. Others have enough people to create a reputation management team who personally checks and replies to customer reviews. 

As your business grows, your methods might change depending on the need and your ability to afford an upgraded system. However, the goal should remain the same: manage new business reviews in a timely and efficient manner.

How To Get Good Franchise Business Reviews

Now that we’ve answered the question: “How do small businesses get online reviews,” we must discuss a different kind of business: franchises.

Other than new businesses, owners of franchises also struggle to generate reviews. With several branches spread across the country, review generation is often a challenge for most franchise owners and they might not be sure of how to get good reviews for all of their businesses. 

Most methods of getting great franchise business reviews are no different from typical businesses. However, there are some key areas that need to be more focused when it comes to implementing reputation management for franchise businesses.

Communication Is Key Between Branches To Ensure Customer Satisfaction

Multi-location businesses work separately from each other, but they need to deliver consistent service that is aligned with the company’s overall standards. Sadly, this isn’t always the case. Too many moving parts and not enough communication between branches can affect the quality of service provided to customers, affecting customer satisfaction in the process. 

Franchise owners need to train all employees to ensure that they meet and even exceed the quality of service they provide customers. Only then will the business succeed in generating positive franchise business reviews. 

Create and Implement a Reputation Management Plan Across Locations

When developing reputation management for franchise businesses, the challenge is often that it might be too complicated or difficult to implement consistently across all locations. To make sure that all your employees understand and carry out your strategy, make it simple yet efficient. Eliminate unnecessary steps and streamline the process of employees collecting reviews as well as customers giving them. 

For instance, offering a survey form during checkout might not be convenient for a customer in a hurry to leave your store, so you could send the survey via email or SMS instead.

When you focus on getting your staff and your customers excited about generating great franchise business reviews, you are more likely to achieve your goal.

Hire an Online Review Management Expert

Reputation management for franchise businesses is not always a top priority for franchise owners. While they understand the importance of generating franchise business reviews, they simply do not have the time, knowledge or resources to dedicate to it.

This is why hiring a reputation management company that offers its ORM strategies for franchises is an ideal solution that provides great results with minimal effort and investment. Not only can they help generate reviews, they can also help you figure out how to increase reviews to improve your review ratings and search engine rankings.

Start Developing Your ORM Marketing Strategy Today

Whether you want to learn how to get new business reviews or franchise business reviews, the best and fastest route would be to hire an Online Reputation Management or ORM marketing agency. An award-winning reputation management company like Rize has proven experience in generating reviews for any brand or business. You’ll get expert guidance on how to get online reviews for your small business or franchise with better results.

From review generation to small business reputation management, Rize can help you achieve a positive reputation for your brand. Contact Rize today for a free demo and get started with implementing a profitable ORM marketing plan.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/3dz0U4b

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How to Use the Rize Review Widget and Why It’s Important

What is a review widget? It’s an online reputation management tool designed to display customer ratings and reviews on your business website, attracting traffic, building credibility, driving conversions and fine-tuning your customer service.

About 92 percent of online consumers check online reviews. If you want the majority of your target audience to pay attention to yours, you may want to keep things centralized. Your website is a great place to gather your customer reviews from different review sites, and what better way to do it seamlessly than employing a review widget?

The Rize review widget is a powerful tool. It shows your reviews from platforms like Google, Facebook and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and allows your customers to leave feedback on-site. 

This post discusses how to and why you should take advantage of this free review widget. We’ll also touch on the enhanced version of our widget, which you can fully access via our paid software solution. But first, let’s talk a bit about the importance of consolidating what your customers are saying about you online. 

When you display reviews online, you encourage potential customers to deepen their understanding of your brand, products or services. Through customer ratings, rants and raves, you also enable them to find and decide on the right fit. You’re leveraging this phenomenon called social proof, in which people copy what other customers have done in hopes of making the correct choice about where their hard-earned money goes. 

Social proof marketing renders managing your online reviews, which is a part of online reputation management, a necessity these days. With unique and wide-ranging features, the Rize reviews widget empowers you to set up and manage yours effectively – and you can get started for free.

What Differentiates the Rize Review Widget From Other Review Widgets

The Rize Reviews team created the free (and paid) review widget to centralize your online reviews. Instead of deploying a Facebook review widget, a Yelp review widget or any standalone version, we combine all your reviews from dozens of trusted review platforms. This system sets the Rize widget apart from other review widgets because it’s an all-in-one version.

Here are a few more factors that make the Rize reviews widget the best review widget:

  1. It Pulls Reviews From 100 Major Review Sites

There’s no need for a separate BBB review widget, Yelp review widget, Facebook review widget or Google review widget for website integration. Rize is dubbed the best free widget because it displays reviews from Google My Business, Facebook and BBB.

Take note that the customer review widget for website service also has a version that is included in the paid Rize subscription. In this case, the widget includes reviews from over 100 sites, said Tim Clarke, Rize Reviews’ senior reputation manager.

2. It’s FREE and Mobile-Friendly

As we said, you can get the free review widget and cull reviews from three major sites or go all-out with plenty of customization options when you sign up for the Rize reputation management software. Whichever version you end up with, this online reputation management tool consistently displays well on mobile and desktop. Its grids adapt to the device or screen size of the user to ensure a pleasant user experience (UX).

3. It Comes With a Lot of Customization

The colors of the widget button can be customized in both versions. On the subscription software dashboard, you can make further changes like “only show the 4 stars and 5 stars. You can remove the photo [and] just leave the name. Remove the date or add the date. So there’s a lot of customization,” Clarke added.

4. Full Website Widget Management

The code for the free version will be sent to you, and you can embed it on your site with ease. Our paying customers have the advantage of reaching out to our client support. We would gladly configure the settings, generate the code and install the widget on your website for no additional cost. Or you could ask us to send you the code and have it installed yourself.

How To Use the Rize Reviews Widget (FREE Version)

The Rize review widget appears at the top of the results when you Google “What is a review widget?” This means search giant Google recognizes Rize as the best review widget for most businesses’ needs. 

What, then, are you waiting for? Here are the steps on how to get reviews from various platforms streamlined and showcased on your website: 

  1. Access the Free Rize Widget

Go to https://rizereviews.com/review-widget/. Scroll down a bit to find the button that says “Get My Free Review Widget” and click on it.

Alternatively, you can hover over “Services” in the navigation bar, which you can access from any page on https://rizereviews.com/. When the drop-down menu is activated, look for the “Review Widget” service and click on it.

Then, you will be taken to the login page.

2. Log In With Your Preferred Account

You can choose to log in from your LinkedIn, Facebook or Gmail account. Enter your login credentials for your selected account when prompted.

3. Customize the Widget Settings and Appearance

Once you’ve successfully logged in, you can start tinkering with the elements on the dashboard page. Here, you can customize the widget button color and circle. Enter the hex code of your preferred color for each field.

You can also hover over the color options box, as pictured below. Dabble into color theory to create a color scheme that aligns with your website theme and target audience.

Then, choose which side of the website you want the widget tab to appear. You can also opt to show or hide your aggregate rating.

4. Update Review Site Account Information

Now, it’s time to enter your Google service schema settings. The schema is a code containing data that will help us collect your Google reviews. Type in your business name and address, website logo link or URL, telephone number and address.

You will also be asked to add your Facebook and BBB URL. So make sure you have your Facebook and BBB profile pages ready.

Lastly, review the widget settings and then click the “Submit” button to save all the changes you made. The review widget then starts to gather customer reviews, which can take up to four hours. Afterward, your code will be sent to you, and you can embed it on your website to run the free review widget.

Here’s an example of how the Rize customer review widget for website pages looks, featuring the Rize website:

How To Use the Rize Reviews Widget (PAID Version)

Earlier, we said that you can also access the Rize reviews widget on the software dashboard. This version is available to our paying customers. The paid Rize Review widget is better because it provides more customization and design options. Check out the steps below to see what it looks like.

Here are the steps on how to display reviews online using this version:

  1. Access the Widget

On the left sidebar, look for Widgets >> Review Widgets.

2. Add Widget Content

Enter your widget’s name and content. You can choose to show the summary, review, or review and summary. Click “Next”.

3. Pick a Layout

There are several widget types to select from: slider, carousel, grid, list and quote.

List Type

Slider Type

4. Customize Review Sources & Other Details

This widget integrates reviews from exclusive review sources. In addition to the three offered in the non-subscription version, you have Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, Tripadvisor and Yelp. You can choose only what applies to your industry.

At the same time, you can tick off certain elements to display, as shown below:

5. Generate Code

Save your changes. If you’re knowledgeable, add custom CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to further alter the colors, fonts, etc. Or, you can request us to so without additional cost. Finally, receive your installation-ready code from us, or let us embed it for you.

Additional Tips

When users click on the widget tab, they will see your customer ratings and reviews right away. You can exclusively display the 4- and 5-star reviews from across the sites, reinforcing your social proof marketing plan. If you’re wondering about how to increase reviews, remember that a lot of positive reviews can affect purchase intent.

Okay, but what about the negative reviews? Here’s how to get reviews of this kind managed. When customers write a review on the website, the Rize reviews widget let them rate the business first. Then, the customer is directed to a private email form.

We allow the customer to complain or vent, and the email goes directly to us and our client automatically,” said Clarke. “So this allows the business to follow up with the unhappy customer. But there’s no bad review on Google. It’s all internal. And they can try to fix the situation and make the customer happier.”

The Benefits of Using the Rize Review Widget

  1. Collates Reviews That Boost Your Credibility

Eighty-four percent of consumers rely on trusted reviews the way they do personal recommendations. For these people, reading more positive reviews from reputable platforms increases their purchase intent. Showcase your glowing reviews and high ratings on your website and bolster your social proof with the Rize widget. It’s a BBB, Facebook and Google review widget for website pages rolled into one, so you’re sure it’s displaying feedback from credible sources.

2. Enhances Your Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts

Moz listed review signals as a local search ranking factor in a 2017 survey. This means search engines use customer reviews to rank the most relevant results. For instance, Google may consider how many reviews you have (review quantity), how often you get new reviews (review velocity) and how many review sites your customer ratings and reviews appear on (review diversity). 

The Rize widget packs all of these powerful metrics in one place, sending a strong signal to Google that your website is trustworthy. In turn, you’re positioned in front of your target audience, especially at your locale where your business can benefit from expanding.

3. Converts Site Visitors Into Paying Customers

Have you ever wondered how much influence online reviews wield on buyer behavior? Research shows that business-to-consumer (B2C) sales could rise by a whopping 166 percent when ratings, reviews, comments and other user-generated content (UGC) are integrated into eCommerce stores. Again, with the Rize reviews widget, you can put your social proof marketing gears to work, displaying feedback that compels visitors to complete desired actions.

4. Provides Insight Into Customer Behavior

Rize is the best review widget because it gives you insight into your customer base. Since it is more than just a Yelp review widget, Facebook review widget or Google review widget for website pages – but rather an all-in-one – you can look into the platforms that are popular to your customers. Then, you can target and engage with them where they like to hang out more online. 

5. Optimizes Overall Customer Experience

With Rize’s customer review widget for website service, you can embed customizable ratings and reviews to your site. You can simplify how to increase reviews by making the review field accessible with a few clicks. You can also respond to existing reviews promptly, whether they’re positive or negative, sending the message to your customers that you value their feedback. All of these work together to deliver a seamless and delightful experience to them, encouraging them to return and buy again from you.

The All-In-One Powerful Review Widget

What’s a review widget worth?

The free Rize reviews widget is an essential online reputation management tool because it efficiently consolidates your customer ratings and reviews from across the web. That makes it easy to monitor reviews, including bad ones. It also shows businesses how to increase reviews through social proof marketing and how to get reviews that sound more like angry rants fixed. As such, it is inexorably linked with the other services Rize provides, from review monitoring and review generation to online reputation repair.

By itself, both the free and paid versions of the Rize widget are a handy tool for attracting the majority of online consumers who like to check online reviews before making a purchase. It’s nifty and it packs a lot of punch. In fact, the widget is one of our most popular features. Why? Because in this increasingly digital world, it highlights customer feedback, which has an influential role to maintain just as word of mouth impacted traditional marketing. This is where the Rize review widget derives its power and purpose.

Download the Rize reviews widget for FREE and start reaping the benefits now! Better yet, sign up for a free demo to learn more about the paid review widget option and its benefits to your customers.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/3rEOWJR

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Why Showing Off Your Online Reviews Can Increase Conversions

Receiving glowing online customer testimonials is one of the best things that can happen for your business. As a business owner, it validates your purpose and builds your confidence in your value proposition. Positive customer or client reviews also boost your leads and increase your sales. When you showcase your online testimonials to your users, you are harnessing the power of social proof, which is proven to nudge a visitor into a lead and a paying customer.

Companies are now recognizing the power of social proof and how it can shape the future of their business. A Neilsen study reveals that 92 percent of customers are likely to trust non-sponsored recommendations, such as website reviews, more than any other form of advertising.

In this article, we discuss what is social proof and how you can use it to boost your brand and how showing off your online reviews can help grow your business.

What Is Social Proof?

In marketing, social proof is any type of recommendation, such as positive online customer or client reviews, that influences others to buy the same product or service.

Social proof is based on the premise that people will follow the majority and conform to gain social acceptance and because they believe that other people know more than they do.

A study, the Solomon Asch Conformity experiment, found that people are greatly influenced by a group of people with the same opinion. In social proof marketing, it is believed that humans are influenced by others when it comes to making purchasing decisions. So, more positive website reviews means more sales.

Website customer testimonials, client reviews on third-party review sites and social media platforms are examples of social proof that have the power to influence others to buy a product or service. 

Advanced digital marketers use social proof software and social proof platforms to manage reviews and monitor customer feedback across different sources. Data is gathered using these tools and a social proof marketing plan is implemented to focus on increasing review ratings and generating more positive reviews.

Why Should Businesses Care About Social Proof?

So, what is social proof going to do for your business and why should you care?

According to a recent survey, 82 percent of consumers check online reviews for local businesses. This means business owners can no longer ignore bad reviews about their business because other people are reading them online. 

Some businesses have used the dishonest tactic of writing fake reviews for their competitors in an effort to increase their review ratings. Being on the receiving end of this practice can greatly damage your reputation and affect your bottom line.

How To Use Online Reviews To Boost Conversions

As mentioned above, social proof like third-party reviews from Google or website customer testimonials can significantly increase your leads and conversions.

When people publish client testimonials about your business, it becomes fresh content that search engines are drawn into. As your social proof grows, so does your website’s SEO quality because of updated website reviews. Search engines like Google take these reviews into consideration when ranking your website.

 If you have a collection of glowing client testimonials, you need to let everyone know. Be proud of your existing reviews and take advantage of them in any way possible. 

Here are some ways you can leverage social proof in the form of online reviews to increase sales and grow your business

Use Your Customers for Social Proof Marketing

One of the easiest ways to use social proof without having to do much work is simply telling your customers to share their positive experience with your product or service on their social media profiles. For sharing on Instagram, you can assign a designated hashtag that your customers can use when talking about your brand. 

This method grows your brand’s visibility on social media organically. People trust other people’s opinions more than ads and brand promotions, so there is a great chance that these kinds of customer-generated feedback will result in new customers who are already convinced that they should buy your product.

Highlight Happy Customers

Share your customer’s excellent experience with your product or service. This can be done with a social media post on Facebook or Instagram. It can be a video or photo of a customer enjoying your product or service. Reach out to customers who are willing to share their story with others and let them show how great your business is.

Positive customer reviews instantly create a trustworthy image for your brand. Online reviews and website customer testimonials are strong social proof that your business delivers its promise to its customers.

A BrightLocal survey found that people are more likely to click on local ads with higher review ratings. This proves the theory that great customer feedback and client testimonials are strongly linked to customer trust and getting more leads for any business.

Use a Review Widget for Website

Have a page on your website dedicated to showcasing positive customer testimonials. You can have a professional web designer add this page to your site or use a review widget for your site. 

A review widget for website use is great because it’s easy to install and use. You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars for a web designer, and it can be done fairly quickly. 

Rize’s review widget is a free social proof software that can display multiple customer reviews from Google, Facebook and the Better Business Bureau (BBB). 

Here are some of Rize’s excellent review widget features:

•  Customized review feed with your branding •  Integrates with most websites •  Mobile-friendly design •  Full website widget management

You can get Rize’s review widget for websites along with its full-service social proof marketing services that include review response, review generation and reputation management software.

Display Real-Time Stats on Product Pages

Potential clients who visit your website because of positive reviews become leads that are more likely to convert into customers. These people have already read great things about your company, so there’s a better chance of them becoming a customer themselves.

You might have seen this strategy in online stores. When viewing a product page, a small pop-up on the bottom of the page shows someone from a certain location has ordered the product. Other times, there’s a small note on the bottom of the product description showing how many stocks are left or how many have been sold.

These subtle but effective visual elements are made with social proof software and social proof platforms designed specifically for eCommerce sites. 

Displaying real-time statistics on a page strengthens your social proof marketing strategy and improves your conversions as a result. It does a great job of pushing hesitant shoppers to click on the Add To Cart button.

Conclusion

Convincing people that your brand is the best need not be too difficult. With the help of a sound social proof marketing strategy and the right social proof platforms, you can boost brand awareness, gain customer trust and grow your revenue in no time.

Understandably, managing a business might not give you the luxury of time to focus on your brand’s social proof. In this case, hiring reputation management experts might be a more suitable solution. A reputation management company like Rize can handle your customer testimonials and manage them so you can improve your review ratings and achieve better social proof.

Ready to get help with your social proof marketing strategy? Contact Rize today.

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How to Sell Reputation Management With No In-House Team

Many digital marketing agencies are now offering white label reputation management as part of their services. This is no surprise, as the online reputation management (ORM) niche has grown significantly over the past few years, becoming a highly sought-after service. 

With the rise of social media and review platforms, consumers now have a voice that cannot be ignored. They can greatly impact how others perceive a brand with a quick comment and a push of a button.

While large, established agencies can afford to offer online reputation management with their own in-house, dedicated teams, other smaller agencies simply don’t have the resources This is why white label ORM marketing is gaining popularity among boutique agencies wanting to offer more to their clients. 

In this article, you’ll learn the basics of white labeling and how it can benefit your firm and your clients to partner with white label reputation management companies.

What is White Labeling?

White labeling simply means that a product or service is resold. For example, a clothing manufacturer can resell shirts by removing their branding from the products and letting the reseller brand and market its products under their own brand. 

Such is the case with digital marketing services like reputation management: A digital marketing agency can sell reputation management without an in-house team by using a white label service offered by white label reputation management companies. 

Agencies may be aware of what is white labeling, but may not know that this setup is an option for a service like reputation management. Let’s break down the process:

•  A white label reputation management company provides ORM solutions to agencies. •  Agencies rebrand and resell ORM services to clients. •  The reputation management provider renders ORM services on behalf of the agency, carrying the agency’s brand.

This process can involve providing a white label reputation management platform that the agency can manage on their own or outsourcing the entire ORM to the white label agency using their team of experts. 

What is White Label Reputation Management?

As mentioned in the definition of white labeling above, white label reputation management is the reselling of ORM marketing services to other agencies who want to offer these services to their clients. 

The smaller agency doing the reselling marks up the service costs to make a profit while simultaneously maintaining low overheads. This works because there is no need to hire an entire team to perform the service. A white label reputation management company can be a digital marketing agency or a reputation management firm.

White label reputation management implements combined marketing methods to improve a company’s reputation online. These methods can include:

•  Search engine optimization (SEO) •  Social media monitoring •  Online review management •  Customer experience management •  Reputation management software for agencies

The end goal of online reputation management, including white label ORM solutions, is to improve how consumers perceive a brand or business, creating stronger customer loyalty and revenue growth. A white label reputation management agency can help partner agencies solve a specific ORM problem faster and more efficiently.

Why Businesses Need Reputation Management

Because customers can easily write online reviews on Google, Yelp and other social media platforms, any brand can get either positive or negative attention on the internet. According to BrightLocal Consumer Review Survey, 82 percent of consumers read reviews about local businesses. In the same survey, it was found that 94 percent of consumers are more likely to patronize a business with positive reviews.

The numbers make one thing clear: Businesses benefit from a positive reputation. This is why more business owners are listening to customer feedback and improving customer experience. With a solid online reputation management strategy in place, companies can also protect themselves from possible reputation damage. White label online reputation management ensures a business can maintain a positive reputation and continue to hit its goals.

Responding to reviews, resolving consistent customer complaints and emphasizing your company’s best practices are just a few tactics that make reputation management highly valuable.

Reputation management is no easy task, because remember: Consumers not only make time to write reviews but they expect a business to respond to their reviews as soon as possible. This is where white label reputation management companies can swoop in and save the day.

The Benefits of White Label ORM for Agencies

If you manage a digital marketing agency and want to offer online reputation management at minimal cost, then white label online reputation management companies might provide you with the most suitable arrangement. Giving agencies the option to provide reputation management via the right white label reputation management platform is a win-win solution.

Here are some of the benefits of offering white label reputation management services to your clients:

Expand Your Offerings

Including white label online reputation management to your list of services can diversify your business and encourage faster growth. As businesses begin to realize the value and importance of reputation management and gain an understanding of what is white labeling, they will inevitably look to the best reputation management companies for guidance. 

Companies don’t have to spend on building their own ORM marketing system. Instead, they can get one of the best reputation management companies to provide them with the white label reputation management software and services that they need. There’s no need to hire a team for reputation management. With white labeling and hiring a white label reputation management agency, they can use a white label reputation management dashboard to monitor online reviews and respond to them.

Provide Long-Term Solutions

Reputation management can benefit a brand or business long after you have implemented ORM solutions with a white label reputation management platform. While other marketing strategies are also essential, reputation management has the ability to prolong the success of an entire digital marketing campaign. 

Because it makes such an impact on customer satisfaction, white label reputation management services deliver long-term benefits most other marketing methods can’t. Offering value-adding services like reputation management software for agencies ensures that your clients are investing in a solution that creates continued success in the future. 

Grow Your Revenue

Reputation management is a great addition to the services you already offer, providing excellent return on investment (ROI) in the form of revenue and customer satisfaction. Online reputation management also reinforces other marketing methods. 

The best reputation management companies bring added benefits to their clients. Positive reviews and mentions online can only mean a boost in visibility, which happens to be one of the goals of social media and SEO. On the other hand, a brand’s tarnished reputation can greatly recover with the right reputation repair strategy.

Reputation management is effective for enhancing your brand’s image, but ultimately also contributes to an increase in revenue.

Save Time and Money

What if your client comes to you for help with their online reviews? Businesses don’t often have the time to respond to hundreds of online reviews. For this, they need an expert in review response services as well as review monitoring. But what if your small agency does not have the bandwidth for that?

White label ORM enables agencies to expand their offerings without needing to hire experts or invest in software or manpower. They can simply outsource the service to reputation management experts who are highly capable of implementing ORM strategies using white label software and services to their clients. The process is simpler and easier to manage, which makes white label reputation management a great option for smaller agencies and other business-to-business (B2B) organizations.

White label reputation agencies can provide:

•  White label reputation management software •  White label reputation management services (review response, review generation and review monitoring)

A combination of these make up a full-service white label ORM solution that you can offer clients. 

White label reputation management software enables you to provide your clients with systems and applications they can use to implement ORM on their own. A white label software can make it easier for clients to track and respond to online reviews. More and more agencies are creating user-friendly white label reputation management dashboards that require little to no technical expertise.

However, clients who want to outsource an entire ORM system can opt for white label reputation management services. You have an option to focus on one, but having both service offerings will give your clients the optimal advantage.

Conclusion

Offering white label software and fully-managed reputation management services like review response, review monitoring and reputation repair can bring about significant growth to your brand and business.

It’s not enough to choose just any reputation management company. In a blog post for his website, marketing leader Neil Patel recognized Thrive as one of the best agencies offering online reputation management via its sister company, Rize Reviews. Rize Reviews is also a white label reputation management company for agencies interested in offering ORM.

In addition to a fully functional white label reputation management dashboard and reputation management software for agencies, Rize offers value-adding apps like our review widget that allows you to highlight your best reviews on your site.

Give Rize a try today and create the image you want for your brand.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/39pksFD

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How to Measure Brand Perception and Why it Matters

Your business exists in part because of the customers that choose to engage with you despite the plethora of options they can choose from. Many factors influence their purchasing decision, but the bottom line is that they choose you because they’re happy with your delivery, service, product and standards. While every customer will perceive your value differently, you need to ensure your brand perception stays positive to sustain your business.

Here’s the hard-hitting truth: You are probably offering the same products and services as hundreds of other businesses. Your customers choose you because of what they think and feel about your brand.

If every consumer were to purchase solely based on price, many luxury brands would be out of business. Attracting and keeping customers lies in how your brand is perceived overall.

But you can’t create or change brand perception — it’s your customers who decide. You can take impactful steps to influence positive brand perception, but your business will only ever be as good as what your customers perceive.

Instead of forcing an opinion on your customers with banner ads or billboards, you need to evaluate your customer experience from their perspective.

Find out what your customers are thinking and learn how to measure brand perception to equip yourself with a roadmap to improve your brand image.

In this blog, we talk about how your brand reputation affects your sales, ways to measure your customer perceived value and actionable tips to improve your brand perception. We discuss:

•  What is brand perception and why does it matter •  Three customer perception case studies •  How to measure brand perception •  What is perceived value and how to measure perceived value •  How to improve your brand perception

What Is Brand Perception?

Brand perception is your customer’s opinion about your business, shaped by their direct and indirect interactions with you. These interactions include watching a video advertisement, hearing feedback from a friend, or a first-hand experience with your customer support channel.

While you might be able to control your brand messaging, it does not define how your brand is perceived. One thing that directly affects your brand perception is your online reviews. These are unbiased public feedback published on independent review sites such as Google, Facebook and Yelp.

Businesses cannot directly control online reviews, and this is particularly why consumers trust them. Online reviews come from unlimited sources, offering an unmatched level of transparency that customers appreciate. According to BrightLocal, the average consumer reads 10 online reviews before feeling able to trust a business.

Online reviews basically equal brand perception now because everyone lives online. People judge you based on your social media and Google results,” said Tim Clarke, senior reputation manager at Rize Reviews.

Why Does Brand Perception Matter?

Your customers either lean towards a positive brand perception or negative brand perception — and this is what influences their purchase decisions. If they’re happy with you, they’ll likely become loyal customers and recommend you to their peers.

If your online reviews — and other elements that form your brand reputation — disappoint your customers, it influences a negative brand perception, and you lose out on valuable business.

Having a positive brand perception has almost everything to do with aligning with your customer’s needs and values as best as possible and making it known to your target audience that you’re making this effort.

For example, many studies have confirmed that the new generation prefers spending on experiences rather than material things. If you were a cosmetics business targeting the millennial segment for a new lipstick line, you would throw a launch party instead of just announcing that your products are available in store.

This way, more of your target audience resonates with your brand and will more likely become customers. To appreciate this concept more, let’s look at some of the most prominent success cases in brand reputation management.

Three Customer Perception Case Studies

It’s no secret that offering great products is the first step to a successful business, but it’s a commitment to a positive brand perception that can genuinely skyrocket a brand. Here are some of the best examples of what customer perception can do:

1.  The Hermès Birkin Bag

Birkins are the most expensive and sought-after handbags in the world. It targets wealthy people who value exclusivity and status symbols. To make its customers feel even more important, buyers need an exclusive invite to purchase a Birkin from Hermès. The message: You are special and part of an elite circle when you own a Birkin.

2.  The Nike Shoe

Nike commercials are famous for featuring some of the world’s greatest athletes, like Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James — champions who regular people idolize. Nike’s customers want to emulate their idols, and wearing the same shoes gives them that feeling. The message: You have extraordinary abilities when you wear Nike.

3.  The Apple Device

Apple products are named with ascending numbers (iPhone 10, 11, etc.) to label the latest and (current) best version. Apple developed its innovative brand image so well that customers don’t have to see the commercials to be excited about it. The message: You are among the brightest minds when you use Apple products.

Without brand reputation management, Hermès would be any other handbag store, Nike just another shoe store and Apple no different from other brands like it. These brands continuously invest time and resources to deepen their understanding of their target audience and improve their brand based on their customer’s needs and values.

To mirror this success, you need to measure your brand perception first.

How to Measure Brand Perception

Measuring brand perception is a vital undertaking for any business. Clarke says that business owners should care about their brand perception because it has a huge impact on sales and revenue.

It will make growth really hard if they have a poor brand perception. It also affects pricing and customer satisfaction,” he said.

Because monitoring brand perception drives your business’s success, you need a systematic way to measure your customer perceived value.

  Here Are Three Strategies for How to Measure Brand Perception:

1.  Brand Perception Surveys

The best way to know is to ask — but brand perception surveys are designed to extract metrics without being too explicit. One of the most popular survey questions is, “From 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?”

This question collects data for the Net Promoter Score (NPS), a key customer experience metric that predicts business loyalty and growth. Respondents who score a brand 9-10 are called promoters, while those who score 0-6 are grouped as detractors.

The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to give you an idea of your brand perception based on how many people would advocate for your brand.

Another survey question you can use is, “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the product or service you received?” This provides a straightforward Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) metric by asking customers to choose their answer from a 5-point scale: very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neutral, satisfied and very satisfied.

Including NPS and CSAT survey questions will reveal much of your brand perception, but you can pattern other questions similarly to gain a deeper understanding and eventually change brand perception.

2.  Online Review Audits

Online reviews are customer feedback that is already out there for everyone to see — some might overlook your brand perception surveys, but your online reviews are available anytime. Online reviews are critical to monitoring brand perception because of how frequent and detailed they can be.

A review typically includes a 0- to 5-star rating, a written testimonial and sometimes photo and video attachments. The review platform would provide your brand with an average star rating, a valuable CSAT metric to monitor. You can read your written testimonials to find common highlights and pain points among your customers.

3.  Social Media Monitoring

It’s estimated that half of the world’s population are on social media, and many use it daily. Monitoring brand perception on social media would be similar to how you would monitor online reviews, just on a much larger scale. It’s a big task, but it’s incredibly advantageous.

Social media holds the most authentic customer feedback: While some online review sites might censor foul language or restrict certain content, social media users have free rein. Thirty-five percent of American customers post negative comments about companies on social media, while 53 percent post positive comments (American Express).

Your social media mentions generally appear quicker than your surveys or reviews would, so it could be where you’d find your most current brand perception. A customized brand perception survey would provide the most in-depth metrics, while online reviews uniquely offer a combination of metrics and detailed information about specific customer experiences.

Each of these strategies provides a unique angle to evaluating your brand reputation and are all equally valuable. To complete your understanding of measuring brand perception, let’s delve into what is perceived value.

What Is Perceived Value?

We’ve discussed the value of brand perception and one thing was extremely clear — how people perceive your brand is not limited to individual factors such as price. To be more specific, customers perceive your value by weighing the costs and expected benefits of their purchase.

Perceived value is commonly described as the total customer benefit minus the total customer cost. This total includes monetary and non-monetary factors, as well as direct and indirect factors — meaning it isn’t something that can be calculated simply, as it is unique to every customer’s experiences and realities.

How to Measure Perceived Value

While some experts have shared ways to calculate customer perceived value, how to measure perceived value is certainly not a straightforward exercise. It involves taking your knowledge about measuring brand perception and segregating your data according to factors that fall under “expected benefits” and “costs.”

Here’s what you need to know: To increase your perceived value (and win more loyal customers), you need to significantly and actively raise the benefits of your products and services to exceed and justify all possible costs.

How to Improve Your Brand Perception

We’ve covered what is brand perception and how to measure brand perception. We learned that you can’t directly change brand perception, but you can influence a positive brand image.

Take note — if your star rating is less than 4 stars, only 53 percent of consumers would consider your business (BrightLocal). Taking active steps to improve your brand perception opens you up to more opportunities.

Focusing on your online reviews is the best place to start. Clarke shares that increasing the quality and quantity of your online review scores on many review platforms can “help you cut down on negative reviews and give your business a positive face.”

  Here Are Five Actionable Tips for Improving Your Brand Perception:

1.  Acquire New Reviews Consistently

Studies show that 70 percent of consumers will leave reviews if you ask. Having a robust review generation strategy means you consistently collect new reviews and receive up-to-date information to improve your business.

2.  Showcase Your Positive Reviews

A review widget is an online brand reputation management tool that features your 5-star reviews and positive customer testimonials on your website’s home page. This helps put your brand’s best foot forward and communicate your value through the eyes of your happy customers.

3.  Respond to Your Reviews

Ninety-seven percent of people (your prospects) read businesses’ review responses (BrightLocal), so it’s an excellent chance to impress your online audience. Make your customers feel valued by thanking them for their positive review. Politely acknowledge your negative feedback and use it as an opportunity to turn negative brand perception around.

4.  Involve Your Entire Team

Your commitment to improving your brand perception should trickle down to every member of your team. Maximize your online brand reputation management strategy and create a cycle of improvement from the customer feedback you collect.

5.  Hire a Professional Brand Reputation Management Agency

When you work with an experienced online reputation management agency, measuring and improving your brand perception happens much faster. Review requests are automated, your review monitoring is closely watched, and your review responses are humanized.

Rize Reviews is an online brand reputation management company dedicated to improving brand perception for businesses of all sizes. Our fully-managed reputation management software lets you send email and SMS review requests, receive alerts for your online brand mentions and conveniently respond to your reviews, all on one platform.

We help with survey campaign management and online reputation repair to give your brand more control over your brand perception. Our 100 percent done-for-you services helped this garage door repair company improve its average star rating from 3.0 to 4.6!

Contact Rize Reviews today for a free online reputation audit and learn how we improve your brand perception through a customized brand reputation management strategy.

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How to Respond to Teledoc Reviews

The digital age forced all industries to pivot and learn to operate virtually. For medical practices, the result is telemedicine or virtual doctor services — which became more relevant than ever in the recent pandemic. Medical practices are compelled to offer or improve their telehealth services, where telemedicine reviews have quickly become a valuable differentiator.

Telemedicine is the remote delivery of healthcare and clinic services through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) or electronic forms of communication.

Strictly speaking, telemedicine refers to clinical services, while telehealth covers remote healthcare services as a whole, such as provider training. But there isn’t an issue with using the terms interchangeably — and colloquially, telemedicine is referred to as teledoc or teladoc.

It’s easy to see why telemedicine is booming — a scheduled online doctor consultation beats spending hours in traffic and the dreaded waiting room. But in the recent pandemic, physically going to the clinic is either not possible or too tedious.

Between stay-at-home orders, physical gathering restrictions and strict sanitation protocols, a virtual doctor consultation is the best option. As more patients discover its convenience and practicality, telehealth will continue to grow — and your practice needs healthcare reputation management to rise with it.

Healthcare reputation management deals with improving your medical practice trust factors through teledoc reviews. You need the right telehealth review response strategy to maintain a positive reputation and improve your patient acquisition.

In this blog, we talk about how telehealth reviews impact your medical practice and specific steps on how to respond to teladoc patient reviews. We discuss:

•  The value of telehealth reviews •  How to respond to teledoc reviews •  Improving your telemedicine physician reviews

Understanding Patient Satisfaction and Telehealth Reviews

A positive patient experience is all about delivering high-value care and ensuring every patient interaction is delightful. The Accenture 2019 Digital Health Consumer Survey reveals that next to affordability, patients decide on a medical service based on convenience and reputation.

Additionally, more than half of respondents expect digital capabilities — increasingly influencing their decision on where to seek medical services. Focusing on showcasing your services through teladoc reviews will improve your patient acquisition and retention.

The relationship between patient satisfaction and teladoc reviews is simple — meet your patient’s needs, keep them happy and let your online doctor reviews showcase your superior bedside manner and excellent service delivery.

Online doctor reviews reflect your standards of care, and your patients decide if you’re the right fit. Patients trust reviews because they offer a customer’s perspective on your services, like having an online doctor consultation through another person’s eyes.

Some of the top platforms for online doctor reviews are Google, Yelp, WebMD and Healthgrades. Because medical practices have no control over these reviews, adding a layer of transparency patients appreciate.

Healthcare reputation management leverages online reviews as a measure of your patient satisfaction to place your best foot forward.

But telemedicine is certainly not without challenges. In positioning your practice for success, you need a firm grasp on your patient touchpoints to know how to best improve your reviews.

Telemedicine hurdles you should be aware of:

1.  Not everyone is familiar with teledoc

While many are comfortable in dealing with teledoc services, every patient’s level of understanding will vary. For example, when your patient is not tech-savvy, it will be easy for them to be frustrated with your process. Do your best to make your services inclusive.

2.  Your patient interactions are limited

Your patients appreciate the feeling of being valued. The natural challenge of virtual consultations is that it removes social factors like body language that help your patients feel that you care. It takes an extra effort to be sincere and warm through a camera or a phone call. Find innovative ways to build relationships with your teledoc patients.

3.  Your patient’s needs evolve

Especially regarding anything to do with technology, preferences change quickly. Your teledoc practice needs to continuously adapt to keep up with your patient’s requirements. And you need to showcase that you have what your patients need through online doctor reviews.

How to Respond to Teledoc Reviews

Responding to your teladoc reviews is just as important as receiving them. You need to respond to your reviews (the good and the bad) because it reflects how you value your patients and how committed you are improving your telemedicine practice.

Telehealth review response is critical to doctor reputation management primarily because your patients will read them. A 2020 study found that 90 percent of patients use online reviews to evaluate physicians (Software Advice). BrightLocal statistics show that from everyone who reads your reviews, 97 percent will also read your response.

Five expert tips on telehealth review response:

1.  Be HIPAA-compliant

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides strict guidelines on protecting patient privacy. It prohibits all forms of patient information disclosure. In responding to teladoc patient reviews, this means ensuring your response does not confirm nor deny that the reviewer was your patient, at the very least.

The best way to work around this is to keep your review responses general. Instead of saying “thank you for choosing us,” you can say, “we appreciate you leaving us great feedback.” HIPAA violations penalties are anywhere from $100 to $50,000 depending on the gravity of the offense, so always be on the right side of HIPAA requirements.

2.  Thank Your Patients

We know how valuable telemedicine physician reviews are, but they’re not easy to acquire. You can strategize to encourage customers to leave teladoc reviews, but that doesn’t mean they will act accordingly. For those who do take time out of their day to leave you positive feedback, show them you appreciate their time through a unique and humanized review response.

Reviewers who leave negative feedback also take time out of their day, so you need to thank them for helping you, with a response like “we appreciate all feedback that helps us improve.” Knowing you respond to your telemedicine reviews shows you value your patients and can encourage more patients to leave you the reviews you need.

3.  Offer a Resolution

Crafting general responses are simpler when the review is positive. However, you instinctively want to defend yourself when faced with negative feedback. Remembering HIPAA guidelines, you need to always remember to never disclose patient information, even if it’s to dispute their claims.

So, how do you resolve negative feedback? You can ask them to get in touch with you directly and discuss your engagement privately, as to not violate HIPAA regulations. A great response to negative feedback would be, “This experience falls short of our commitment to great service. Please get in touch with us through [phone] or [email], so we can make it right.” You may even turn their negative review around.

4.  Always Be Professional

No one would want to schedule an online doctor consultation from a teledoc service provider who responds rudely. This may sound obvious but seeing an upsetting review can trigger some healthcare professionals to react before thinking it through.

The best way to avoid this is to respond to reviews during downtime and when you’re in the best mood. In fact, even typographical errors in your review response can reflect poorly on your professionalism. Make the extra effort to be polite.

5.  Answer Quickly

Studies show that feedback through teladoc reviews shouldn’t be left unanswered for more than 72 hours. You want your patients to feel heard to improve the patient experience you provide. A dedicated telehealth review response service would be able to guarantee review responses within 48 hours.

These five basic rules apply equally to telemedicine physician reviews and traditional healthcare reviews — the online doctor reviews just differ in context. For example, using the Zoom video conferencing software would elicit Zoom telehealth reviews saying they waited in the virtual waiting room for a long time, as opposed to a physical location.

The goal is always to improve your reviews to grow your practice.

Improving Your Telemedicine Reviews

Here’s the most important thing you should know — you cannot avoid negative reviews. Miscommunication happens frequently, and you can only do your best to minimize issues.

Steps to take to improve your teladoc patient reviews:

1.  Manage Expectations

Telemedicine has many great advantages, but it also has its fair share of limitations. You don’t want your patients to feel disappointed for reasons that could be avoided by properly setting expectations. For example, there may be certain drugs that cannot be prescribed virtually or certain procedures that must be done in-person.

While most insurance providers accept telemedicine as valid medical services, it could be different for your patient’s particular provider and become upsetting for them. Improve your teladoc reviews by giving the patient everything they need to know and allowing them to ask questions before going further into your engagement.

2.  Address Platform Issues

As a non-traditional healthcare service, your teledoc practice is highly dependent on technology. You would often use third-party software like Zoom to examine your patients through a video call. If your patients encounter issues like faulty connection or spending a long time in the waiting room, this can lead negative Zoom telehealth reviews.

Even if you don’t control your patient’s experience on third-party platforms, it’s important for you to master them to be able to guide your patients from beginning to end. Improved knowledge of platforms like Zoom will influence better Zoom telehealth reviews and contribute to the overall smoothness of your patient experience.

3.  Monitor Multiple Review Sites

You need to make sure your average rating across the board is high and you are addressing your negative feedback as much as you can. One negative review is damaging, but to have too many in a single review site spells even worse news.

Here’s an example using Yelp, one of the most popular review sites. What you don’t want is for your potential patient to search “Teladoc reviews Yelp” and be greeted with tons of negative reviews that piled up from not monitoring the platform closely.

Your teladoc reviews Yelp score has suffered and it’s much harder to recover than if you had review monitoring in place. Keep an eye on your reviews so that the next time someone searches “Teladoc reviews Yelp,” your reputation is safe.

You can’t avoid negative feedback but there are ways to control it through physician reputation management techniques. Set the proper expectations, master your platforms and monitor your reviews — but it becomes easier when you get external assistance.

Hiring a Telehealth Review Response Service

A comprehensive healthcare reputation management service covers generating reviews and monitoring reviews, but in your field, a professional telehealth review response service is indispensable.

You would be guaranteed of HIPAA-compliant review responses and close monitoring of your online reputation across more than 300 review sites, while actively pursuing better reviews.

Rize Reviews is the professional healthcare reputation management service you need. We’ve mastered HIPAA regulations and we specialize in crafting pre-approved human responses to your teledoc reviews. At Rize, our review response time is between only one hour and one business day.

Our 100 percent done-for-you services include a fully-managed reputation management software that sends alerts for all your online brand mentions. On the same platform, we stay on top of your average cross-platform review ratings. We take a specialized approach to helping you recover from continuous negative feedback through online reputation repair.

Contact Rize Reviews for a free online reputation audit and discover how we propel your telemedicine practice through our expertise in increasing patient satisfaction ratings.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/3i7RYCS

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How to Respond to Online Reviews For Counselors

With a growing demand for mental wellness services, getting mental health provider reviews is more important than ever before. Online medical reviews have been a major contributor to people finding the courage to consider seeking professional help for their mental health.

Since the pandemic, the world has seen unprecedented challenges not just in physical health but in mental well-being. Whether it’s getting laid off, losing a loved one or simply being isolated from friends and family, there are many new stressors making life difficult for people who are vulnerable to mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

As more people type in search terms like “therapist reviews near me” and “psychologist near me reviews,” mental health professionals are increasingly being held accountable for their services and bedside manner. With Google as the go-to research tool most people use to learn about a business, mental health provider reviews can greatly impact mental health counselors or therapists and their practices.

Shifting Mental Health Services From In-Person to Virtual

Much of today’s negative mental health provider reviews are because of the shift from in-person therapy sessions to virtual ones. Most healthcare providers have switched to the tele-health or virtual model to avoid the risks of COVID-19 but a number of patients found it hard to make the adjustment and are unsatisfied with the quality of service in a virtual setting. These challenges contribute to the difficulty of dealing with new or disgruntled mental health clients online and responding to their Google or Yelp therapist reviews.

How Online Counseling Reviews Differ From Other Industries

Unlike restaurant or hotel reviews, psychologist reviews and ratings are subject to privacy laws that apply to mental health professionals and their patients. In addition to privacy laws, mental health counseling involves an emotional and personal investment that people hold in the highest regard.

Here are some challenges therapists and counselors face with counselor reviews:

•  Happy clients are reluctant to leave positive psychologist reviews and ratings for fear of exposing themselves. •  Responding to online counseling reviews can violate privacy laws because it will expose the patient to the public. The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) law penalizes health professionals if they reveal a patient’s health information without their consent and publicly on online platforms like review sites. •  Mental health counselor reviews can be highly subjective. One patient may have a starkly different experience than their counterparts, so reviews might not be consistent and may even confuse prospective clients. •  Negative psychologist reviews do not always come as a response to the therapist but other factors like insurance coverage, wait time and facilities. While some of these can be improved by the owner of the practice, some factors are outside of the therapist’s control. •  Considering the many unique factors that affect a counselor review, it is apparent that mental health doctors need a specialized method of responding to medical reviews.

How to Respond to Online Counseling Reviews

Don’t let privacy rules and certain difficulties limit you from implementing a review response strategy that strengthens your online reputation as a therapist or counselor. Although you need to be cautious, you also need to assure your patients that you care about the experience they have with you.

Here are some best practices when dealing with psychologist reviews:

List Your Practice Online

Is your practice listed on Google, Yelp or Yahoo? Having Google or Yelp therapist reviews visible for your practice can increase your lead generation and acquire new patient appointments. 

Until you’ve properly listed your business, you won’t have the best visibility online. When people search for “psychiatrist reviews near me” or “psychologist reviews near me,” they expect to find mental health doctor reviews to help them make a decision. 

That’s why you need to list and optimize your business so it appears on search engine results pages (SERPs) and not just review sites like Google or Yelp. Showing up on the first page of Google when a user types in “psychiatrist near me reviews” can help organically acquire new leads and patients.

Focus on Local SEO

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is a method of designing your content with keywords that would specify your location, narrowing a person’s search to his/her area and giving your practice more visibility on the SERPs. Some keywords you can use to optimize your business listings are:

psychologist near me reviews

psychologist reviews near me

psychiatrist near me reviews

psychiatrist reviews near me

therapist reviews near me

It’s important to include all possible terms to describe your business. The average person might not know the difference between psychologist, psychiatrist and therapist. A person seeking mental health professionals might search for “psychologist reviews near me,” while another one might use “psychiatrist reviews near me.” 

To cover all kinds of mental health doctor reviews, you need to have a diverse keyword optimization plan in place. Using all three keyword variations in your local SEO strategy can give you better results, so it would be wise to consider including “psychologist near me reviews,” “psychiatrist near me reviews,” and “therapist reviews near me.”

Acknowledge the Patient’s Feedback or Concern

Because patient information should be confidential, responses to mental health doctor reviews should not mention the patient’s name and any other private information. As a counselor, you can focus on the patient’s concern instead. Give the patient assurance that you have taken note of their concerns. Even if you can’t provide a solution right away, letting the patient know that you are working on the problem can make a big difference.

Here’s an example of how to respond to a counselor review:

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We are sorry to hear that your experience doesn’t match the high patient care standards we strive for at [name of your practice]. We would like to speak with you about this further and see how we can help. Please contact us at [phone number] or send us an email at [email address].

Take the Conversation Offline

Psychologist reviews and ratings, specifically negative ones, can often be a gateway for dissatisfied patients to start a lengthy argument with you. To avoid this, offer a way to reach you via email or phone (as shown in the example above) so you and the patient can come up with a resolution without violating HIPAA provisions and rebuilding customer trust.

Use Confidential After-Treatment Surveys

Even though therapists have the ability to understand a person’s mind, it does not mean they can read it. To pre-empt any dissatisfaction from patients, you can conduct a confidential survey for your patients at the end of their session. This will be voluntary and with permission from your patients, ensuring that it remains compliant with HIPAA provisions.

You can do this via email or a survey form that is sent out to your customers. This survey can help provide valuable information on what can be improved in your practice even before they show up online as psychiatrist reviews. 

Take Advantage of Anonymous Review Platforms

If you worry that Google or Yelp therapist reviews might violate privacy laws, try anonymous review platforms. Review platforms like Healthgrades.com are made for healthcare professionals, including mental health doctors. 

Patients and healthcare providers can freely communicate on this platform without violating privacy and confidentiality. Not only will counselors be able to reply to counseling reviews, but patients will feel secure in providing feedback knowing that their identities are kept private.

Seek Professional Help

For counselors or therapists with limited experience and resources for responding to online medical reviews, the process can get complicated and feel overwhelming. 

There are many online reputation management agencies that provide review response services as part of their reputation management strategy. By leaving the work to experienced and competent reputation managers, you can avoid mistakes and get the best results. 

Conclusion

COVID-19 may be a great threat to physical health, but it also greatly affects people’s mental well-being. Therapists and counselors have the crucial responsibility of helping people who are struggling in these difficult times. When people search for “therapist reviews near me,” you’d want your practice to be front and center – with mostly great reviews.

The best thing counselors can do is to listen to their patient’s concerns. That’s why monitoring psychologist reviews and psychiatrist reviews should be part of every mental health professional’s reputation management strategy. If you want expert guidance in responding to mental health provider reviews, check out Rize. Rize has experienced healthcare reputation managers who can help you implement reputation management and review response services.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/3bidXWj

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How Lawyers Should Respond to Avvo Reviews

Like consumer brands, industry professionals signal to their clients that they care and prioritize improving their service when they respond to online reviews. They show how they value feedback, which may have a positive impact on their search visibility and ranking. It is then crucial to consider this online reputation management (ORM) tactic and its incentives, since many potential clients are checking information online before contacting a professional. In particular, legal professionals can participate in shaping their online reputation by responding to lawyer reviews.

The American Bar Association suggested that prospective clients turn to Google to search for lawyers they heard about through word-of-mouth referrals. If you want them to find you, leveraging platforms dedicated to attorney reviews is one of the most effective ways to achieve visibility.

Avvo is one such platform. A website that lets clients find top-rated lawyers by location or practice area, Avvo attracts more than 8 million visitors each month. These mostly high-income, well-educated users rely on Avvo lawyer reviews to find someone they can trust for their current legal trouble or future legal needs.

But how do you benefit from being a part of a listing that comprises 97 percent of all licensed attorneys in the country? Avvo prides itself on credible reviews, and responding to your reviews on Avvo can help you gain more trust from existing and potential clients.

In this article, we discuss how to respond to reviews on the platform, both positive and negative, so that you end up in the company of those who have enviable Avvo attorney ratings. We cover:

•  The advantages of being listed on Avvo •  How important online reviews are to legal professionals •  How to respond to reviews on Avvo (including how to respond to negative reviews) •  The real deal with Avvo.com reviews

The Advantages and Benefits of Being on Avvo

Before we delve into the best practices for maximizing Avvo reviews, we should devote some time to understand why they matter at all to your law firm reputation management. You already know that the platform draws quality users. A Quantcast survey described typical Avvo users as:

•  U.S. residents •  College-educated •  18 to 49 years old •  Over 60 percent earning $60,000 per year (2009 figures)

Avvo serves as an online marketplace to connect clients and lawyers. It cultivates trust by providing clients with access to attorney profiles, the chance to validate or evaluate candidates and the ability to find the right person to work with. But what’s in it for legal professionals like yourself?

•  Solo practitioners and law firms rake in around $8 billion in revenue annually through Avvo. Also, “Avvo is unique because the individual attorneys and the law firms have separate accounts and unique reviews,” said Tim Clarke, Rize Reviews’ senior reputation manager.

•  As of publication date, it is ranked 9,673 in global internet engagement on Alexa.com, which is higher than most of its competitors.

•  A whopping 87 percent of its traffic comes from search, which means its links show up on the likes of Google or Bing and get clicked on by customers who are expecting to find something useful on the site. Half of the total traffic have urgent legal issues, which can result in a new client and immediate work for you, granted you have a convincing Avvo lawyer rating!

•  Site visitors can type your name via the Avvo attorney search tool or see your name on a list of top-rated lawyers by place or practice area. So, for example, a prospective client is looking for someone who can potentially represent them in legal matters or seek advice from. That could be you, and you’re just a few keystrokes away from garnering this new lead.

But before any of that happens, you need to claim your profile on the platform if you haven’t yet. Take note that your profile has a default lawyer rating Avvo assigns based on existing online data points. Then, you need to earn enough positive Avvo.com reviews to achieve the exceptional lawyer rating Avvo uses to position professionals in front of matched prospects. After all, online reviews play a significant role in getting you noticed.

How Important Are Online Reviews?

Avvo attorney reviews and online reviews, in general, are an integral business development tool. On Avvo.com, reviews and ratings affect how you attract the attention of prospective clients.

Responding to reviews shows that you are engaged with your clients. This is impactful both when the feedback from your clients is positive or when it is negative,” said Courtney Quigley, Rize Reviews’ reputation consultant. According to experts, knowing how to respond to bad reviews is a habit lawyers and law firms should cultivate. Quigley added: “In responding to negative feedback, you are showing your potential clients who are reading reviews that, even when your clients aren’t happy with the ultimate outcome, you will still do what it takes to make their experience a positive one at the end of the day.”

Yet, like any professional, you’re likely too busy to give reviews, let alone your Avvo lawyer reviews, a thought. We know it’s a tall order for you to manage your online reputation while handling your cases and running your firm’s daily operations. But there is no scenario in which you should disregard Avvo attorney ratings and lawyer reviews. You need both to grow your practice. Here’s why:

Reviews Build Goodwill

Your prospective clients are put at ease when they read positive reviews about your legal practice, which is incredibly valuable as most of them are in some sort of distress about their legal battles. Providing them with trust signals will help you establish an optimal lawyer-client relationship. Clients who research their prospective lawyer or evaluate their current lawyer through Avvo reviews tend to hire for the long term or want the best experience.

Reviews Help You Achieve Business Goals

Avvo attorney ratings and reviews offer a timesaving opportunity for gathering information about your law firm. Users can check out your data and know if you’re both aligned. Make sure your aggregated Avvo attorney reviews are in a strong position with review responses to demonstrate client-lawyer interactions, as this type of client feedback can generate leads or sales. If this doesn’t automatically yield revenue, it can at least funnel prospects to your site or compel them to call you.

Reviews Improve Search Ranking and Visibility

Lawyer reviews serve as a ranking factor, but not all online reviews are considered equal. It’s not surprising that client feedback quality is a dealbreaker. For instance, Google advises against fake reviews. From the user perspective, it’s also much more helpful to read comments that provide enough answers without being too complicated (and driving away readers).

The caliber of your preferred review platforms also affects your performance on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Registering and garnering votes of confidence on general review sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp are a given. But when choosing a niche platform, take note of critical factors like the total reviews generated per month, total users registered and if there’s a policy that promotes authentic reviews. Avvo ticks all the boxes. Its community encourages transparency and, with that, the reporting of Avvo fake reviews.

How to Respond to Reviews on Avvo

We can’t reiterate enough how vital it is to know how to respond to negative reviews and to prioritize learning how to respond to positive reviews. Either way, you need to bear in mind the following guidelines when you’re replying to your Avvo attorney reviews:

•  Timeliness. If possible, reply within 24 hours. Prompt response helps build trust, allows access to real-time customer feedback and even changes an existing negative review. •  Authenticity. Keep it brief. But reply to all, even bad, reviews. •  Compassion. Apply the classic lesson of putting yourself in the client’s shoes. •  Professionalism. Maintain a calm and understanding tone. Avoid arguing with the client because this sends a negative impression, which can have an impact on your Avvo lawyer rating. •  Eyes on the prize. Always strive for a resolution.

Most of the advice above answers how to respond to positive reviews. One thing to add is thanking the reviewer for their kind words.

How to Respond to Negative Reviews

Here are some recommendations and reminders on to how to respond to bad reviews on Avvo:

•  Don’t Be Defensive. Avvo lawyer reviews may sometimes point out a flaw or question your service. Keep an open mind and don’t attack the client. •  Apologize. Instead of saying you made a big mistake, apologize and aim to correct the situation. •  Keep It Private. Don’t divulge the client’s personal details. •  Take It offline. If the conversation is continuing, ask the client if you could move the conversation offline.

Bonus: In the case of encountering Avvo fake reviews, what can you do? Say, someone is putting your firm in a bad light, and you’re sure you’ve never met them or worked with them before. The platform advises initiating a dispute process. The false feedback will be removed while Avvo investigates, which includes verifying if the reviewer was indeed a real client of yours, and be reposted with changes depending on the findings.

The Real Deal With Avvo.com Reviews

In this blog we have discussed how online reviews can be one of the best referrals for your firm and how responding to them sends a strong message to your prospects that you value your clients. We have also touched on how to respond to bad reviews and how to respond to positive reviews. With each day of not following these guidelines, the opportunity cost grows: You could be bolstering your performance on SERPs and Avvo attorney search performance now.

But it’s also true that maintaining a timely, calm and professional response system on top of everything else you do won’t be possible without the risk of reducing the quality of your overall service. That is, it’s reasonable to expect that you may not be able to give your Avvo lawyer rating and reviews the full management focus it requires.

As a professional, you’re in the best place to recognize when you require help from someone who knows what they’re doing. These days, you can tap into the expertise of a partner to oversee all your Avvo attorney search efforts. No matter the level of involvement you prefer, a team of review specialists provides more than just assistance. Thus, it’s just as vital to find someone reputable to handle the repair of your Avvo fake reviews, the communication with past clients and the enhancement of the lawyer rating Avvo assigns to your profile by default. Such activities ensure your Avvo lawyer rating is up-to-date.

Rize Reviews comprises online reputation management professionals you can rely on to accomplish the most challenging tasks that come with maintaining a conversion-driven Avvo lawyer rating.

Tim Clarke, Rize Reviews’ Senior Reputation Manager, said “We work with dozens of law firms and individual attorneys that generate Avvo reviews through Rize email and SMS campaigns. They also respond to Avvo reviews by using Rize review monitoring emails and our dashboard. This saves them time and effort as it eliminates the manual step of checking Avvo for new reviews on a regular basis.”

Our legal reputation management services also let you put your best foot forward by aggregating your most outstanding reviews on your website via the Rize widget. Talk to us about how you can leverage our free 30-day trial.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/381akSs

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Happy Holidays from Rize Reviews

And just like that, the holidays arrived and Christmas is here. We hope you’re enjoying some festivities and merriment while surrounded by your loved ones.

This year, the holiday season has definitely lacked a certain joie de vivre, leaving some of the most joyful spirits feeling lackluster. However, spending this time feeling down won’t do any good. Now is as good a time as any to start some new Christmas traditions that’ll bring your family even closer together. This could be as simple as settling down to a selection of Christmas movies and hot chocolate this evening or pulling out the board games and puzzles. If you’re having a quiet Christmas, then embrace the downtime – we all need it after this tough year.

2020 is a year none of us will forget! Every single person has faced serious challenges over the past 12 months that most of us were not prepared for. The Rize Reviews team stepped back a couple of times during 2020 to take a breath and dig deep to keep on pushing and striving for our goals. But our tenacity and “never give up” attitudes have carried us through.

In our last week together, as we wished each other Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, we looked back at our achievements and smiled. Our team has achieved incredible growth this year and we are beaming with pride. Here’s why: We more than tripled our client base in 2020, which has helped us to more than double our revenue! We were also able to roll out our brand new review response service, which we have successfully implemented for 50 of our (delighted) clients across various industries.

But our success and our achievements are only possible because of you. We are incredibly grateful that you stuck with us, believed in us and had faith in our ability to deliver on your needs no matter what. It’s been fantastic working with you throughout 2020.

We’re looking forward to 2021 and we’re excited about what it may hold for our brand and our clients – we believe it will be full of opportunity! If you need our help to start 2021 with a strong customer engagement strategy and online reputation management plan, don’t hesitate to contact us.

In the meantime, let’s all embrace holiday-mode and enjoy some much-needed rest!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a joyful holiday, from all of us at Rize Reviews.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/2KqXB2N

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How Online Reputation Management Can Give Your Business a Competitive Edge

As the online marketplace becomes increasingly competitive, you need to find every opportunity to stand out. Online reputation management strengthens your marketing campaigns by highlighting your unique selling proposition from your customer’s perspective — through online reviews.

With online reputation management, your customer feedback does the selling for you and presents your value from your most authentic source: your customers.

When talking about having a competitive edge, we’re referring to the set of factors that make your business unique — the advantages that place you ahead of your competitors. Your marketing campaigns are essential in telling your target audience why to choose you. Reputation management services are equally vital and help your marketing campaigns showcase your competitive edge.

The role of a reputation management agency is to leverage your online reviews to win new customers. Paying attention to your online reviews is necessary because 82 percent of consumers read online reviews for local businesses and about 52 percent of consumers aged 18 to 54 always read reviews (BrightLocal).

When reading reviews, your target audience receives impartial advice that guides their purchasing decision. The quality of your online reviews can be the determining factor that turns a prospect into a customer.

You don’t have control over what your customers say but review management services and proven strategies can positively influence what people say about you.

This blog covers how review management services get your online audience to trust your business and consider you a top choice. We discuss:

•  Understanding online reputation management •  6 ways online reputation management propels your business •  Benefits of hiring a reputation management agency •  Future-proofing your business with the right reputation management company

Understanding Online Reputation Management

Generally, online reviews are published publicly on third-party review websites. This means that businesses don’t have control over the platform and can’t alter reviews in their favor. Consumers trust reviews because they offer unrivaled transparency of your products and services.

Online reputation management (ORM) leverages reviews to take control of how the public perceives your brand. ORM strategies that actively improve your business’s reputation include increasing positive business reviews online and managing negative feedback.

Studies show that 76 percent of people today trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. In the digital age, reviews are the new word-of-mouth — and you want great things being said about you online.

Reputation management services help your business maintain a positive brand image, instill trust in your online audience, attract new customers and build customer loyalty.

A robust business review management strategy includes:

1.  Review Generation

You need reviews, and 76 percent of people will leave one if you ask them (Bright Local). Review generation involves creating a plan and implementing a review management system for acquiring new reviews. It’s necessary to integrate your review requests into your core activities to continuously generate business reviews online.

2.  Review Response

Responding to your reviews reinforces your commitment to your customer’s satisfaction. Forty-five percent of consumers are more likely to visit you if you respond to negative reviews (BrightLocal). Crafting appropriate responses to your reviews shows you appreciate your customer and reflects your genuine desire to improve your business.

3.  Review Monitoring

Your customers can leave feedback on over 300 review sites (and counting). Online review management software or ORM software alerts you on your online brand mentions so you stay on top of what’s being said about you. You need to monitor your reviews to respond to them while keeping an eye out for unfair or fake reviews from people not in your database.

Why should you care about your business reviews online? Take it from BrightLocal statistics:

•  Consumers read an average of 10 reviews before feeling able to trust you. •  Increasing your reviews from zero to five makes purchase likelihood grow by 270 percent. •  If your star rating is less than 4 stars, only 54 percent of people would consider you.

Without review management services, you lose out on sales and possibly turn away nearly five out of 10 potential customers with a low star rating.

You need reputation management services to maintain a steady flow of reviews that serve as vital trust signals and make or break your sales.

Let’s dig deeper into the power of a robust business review management strategy.

6 Ways Online Reputation Management Propels Your Business

Your target audience appreciates the unfiltered feedback that online reviews provide. Even with your exceptional marketing campaigns, your business is only as good as what your happy customers say about you.

Take this example of two garage door repair companies. They would promote similar selling points such as their years of experience in the business or their service delivery speed, but leave their customers without an exact reason for choosing one over the other.

On a repair company review site, a customer who has availed services from both companies left a review saying the end result was the same. They preferred the first repair company because they answered phone calls quickly versus the other company that made them wait long on the phone. Something this simple could be the difference between a new client and a lost sale.

A review management system gives your business a competitive edge by placing your best foot forward through your customer’s experiences. You increase the reviews that aid your target audience’s purchase decision and let them determine your value for themselves.

Whether you hire a reputation management company or take matters into your own hands, here are six ways you can improve your competitive edge with business review management:

1.  Boosts Your Sales

A positive online review can go from being an ORM tool to a sales tool. Reviews serve as the social proof that your customer needs to decide to engage with you. As you improve the quality of your reviews and your average review rating, your target audience hesitates less and becomes customers sooner. Positive reviews make 91 percent of consumers more likely to do business with you (BrightLocal).

2.  Highlights Your Strengths

You want to stand out from your competitors, but what exactly makes you the best choice? In a sea of brands competing for a customer’s attention with ads, online reviews uniquely speak to your strengths based on your past or existing customers’ first-hand accounts. Your feedback can even be displayed front-and-center by a review widget, an ORM tool that features your positive customer testimonials on your website for maximum reach.

3.  Improves Your Online Visibility

To attract more customers, you want the best possible rankings on search engines. A core Google review management principle is that reviews serve as fresh and relevant content that improves your search position. Being more visible on Google is not only about having reviews but having many positive reviews. A robust Google review management strategy uses ORM to increase your chances of being featured on Google’s local search results.

4.  Gathers Valuable Consumer Insight

Monitoring your reviews allows you to get a pulse of your brand image at any given time. Review management software consolidates your online reviews on one platform so you don’t waste time sifting through multiple review sites. You use ORM software to see your reviews at a glance, then strategize on how to use your consumer insight to improve your business.

5.  Provides Necessary Damage Control

A single negative review can cancel out your hard work in maintaining your positive online reputation. Studies show that negative reviews make 82 percent of consumers less likely to engage with you. So, you want to make sure everything being said about you online is accurate and authentic with the help of ORM software. A damaged reputation can cause you to lose existing and potential customers.

6.  Positions You as an Industry Leader

If you want to be seen as a top choice for your customers, you need to look the part and have a better-than-average reputation. In the world of Google review management, this means having at least 47 Google reviews and having a star rating of 4.42 or higher (BrightLocal). Review management software automates your review requests to speed up the process of acquiring reviews and sends follow-ups according to your preferences.

In a nutshell, a robust online review management system focuses on giving your potential customers every reason to engage with you and avoids any reason for them to look to your competitors. You drive the best results with the help of review management software and a trusted reputation management company.

Benefits of Hiring a Reputation Management Agency

There isn’t an instant solution for increasing your online reviews and improving your online reputation — you need to stick to a plan and diligently encourage your customers to leave reviews. Fortunately, reputation management companies offer tried-and-tested ORM techniques to reap the best results.

Here are the top reasons you should hire a reputation management agency:

1.  Industry Expertise

Experienced reputation managers have worked with various industries and can apply industry-specific best practices to your ORM strategies. You skip much of the learning phase and begin improving your online reputation in the shortest possible time.

2.  Dedicated Reputation Managers

With reviews coming from multiple sources, you need more eyes to ensure your brand is being represented well online. Because negative press can spread quickly, your assigned reputation managers would act fast to prevent or contain its adverse effects.

3.  Professional Review Responses

Out of everyone who reads your business reviews online, 97 percent will read how you respond. Additionally, 53 percent of consumers expect responses to negative reviews in one week. Save your business time and resources when you leave review responses to the experts.

A top reputation management agency should be:

•  Innovative: Using modern ORM tools to make your strategies more efficient

•  Reliable: Easily contacted for immediate concerns and quick resolutions 

•  Results-Oriented: Able to maximize all channels and opportunities to achieve ORM success

Future-Proofing Your Business With the Right Reputation Management Company

As the business landscape continues to change, the need to strengthen your competitive edge grows. Craft innovative ways to showcase your value through review generation, review monitoring and professional review response strategies.

In times of economic downturn, you need to focus on the strategies that drive the revenue you need — and online reputation management will always be essential to driving more sales.

Rize Reviews is the forward-thinking reputation management company you need. Our fully managed online review management software is capable of sending unlimited review and non-review email and SMS campaigns. Our done-for-you reputation management services adapt to your ever-changing business needs.

We publish pre-approved and humanized review responses within 24 to 48 hours, according to your desired tone of voice. We quickly forward feedback on anything needing immediate attention and serve as an extension of your team, protecting your online reputation.

We use our Google review management expertise to skyrocket your search visibility and craft a customized review generation strategy that’s right for your business and industry.

Contact Rize Reviews for a free online reputation audit and begin reaping the benefits of online review management software expertise.

This article originally appeared at https://ift.tt/2LZfWUR

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How to Get More Google Maps Reviews

As consumers increasingly rely on Google to find products and services online, you need to ensure your business can be easily found. Google always puts the user experience first — it prioritizes convenience by suggesting credible businesses within close proximity of the searcher. And this is where your Google Maps information is key.

Around 46 percent of all Google searches seek local information (GoGulf). Without specific and optimized location information on Google Maps, it’s highly unlikely that Google will suggest your business to a local customer. Simply put, it can’t recommend what it doesn’t know and you lose out on local search volume.

But ranking high on local search results doesn’t only mean having a Google Maps location — it’s also about having a robust overall presence on Google.

A robust Google presence is built with local search engine optimization (SEO) techniques such as using keywords or your target audience’s search terms in your content to boost relevance, having positive Google business reviews and generating new Google Maps reviews consistently to make your business more credible and trustworthy.

Your Google My Business (GMB) profile is your identity on Google and critical to local SEO. You need to add your business information and complete a verification process on your GMB profile before you can have access to other Google tools such as Search, Maps and Google business reviews.

Four in 5 consumers use search engines to find local information (Think with Google). To capture a broader target audience, make sure your business shows up on Maps Google results with an optimized GMB profile. Implement tried-and-tested local SEO strategies to improve your rankings on local searches and boost your sales.

In this blog, we take you through everything you need to know about maximizing Maps Google features and reaping the benefits of stellar Google Maps reviews. We discuss:

•  Understanding Google Maps reviews •  How to add review in Google Maps •  Benefits of reviewing on Google Maps •  Why you need Google Maps Business Reviews •  How to get more Google maps reviews •  Getting Google Maps business reviews the right way

Understanding Google Maps Reviews

Filling out a GMB profile is a prerequisite to being found on Google Maps, but this step does not automatically mean your business will appear on Maps Google pin locations. You need to complete your profile and go through a verification process first.

For example, if you filled out your GMB profile but have not completed the verification, a user manually browsing Google Maps will not see your business name pinned. Additionally, if they make a generic search like “plumbing company near me,” your business will not show up on Google Maps results.

If your business is verified, your GMB profile, the business information panel found on the right side of search results, reflects “Manage this listing.” If your business is not verified, it would say “Own this business?” instead.

Here are three techniques to ensure your business is visible on Google Maps:

1.  Complete the GMB business verification process. 2.  Keep your business name, address and phone number (NAP) data consistent. 3.  Make sure your exact Google Maps location pin is accurate.

According to experts, there are many reasons why your business would not show up on Google Maps search results. But completing the above steps will launch you ahead in driving profitable results with local SEO.

Take your Google Maps presence a step further by boosting your local authority and improving your local search visibility.

Domain authority or location authority is how credible and established your brand (website and overall online presence) is in the eyes of search engines — particularly for local search results. The more authoritative a site is, the more likely Google would recommend you.

Here are three major drivers of location authority and improved local SEO rankings:

1.  Having an optimized GMB profile (accurate, verified and keyword-optimized) 2.  Having authoritative sources list or mention your business information (called citations) 3.  Having a high-quality and continuous stream of new Google Maps reviews

Out of these go-to local SEO techniques, the benefits of reviewing on Google Maps are a cut above. Exceptional Google Maps business reviews improve your local authority and directly influence sales.

To have a complete picture of the value of online reviews, let’s dig deeper into how to add review in Google Maps.

How to Add Review in Google Maps

You’ve probably done a Google search on “write review Google Maps” because you weren’t sure how to — and your customers likely feel the same way.

Because you know how valuable Google reviews are to local SEO and your sales, you’d naturally want to ask your customers for reviews. Before doing that, it’s best to take the guesswork out of leaving reviews and ensuring they skip out on the “write review Google Maps” step.

Google provides these simple steps on how to write reviews and add ratings of places:

1.  Open Google Maps and make sure you’re signed in. 2.  Search for a place, scroll down and click “Write a review.” 3.  Select a star rating to score the place out of 5 and add a written testimonial.

Google aggregates reviews to come up with an average star rating and display key customer testimonials on your GMB profile to serve as trust signals for your potential customers to assist in their purchase decisions.

Benefits of Reviewing on Google Maps

A 2019 BrightLocal survey revealed that 90 percent of consumers used the internet to find a local business, with 33 percent looking daily. Google Maps business reviews are crucial to attracting these customers for the following reasons:

1.  Google business reviews serve necessary trust signals or social proof for customers. Consumers read an average of 10 online reviews before feeling able to trust a local business (BrightLocal).

2.  Review ratings are the biggest driver of clicks on local search engine results pages (SERPs) (BrightLocal).

3.  Google confirms high-quality reviews and responding to your reviews are local search ranking signals. Review signals make up 15 percent of Google Local Pack (top three featured local search results) ranking factors (Moz).

In line with Google’s customer-first approach, it wants to assure your potential customers you are trustworthy and would never recommend a questionable business. The Google business review system benefits both the user and the business by enabling more successful purchases.

For the user, Google pushes business reviews with its Local Guides program where reviewers have a set of perks for actively reviewing businesses on Google.

For businesses, Google provides a way to create a link for customers to write reviews, bringing them directly to the page you want them to see. Additionally, you can respond to Google business reviews and work in some keywords for improved location authority and more ranking opportunities, significantly contributing to your Google Maps marketing efforts.

Why You Need Google Maps Business Reviews

We know that Google reviews favor both users and businesses, but the most concrete reason you need Google Maps reviews is because they help you rank in the Google Local 3-Pack or Google Local Pack.

It is the set of featured local search results at the top of SERPs (93 percent of the time), giving businesses on the 3-Pack the highest chance of clicks and potential sales.

To emphasize — without verifying your GMB account, you would not qualify for high SERP rankings and certainly not for the coveted Local 3-Pack.

To reap the benefits of the Google Local 3-Pack, you need to continuously strengthen your location authority and other local SEO ranking signals.

Here are the three ranking factors Google uses to form the Local 3-Pack results:

1.  Relevance: how well your GMB profile matches the search query 2.  Distance: your proximity to the user 3.  Prominence: your domain or location authority

Experts confirm that Google business reviews are the most important factor to ranking on the Local 3-Pack.

Google loves to display its Local 3-Pack of the top 3 closest businesses on the map. Companies with few reviews or a bad review score are automatically removed from this section and lose visibility and leads,” said Rize Reviews senior reputation manager Tim Clarke. He emphasized that not being visible on the 3-Pack hurts a business’s revenue.

How? Fifty-two percent of people say a physical address is the most important information and 38 percent are put off if there is no map or address displayed on search results (BrightLocal). Google gives searchers what they need through the Local 3-Pack.

How to Get More Google Maps Reviews

The best answer is that you have to ask for it. But it’s not entirely a daunting task — 76 percent of people you ask to leave a review will go on to do so. You need proactive review acquisition strategies done with the right timing to encourage customers to leave reviews.

Here’s how to get more Google Maps reviews with a robust review generation strategy:

1.  Claim and verify your Google My Business (GMB) listing

Achieving this step makes your business information and brand more visible online. Be sure to reflect all your business information consistently across all platforms and ensure accuracy by updating your GMB listing for changes such as new business hours.

2.  Make it Easy to Leave a Review

It’s a big enough task to ask for your customer’s time, so make sure your communications are explicit. It would help to have the words “write review Google Maps” loud and clear in the form of a button in an email or a link in a message.

3.  Send Review Request Reminders

We know all too well that, in any situation, it’s challenging to obtain your desired action the first time. Modern online reputation management software automates your reminders and increases your chances of successfully acquiring reviews.

4.  Maintain a High Average Star Rating

Having a 5-star rating earns a business 39 percent more clicks from Google local results than having a 1-star rating, and only 53 percent of people would consider engaging with a business with a rating of less than 4 stars. Ensure you don’t turn away valuable customers with a low star rating.

5.  Respond to Your Reviews

Consistent review acquisition paired with a proactive review response strategy creates a cycle of customer engagement. Responding to reviews will show the brand is engaged with customers and push more reviews. This form of online activity leads to improved location authority and better rankings.

Common hurdles in acquiring Google business reviews is getting unfair, negative reviews from competitors or consumers who are confused or malicious. Also, responding to reviews quickly and correctly is hard,” said Clarke.

An online reputation repair service can help you flag and remove invalid reviews (such as those coming from people not in your database) or unfair reviews that stain your brand image.

Get Google Maps Business Reviews the Right Way

We’ve gone through everything you need to know about the value of local SEO and Google Maps reviews. Here’s a recap of what makes a robust Google Maps marketing strategy:

✓  You need an optimized and accurate GMB profile ✓  You need to rank on Google’s Local 3-Pack ✓  You need consistently generate new Google Maps reviews

But getting reviews the right way means ensuring your methods abide by Google’s standards. Google has a strict set of rules on prohibited and restricted content which includes posting of fake reviews or using banned “black hat” methods that Google considers as cutting corners.

Rize Reviews is a full-service online reputation management company offering top-tier Google Maps marketing services. We are fully compliant with the Maps User Contributed Content Policy and ensure your business is favored by Google’s ranking algorithm and rewarded with the Local 3-Pack.

Our fully managed reputation management software can send unlimited email and SMS review requests to facilitate a robust review generation strategy. On the same platform, you can monitor your reviews and respond to your reviews to generate engagements consistently.

Contact Rize Reviews for a free online reputation audit and begin reaping the benefits of Google business reviews and consistent Local 3-Pack rankings today.

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Online Review Response Best Practices

The impact of customer feedback has never been more important than right now in the age of social media and online reviews. Brands and businesses have to pay close attention to everything their customers are saying about them online.

Consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. As such, many companies are learning how to respond to reviews to improve their customer experience and boost their online reputation.

Data has also shown companies that put in a consistent effort to respond to customer reviews enjoy continued growth and easily earn customer loyalty. This is why most online reputation experts recommend having a review response strategy to turn reviews into an opportunity to generate more leads.

In this blog post, we explore how to respond to reviews and how to use review response templates for all kinds of customer feedback.

Why Businesses Should Respond to Reviews

There are many reasons why a company should answer reviews online, but here are some of the most important ones:

•  Gain customer trust •  Improve customer retention •  Provide genuine solutions •  Boost customer experience •  Attract more customers •  Correct misconceptions about your company •  Educate customers about your products/services •  Demonstrate care for your customers

How to Respond to Positive Reviews

While most companies focus on responding to negative feedback, it is highly recommended to also respond to positive reviews. In addition to being great social etiquette, responding to a customer who took their time to write a review shows that you appreciate their effort. Here are some ways to discover how you respond to a positive review.

Positive Review Response Examples

1.   Hey [first name],

Thanks for leaving us such a wonderful review. We’re happy to read what you wrote. We put customer experience and satisfaction as our priority, and your review reaffirms the hard work we put in every day. So thanks for your kind words.

[your name]

2.  Hi there [first name],

We are happy to know that we are able to provide our services promptly and professionally. Thank you for recommending our services to the community.

[Your name]

Having positive review response examples ready can make responding to reviews faster and easier for you. It’s always wise to have more than just two positive review response examples so there’s a variety in your responses and you don’t sound scripted.

Keep in mind that although having a positive review response template helps save time, it is still highly recommended to personalize every response to a review. Always incorporate the details of the review into your responses so the reviewer knows that you are responding specifically to his/her review and not using a canned response.

Best Practices for Positive Review Responses

When customizing positive review responses, it’s always best to follow some ground rules. This way, you don’t have to keep wondering how to respond to a positive review. These best practices can help you deliver positive review responses that earn customer trust and loyalty.

Since positive review response templates can be quite repetitive, you still need to put an effort to change a few things as you see fit. Not all reviews say the same thing, and you shouldn’t be expected to respond in exactly the same way. The positive review response templates provided here serve as a guide and not an absolute rule.

So how do you respond to a positive review example? Here are some tips:

•  Respond Quickly

We recommend responding to reviews within 24 to 48 hours. A quick response shows your customers that you are always listening to feedback. It also demonstrates how serious you are in communicating with your customers even after a sale.

•  Use the Customer’s First Name

Add a personal touch in every response by using the reviewer’s first name, if available. Studies have shown that people are more likely to be attentive when they are addressed by their names. You’ll notice that most of the review responses examples in this article use the reviewer’s first name.

•  Ask for Referrals

Happy customers can be your best brand advocates. When getting positive reviews, always take the opportunity to ask your customers to share their experience with their friends and family on social media. This is a great strategy for getting new customers to choose you over the competition, as people are more likely to trust personal recommendations.

•  Share Positive Reviews

When you get a positive review, you would want your audience to know about it. Showcase your best customer reviews and testimonials and display them up on your website using a widget – an additional software or plug-in you install on your site to add a testimonial or review section. This helps to earn customer trust.

You can also share your best reviews on your social media profiles. Promoting your positive reviews is a great way to attract more customers and help them view your brand as trustworthy.

How to Respond to Negative Reviews

While negative reviews are generally seen as a difficulty for business owners to overcome, some of them can turn into opportunities for winning over dissatisfied customers. Learn how to respond to negative reviews in a way that can make the reviewer change their mind about your company.

Unfortunately, companies don’t know how to respond to negative reviews in a way that benefits them. These brands end up implementing bad review response systems. It’s common for brands to avoid replying to negative feedback because they feel it may not be worth the effort.

A Review Trackers survey shows that 45 percent of consumers are more likely to visit a company that answers negative reviews. This is a great example of leveraging negative reviews to earn back the customer’s trust.

Here are some negative review response examples to help you create your own review response strategy:

Negative Review Response Examples

1.  Hello [first name],

We regret that you are not satisfied with our service. Our job is to provide you with the best [service/product being reviewed]. We apologize for falling short and we hope we can make it up to you

Please reach out to us at [email or phone number] so we can discuss the issue further and find a solution.

{your name]

2.  Dear [first name],

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Your feedback will help us improve our [service/product] to provide a better customer experience.

Please reach out to us at [email or phone number] with any further comments or suggestions you wish to share.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

Negative review response examples can help you respond to every review, but you need to constantly revise it to make it personalized. The last thing you want your customers to feel is that you’re using a script to respond to their review.

Learning how to respond to a bad review example is challenging and can take some practice, but the more you do it, the more you perfect your method.

Best Practices for Negative Review Responses

  •  Respond to Every Review

Negative reviews, when unanswered, can be the start of a company’s demise. Ignoring negative feedback can do more harm than good for your business. While this sounds like a lot of work, there are review monitoring services you can hire to help you save time. If you are out of resources to deal with bad review responses, you can hire an expert team to do it for you.

•  Don’t Get Emotional

Getting bad feedback about your company is likely to affect your emotions. While this is a normal reaction, you need to stay professional and level-headed when responding to bad reviews. Keep in mind that customers will remember the manner in which you engage with them, especially when they are upset. In this situation, you need to show your customers that you can get past your emotions and focus on solving their complaints.

•  Verify the Review

Before writing a response, check your records to verify if what the customer claims is true – or if it is, in fact, coming from a real customer. In addition to ensuring that the complaint is valid, you can also flag fake reviews. Some negative reviews turn out to be fake and most review platforms allow you to report these fraudulent reviews. Once you determine the veracity of the review, you can respond appropriately and not waste your time on fraudulent or made-up reviews.

•  Offer Solutions

Whether or not you can fix the customer’s concern, it’s important to let them know what steps you are taking towards a resolution. Clearly state what has been done or you are currently doing to ensure that the problem does not persist. Customers don’t expect businesses to be perfect and they will appreciate a company that knows how to respond to a bad review example and works towards improving their service.

•  Provide Your Contact Details

Always provide an email address or phone number so the customer can reach you instead of having a back-and-forth conversation in the review section. Taking the conversation offline can help defuse the situation and make the customer feel taken care of. Some companies have learned how to respond to a bad review example by privately communicating with them and offering them solutions made solely for them.

How to Respond to a Fake Review

There are cases wherein made-up accounts in review platforms publish fake reviews. This is a practice where a company hires people to post fake reviews under a fictitious name. Most review platforms like Yelp and Google have systems in place to detect fake reviews. However, some fake reviews still end up getting published. Most businesses have no clue how to respond to reviews like these, or if they should respond at all.

While you don’t have to respond to a fake review, writing a quick reply to show other readers that the review might be fraudulent might prevent the review from having any merit — at least in the public’s mind.

Here’s how to respond to a fake review example:

Fake Review Response Template

Hi,

We appreciate your feedback. Please provide more details about your experience with us so we can verify with our records. You may reach us at [email address or phone number].

Thank you.

Best Practices for Fake Review Responses

Now that you’ve discovered how to respond to a fake review example, here are some helpful tips to further address the false review.

•  Flag the Review

Once you have responded to the review, you can then log on to your account on the review platform and flag the review for fraud. There is a chance that the review site will remove fake reviews. In case it does not get removed, it’s good to have a response to show other readers that the review might not be reliable.

•  Keep It Professional

As your business grows, you’ll encounter some fake reviews. Remember to keep your responses professional and straightforward. Learning how to respond to a fake review example helps your business stay credible in the face of a competitor’s unlawful practices.

How to Respond to Neutral or Mixed Reviews

Neutral reviews, which are usually a mix of positive and negative feedback, are great potential for you to win over customers who are on the fence about your service. Simply responding can make a difference.

Neutral Review Response Examples

1.  Dear [first name],

Thank you for your feedback. Every detail you provided will be helpful in reassessing and improving our processes. Rest assured that this has been raised to upper management. We do hope you find the right [service/product] that best suits your needs.

[Your name]

2.  Hi [first name],

While we are happy to know that you find our service [mention positive comment in the review], we apologize that [reiterate negative comment in the review]. Your feedback is valuable to us and it helps us improve customer experience. Please accept our sincerest apologies on behalf of everyone on the team.

[Your name]

Best Practices for Neutral Review Responses

Taking inspiration from neutral review responses examples can certainly save you time. However, if you want to customize every response, here are some best practices to guide you.

•  Thank the Customer

As always, thank the customer for the feedback. Let them know you appreciate their review even though it was not entirely positive.

•  Address Both Positive and Negative Comments

Be sure to acknowledge both positive and negative feedback in the review. Reinforce the positive comment. At the same time, provide assurance that you are working on improving the negative aspect mentioned in the review.

•  Take the Conversation Offline

Sometimes, reviews don’t provide enough information. If this is the case, give the reviewer the option to reach you via email or phone to discuss the matter further. Taking the review offline gives you the chance to better serve the customer and possibly win them over.

How to Respond to Google Reviews

Google makes up 57 percent of online reviews world wide. The platform is no longer just a search engine but a popular platform for customer reviews. What’s more important is that Google reviews appear in location-based search queries for businesses. If you have a brick-and-mortar business that’s listed in Google My Business (GMB), your customers can leave a review. Learning how to respond to Google reviews might be the most crucial skill you need to develop to maintain your online reputation.

Here are some helpful tips on handling Google review responses:

•  Respond Quickly

Time is of the essence when replying to Google reviews. It sends a message to your audience, as well as Google’s algorithm, that you take reviews seriously. They’ll recognize you as a business that knows how to respond to Google reviews. As a result, the person who wrote the review feels valued while others reading the response might see you as a trustworthy company that deserves their business.

•  Personalize Your Responses

Because most people are reading Google reviews and Google review responses, they’re used to seeing overused phrases in responses. To stand out, you need to put a personal touch and even a bit of a personality to your responses. Don’t be afraid to use humor or express enthusiasm when it is appropriate. Having your own way of responding to reviews sets you apart from the competition.

•  Follow Google’s Review Policies

Before answering reviews on Google, make sure to go over their Review Policies. Google has an extensive list of prohibited and restricted content that applies to reviews. This includes off-topic, spam, fake, illegal and offensive content. Violating these policies can cause problems for your business listing, which you need to avoid as much as possible so your Google review responses stay within their rules.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that monitoring online reviews and how you respond to them is one of the best practices to maintain your online reputation. With the right strategy, you can turn any review into a way for your business to grow. Keeping your customer’s best interest at heart is crucial to avoid bad review responses. We hope that the review responses examples given will help you with creating your own review response strategy.

While you can implement a review response strategy within your company, it’s always a good idea to hire reputation management experts. An online reputation management agency like Rize Reviews can be a great investment for building a brand that customers trust.

Rize provides personalized review response services that boost positive customer feedback while managing negative ones. Contact Rize today and get started with better review responses that bring you more customers.

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