The rewards of a strong review response strategy can be immense.
It can make the difference between repeat business and lost business. This is why you need to be authentic in your response through conscious effort and come across as personable to those you interact with. If you can, you can expect to boost the number of reviews you receive, rise up the search engine rankings, and land more customers.
Responding in a way that feels authentic isn’t easy, but it can be done through conscious effort. In this article, we’ve pulled together seven of the best tips to improve your response to reviews, so your business can soar higher than the competition, and your customers will sing your praises.
1. Be Prompt
Hands-down the best way to improve your response to reviews is to reply promptly. If you don’t have the time to respond to a review within 24 hours, then it might be worth considering hiring someone to do the job for you since it’s that important.
By responding quickly to customers, you will appear more professional in their eyes and make them far likelier to want to use your services again in the future.
As for negative reviews, the longer you leave it to respond, the worse it could be for your company’s reputation.
Think of it as ripping the band-aid off; it might sting at first, but it saves you from a worse situation.
This is a reason why you should utilize a review management software to help your business flourish and stay on top of your review responding game. Trustindex can offer you this and so much more!>>
2. Be Specific
To sound authentic, you want it to come across that you’ve taken the time to read the customer’s review.
The best way to let them know that you have is to address specific details in the review.
You can mention the reviewer’s name, the product they had the experience with, or whatever else it is that you want to comment on.
Fail to do this, and people might start to think a robot is in charge of the company’s review response initiative.
3. Take Action
If you catch a negative review, the best things to do are to respond quickly, as already mentioned, and/or reach out to the customer in question.
Now we understand that the last thing you might want to do is talk on the phone to this customer who has berated your company’s service but hear us out.
By talking directly with the customer, you can then respond to the review and reference the phone conversation you had to let others know you’re willing to go above and beyond.
It also lets that customer know that you aren’t afraid of criticism and that alone might make them reconsider their review since they will realize you’re doing the best you can.
4. Follow Through with Promises
While responding promptly and sounding authentic can go a long way, you don’t want to run the risk of repeating empty words.
There are only so many times you can apologize until customers call you out for not taking action to back up your words.
It’s important not only that you promise to resolve the issue with the disgruntled customer but also that you go ahead and follow up on those promises.
Showing customers that you are true to your word can do great things for your company’s reputation.
5. Use Keywords Correctly
If you’re aware of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices, then you’ll know just how important keywords can be for web content and copy.
But did you know that they are also crucial for determining a website’s rankings based on reviews too?
Yes, the more pertinent keywords used in reviews left for your business, the better it is for your SEO ranking.
This means that you should try as best you can to seek out the best keywords you want your business to rank for and try to authentically slip them into your review responses.
Of course, you can overdo this, so try to avoid stuffing keywords in for the sake of it, as this can work against you.
6. Switch the Keyboard for a Pen
Handwriting a response can be a surprisingly effective way to get through to a customer and make them feel heard.
Letters aren’t in fashion anymore, which makes them so novel and so fun to receive.
If you can set aside some time to handwrite letters to your customers, they will surely appreciate it, and you never know, they might even change their review.
7. Be Direct
If you believe that a review has been left in bad faith, or is false in some way, then you have the right to state the facts and expose the reviewer.
There is a right and a wrong way to do this, though.
The wrong way would be to insult the customer and present the information in a way that belittles them. The right way would be to come out with the facts and let them speak for themselves while communicating clearly and professionally.
Make sure you take the time to verify the facts before you throw them in the reviewer’s face since making false claims will only harm your company’s reputation.