MBA1244 Taking Control of Online Reviews

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But.

But if they see your response, they can see that, hey, this person actually cares and maybe they fixed the issue. Maybe you can respond to the fact that you're giving context to the story or to the experience. Your side of the story needs to be told because the customer or the potential customer that's going to read this review wants to know the whole story and they're not getting your side if you're not responding. Now don't make the mistake of a lot of people. They do on TripAdvisor, like hotel owners, where they get extremely defensive and downright nasty when they respond. You want to be polite and you want to be kind. But most importantly, you want to make sure that whatever they had issue with has been addressed or will be addressed in some way. You have to make sure that you are proactive in solving whatever they're upset about. Now, sometimes they'll give a bad review. If they're just not a good fit, they're not a good customer for your business. And you can clearly say, hey, this is not what we do as a business. This is what we do. And that is going to add clarification. So when somebody stumbles upon your actual review, that's negative again, it's balanced. Now, it's not just enough for you to just let the world review you. You have to take action. You have to put matters in your own hands. And you should encourage the vast majority of your customers that are happy, that don't do anything. They're just happy enjoying your product. And they're not even aware that reviews matter to your business. So there's nothing wrong with sending an automated message. Email something that says, hey, if you enjoy using my product, my service, whatever it is, the biggest compliment you can give me is leaving me a short review one of these sites or this site, and you specify which site you want to review at and you can show them how to do it. Usually it's pretty straightforward. It's like a star rating and a comment. Now, everybody's going to do it. Not everybody's going to respond or leave a review. It's not that they don't like your business or your product. It's just they get busy. You know, people are busy and they're not prioritizing it, but you will get people that will do that. And you would never had those positive reviews showing people that go to that site that, hey, most of the people that use my product or service love it. And this is what they think. If you want to get started, one of the best ways to do this is you probably know three or four or even five customers you know personally that you've worked with, that you've helped. They went back and forth on email. Those people are going to be more willing to leave you a review if you can just email them personally, say, hey, I'm trying to take control of my online reviews, show the world what my product's all about. And the best way to do it is for you to leave me a review on the site. It'll take you five minutes. I would be really grateful if you did that. If you had some correspondence with somebody, they're going to be more likely to do it and say, hey, sure, no problem, you've emailed me personally, I'll take care of it. And at least it gets the ball rolling and gets you some reviews. Now, there's nothing wrong with this. You're asking actual customers to leave you a review. And you're not telling them what to say. You're not telling them what to review them by. Just give me an honest review is what you're asking. And you can even say it helps us improve. It helps us really double down on the things we're doing right. But most business owners don't ask. They don't ask for the review. And what happens is in these review sites, you're completely ignored because your competitors are asking, your competitors are getting reviews. Another tool to be alerted when somebody gives a review or talks about your business on the Internet is Google Alerts. It's a program that's free that Google offers that allows you to get an alert. Get an email that says, hey, your company, your business, your keywords have been mentioned on a site. And you can say to Google, hey, Google Alerts, alert me when these words are mentioned. And it could be the name of your business, it could be the name of your product. It could be something like Best yoga studio in Austin. And if you're a yoga student in Austin, you want to see if, hey, you're being mentioned in that type of topic. And make sure you write different variations of your name if it's applicable. Like, for example, my software company, webinar Ninja. Officially it's one word, but we also have a Google Alert for two words, webinar and Ninja, because some people might write that in the review or in a blog post. But Google Alerts is a fantastic tool for you to have Google chased down when people actually say something about your business, your company, rather than you having to do searches every so often. Don't be a passive participant when it comes to your reviews online. Take control, be active. Now, there might be several places where people can review on several sites. My recommendation is to focus on one site at a time so you can have some momentum and some ranking of some sort on that site. So, for example, you're a hotel. You may want to focus on reviews on TripAdvisor just for this year and then next year review, you're going to focus on bookings dot com. The point here is, is that you're going to build momentum in that first year. You're going to build a system so people can review on that site and then you're going to build another system for bookings.com the next year, and then the momentum from the first year will continue to build for TripAdvisor by itself. People are going to review because you've kind of ingrained it in the system of the business as well as you're going to have repeat customers and all that kind of stuff.

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One of my favorite things I like to do is do just in time reviews. So when a customer ever praises me, whether it's in person at a conference, whether it's on a webinar in the chat, whether it's via email or via our customer service team where they say I love webinar ninjas. You guys are great. This is fantastic. Any kind of praise. Capitalize on that moment just in time when they are happy and they're appreciative and they love your product or service and say hey, that means a lot to us. Thank you so much. The biggest compliment you can pay us is to leave us a review on this site. It's really going to help us get more exposure as well as the fact that you can share why you love Webuna Ninja with others. This is perfect timing because they are willing to help you out because they're so grateful for the great product or service you just offered them. You're more likely to get a response or review at that moment than randomly when they were not having a conversation with you or saying nice things about you. This is why hotels always say to you at checkout when you just had an enjoyable vacation and you're relaxed and and you're reflecting on what a wonderful time you had, hey, it would mean so much to review this on TripAdvisor and the smart hotels actually tell them not just review us when you go home. They say we would really like it if you reviewed us. How about you leave us a review on the way to the airport? You're just sitting in the taxi or in the car or the train or whatever, doing nothing. Perfect time. Everything's fresh in your mind. Leave a review while you're getting to the airport. So timing matters. So try to have those just in time Responses to Asking for Reviews thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope it was helpful. If you love what you hear. Speaking of reviews, leave us an iTunes rating and review. I practice what I preach by leaving us a review. We know what you love about the show. Let us know what your favorite episode was or your favorite takeaway is. How has this podcast helped you in any way? Before I go, I want to leave you with this. You might have a great business, a great product, a great service, and you really believe it and you love it. But it's not enough for you to have these beliefs. You have to share this feeling, this brand, this identity with others. And other people need social proof. They need to see other people other than the owner of the business say, this is a good product. This is worth your money. This is why you should buy it. We understand this as consumers, but as business owners, we sometimes forget as consumers, we look at reviews before we buy anything. We don't book an Airbnb or hotel without looking at reviews. So the same thing goes for review with your business, your product, your service. Just flip it and be conscious of it. Thank you so much. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.