Studies used to say a happy customer tells 2-3 people but an unhappy one tells 8-10. But in this age of social networks – you can add a zero or maybe even two to end of those numbers. Online reputation monitoring matters. It often is the o...nly discernible way for a potential customer to differentiate between calling you or your closest competitor for a quote. Customers don’t have to be savvy internet detectives to research your company online. Often just searching for your business category will pop up your company high in the search results because monsters like Google Places (discussed last time), BBB and Yelp tend to pop to the top and display lists of companies along with star ratings and comments.
Of course no business can't please every customer every time and sometimes bad things happen to good organizations. You may be right, they may be completely off base, there may be no room in the middle. What is there to do? One client I have simply has a policy of ‘The customer is always right even if they wrong…especially if they post something bad.’ No fighting, no messy back and forth – just toss money at the problem, fix it and make them happy.
Not all companies and CEOs will want to do that and some situations just can’t be fixed. So what do you do with an awful review in that case? First do the math. If the bad review might reach 100 or a 1000 people online - have four of your happy customers post positive reviews that will ‘out-reach’ the bad one. Not only will the four good reviews boost your average “star” rating but they will now be on top of the bad one and will make people think about the motives behind that bad one when and if they ever get down to it.
Don’t wait for a bad review to start the process. Make soliciting positive reviews an active utensil in your marketing toolbox. Not because of the potential bad rating – but because good reviews simply lead to more sales which will lead to more good reviews. Ask every satisfied customer you conclude business with to help you grow by posting a positive review. Most won’t but some will. By the way – you can spend thousands a year on companies that will help manage your online reputation – and this is exactly what they do
Of course no business can't please every customer every time and sometimes bad things happen to good organizations. You may be right, they may be completely off base, there may be no room in the middle. What is there to do? One client I have simply has a policy of ‘The customer is always right even if they wrong…especially if they post something bad.’ No fighting, no messy back and forth – just toss money at the problem, fix it and make them happy.
Not all companies and CEOs will want to do that and some situations just can’t be fixed. So what do you do with an awful review in that case? First do the math. If the bad review might reach 100 or a 1000 people online - have four of your happy customers post positive reviews that will ‘out-reach’ the bad one. Not only will the four good reviews boost your average “star” rating but they will now be on top of the bad one and will make people think about the motives behind that bad one when and if they ever get down to it.
Don’t wait for a bad review to start the process. Make soliciting positive reviews an active utensil in your marketing toolbox. Not because of the potential bad rating – but because good reviews simply lead to more sales which will lead to more good reviews. Ask every satisfied customer you conclude business with to help you grow by posting a positive review. Most won’t but some will. By the way – you can spend thousands a year on companies that will help manage your online reputation – and this is exactly what they do
