Online Reviews Management Tips For Managing Negative Online Reputation

Online Reviews Management Tips For Managing Negative Online Reputation

With tips from Sage Titans experts, learn how online review management may help you strengthen, preserve, and repair your online reputation.

You spend months crafting your brand’s message. You spend weeks creating an image that attracts customers. Contrary to that, it takes only one moment to vanish all those efforts completely. Even a click of a button can hit your brand big time. That’s how negative or bad reviews impact your brand online. 

After all, more than 90% of users are going online to purchase a product. But when it comes to reviews, as per a study, more than 50% of respondents confirmed that they are likely to share negative interactions with a brand on a review site or social media. This is why businesses need to be proactive when it comes to managing their online reputation.

Clearly, the best way to do that is the online reviews. Let’s give you an example. In 2016, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones were catching fire and exploding due to battery malfunction. Since the company faced negative comments because of this issue, their sales saw a drop by around 15%. In fact, the company had to recall the phones and refund its users and whatnot!

Can your brand afford a loss in revenue or product recalls? Of course not. Still, if you presume that online reviews can’t impact your brand, keep reading, and you will find out more!

Reasons Why Online Reviews Management Are Essential For Your Brand

The online world is quite overwhelming, and customers often look for different means to find some information before purchasing products. That’s how online reviews management come into the picture. Like it or not, people want reassurance. And that’s where they land up in sites like Yelp, Google Maps, TripAdvisor, whether they get to read past customer experiences directly from the source.

While the route might be different or the answers vary, around 90% of 18-34 years old trust online reviews, and around 93% of customers say online reviews influence their decisions.

Here are some more stats that you must know if you believe online reviews have no weightage for online purchases. 

• Customers are twice as likely to buy something after reading reviews. 
• Around 80% of customers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

Ideally, customers use review platforms like Google My Business, Amazon, Yahoo, BBB, Yellow Pages, Yelp, TrustPilot, YouTube, Facebook, and other sites. Let’s not forget that social proof is the level of credibility that your users provide to your brand. If you don’t think about it now, it might impact your business today or tomorrow. 

How Do Bad Reviews Impact Your Brand?

Before discussing how reviews can impact your business, it is essential to note that more than 97% of people who find businesses online patronize a company if they find it thoroughly reviewed online. Multiple studies confirm that people trust online ratings as much or even more than their family or friends’ recommendations or opinions. 

However, if your customer posts a bad review, it might impact the business. Here’s what the data suggests.

• If your business has around 3-star ratings, consumers would love to engage with your brand. However, if you have only a one or 2-star rating, only 13% of customers will think about using your business. 

• Four out of five customers decide to use a different brand if a particular brand gets a lot of negative reviews. 

In fact, your business might lose around 22% of consumers even with a single negative article if they are looking for a product. If more than 3 negative reviews pop up when they are looking for products online, the loss can increase around 59%. Did you know that even a decrease of a mere one star in Yelp rating can impact a business by reducing their revenue by around 5-9%?

In short, it might impact your business in the following ways.

• It drives away your customers. More than 90% of customers completely ignore the businesses with so many negative reviews. 

• It results in a loss in revenue/ profit. In fact, according to a study, more than 200k small businesses in the US earned 33% less than the average business when the customers gave them less than 2-star rating on Google. 

• It won’t only impact your ROI. It will result in a loss of reputation as well. Thus, customers will start questioning your quality. 

• It will impact your search engine ranking. The cumulative effects of your negative reviews might impact the authority and credibility of your business listing. 

Online Review Management Strategy

No matter whether it’s one or 1000, every customer interaction online means a lot for your business. This is why you need to consciously take some effort to take extra care when replying to those reviews. And when there are negative reviews, you must be extra cautious. This is why you must follow the tips given below to monitor and manage your online reputation.

Locate and identify online reviews using automated software:

You can’t take the next steps until you know where your customers are posting reviews about your brand. This will help you convert your negative reviews into positive customer experiences.

Identifying customer sentiments and introducing those insights to improve purchasing behaviors:

Many believe that the role of customer feedback isn’t more than just improving your social proof. However, it’s more than that. You can use such reviews to improve your services. For example, you have an app. Feedback from customers will help you find out what isn’t working properly instead of a general feedback about it’s not being good.

Identifying false reviews that are misleading or fake:

There are so many reviews left by your legitimate customers that experience poor service or products. However, there are situations when your reviews sites have fake reviews. Your competitors or bot sites start attacking your business using this method. This is why you must check your CRM or point of sale to find out whether the review was actually written by a customer. If someone is recommending a competitor, it means that your competitor is behind this review. 

Create a strategy that encourages customers to leave reviews:

Not every customer leaves a review or feedback, especially when they are happy about the product. However, they do it instantly if they are unhappy about your services. This is why you must create a review strategy that encourages your customers to leave reviews. Remember, the quality and quantity of online reviews impact your local SEO search results too. 

Work towards risk management, not crisis management:

A lot of companies think that managing reputations is about handling the threats that have already surfaced. However, that’s not the case. You must have a reactive approach that allows you to manage risks proactively. 

Responding to Negative Reviews: Tips to do it right!

You must develop a review response strategy that will allow you to resolve customer issues. Ideally, you must accept the following route to respond to negative reviews. 

Respond to negative reviews quickly:

You have heard “Time is money.” It is more appropriate when it comes to responding to negative reviews. It should never be an afterthought. Instead, you must make it a priority. Responding to them in a timely manner will allow you to reduce the impact of a negative review and handle the situation.

The quicker you respond to their complaints or disappointment, the easier it will be to make them feel you are sincere and value their opinions. Ideally, you must respond within 24 hours.

Acknowledge your customer’s complaint and make things right:

You have your business everything as a business owner. If someone attacks it with a bad review, you will feel bad. However, it can put a dent in your reputation. This is why you must acknowledge the complaint and let them know you are willing to see things their way.

Doing so will make them perceive your business as someone who cares about their users rather than just worrying about their revenue. Something like “We are sorry to hear this happened to you” will make a huge difference.

You must empathize with your customer:

Customers are the king. And if you keep arguing with them, it will undoubtedly impact your business. This is why you must empathize with them instead of making them look guilty. You must post thoughtful reviews which are to the point.

Take responsibility and act on the feedback:

The last thing your customer would want is to hear excuses from you. Even if you think it wasn’t your fault, you must take the moral ground and use a customer-centric approach. You can try responses like “we are sorry you have to face such inconvenience. We pride ourselves on our quality services and regret to hear that standard couldn’t be met. 

You must make things right for your customer. Make sure that you take things offline whenever you can so that they know you aren’t just a brand that follows “saying more than acting.” This is why you must manage your business reviews. 

Use consumer reviews as actionable insights to improve your customer experiences:

Review management doesn’t end at managing or identifying negative reviews. Instead, you can use them to find the loopholes and gaps to improve your customer experiences. You can also use the same to create a platform or environment where your customers will start leaving good or better reviews. 

But why must you do it in the first place?

Online Review Management Benefits

• Managing online reputation builds credibility.
• It helps companies to build brand image.
• It enables you to boost customer loyalty and trust.
• It boosts search engine rankings.
• It lowers the risk of revenue loss because of negative reviews.
• It boosts sales and customer retention.

Ideally, you must respond to all the reviews you come across when managing your company’s business listings and review websites. But as a brand, it might be difficult for you to scroll down every review manually or locate the reviews online. This is why you must take help from the review management company that allows you to automate processes in real-time. 

Prevention Is The Key Here: Go For A Reputation Audit!

When it comes to online review management, monitoring and managing online reputation must never be a one-time thing. You must use it constantly or else your digital footprint might be at risk of any negative review. This will allow you to uncover emerging reputational threats before they even cause damage to your business reputation. 

Managing multiple platforms to scan reviews isn’t an easy occurrence. This is why you need to opt for an online review management audit that will involve a professional deep scan of the internet. The experts will review and analyze reviews of each listing and provide an extensive overview of your brand’s online reputation. 

Once you understand your current reputation, the information will help you develop strategies to promote the positive aspects of your brand. It will be the first step towards long-term solutions that strengthen your brand’s reputation.

Final Takeaways: Manage Your Brand online Reviews through Sage Titans Online Review Management Solutions

You are putting more than just investment in building your brand. This is why taking care of its reputation online is very important and necessary, with millions of customers switching to online means for purchasing or finding a product. With the help of an Online review management company, you can influence customers and their perception of your brand. Not only that, it will motivate your customers to leave positive reviews as well.

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