{"id":15430,"date":"2017-02-02T12:21:38","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T17:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=15430"},"modified":"2017-02-02T12:21:38","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T17:21:38","slug":"small-business-online-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/small-business-online-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Small Business Making the Most of Online Reviews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Small<\/p>\n

Are you intimidated by the prospect of customers reviewing your business online? <\/span><\/p>\n

A string of positive\u00a0reviews\u00a0of\u00a0your\u00a0business\u00a0from satisfied customers can help you win new customers. Even the occasional bad review isn\u2019t necessarily bad news if you know how to handle it right. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a rundown of online\u00a0review site do\u2019s and don\u2019ts for\u00a0small\u00a0business\u00a0owners.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"HostGator<\/a><\/p>\n

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3 Online Review Do’s for Small Business Owners<\/h2>\n

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1. Do thank reviewers for their feedback<\/h3>\n

Your customers\u2019 time is valuable, and feedback is information you can use to improve your business or keep it on the right track. Whether your reviewers leave a positive, negative, or middling review, take a moment to thank them for sharing their experience. This shows each one that you value their input. Try to leave a slightly different response on each review, though, to show that you\u2019re responding personally and not just copy-pasting boilerplate replies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank-yous also show prospective shoppers that you\u2019re paying attention to the customer experience<\/a>. This can increase the likelihood that they\u2019ll buy from you, because they know that if there\u2019s an issue, they can trust you to work to resolve it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"HostGator<\/p>\n

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2. Do invite customers to contact you directly with concerns<\/h3>\n

The simplest way to keep customers from leaving negative reviews is to keep their experiences with your business as positive as possible. Customers <\/span>leave bad reviews when they\u2019re frustrated and feel disrespected<\/span><\/a>, so do your best to avoid slighting your shoppers. Provide great service, follow up with customer satisfaction surveys to spot problems before they spill over onto review sites, and treat each problem as an opportunity to show your customers how much you care about their experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

That said, listening to upset customers isn\u2019t easy. It can be hard to hear criticism of your business without jumping immediately to your own defense, but it\u2019s something every successful business owner must learn to do. <\/span>Effective listening is a business skill<\/span><\/a> that you can master with practice, and it\u2019s the best way to resolve customer concerns before they turn into an angry online review.<\/span><\/p>\n

[bctt tweet=”The best\u00a0defense against negative reviews is providing outstanding experiences for customers.” username=”hostgator”]<\/span><\/p>\n

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3. Do carefully encourage your customers to leave reviews<\/h3>\n

There are different schools of thought about asking customers to leave online reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yelp officially discourages businesses from explicitly requesting customer reviews. Instead, <\/span>Yelp recommends that businesses link to their Yelp profile<\/span><\/a> on their site and in their email signature line. 'Find Us on Yelp'\u009d signs can steer customers toward your reviews without making a direct ask. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other marketing experts, though, advise <\/span>asking for reviews in a variety of ways<\/span><\/a>, such as inviting fans to upload video reviews to your YouTube channel and offering incentives for leaving any type of whether it\u2019s good or bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AskIf you decide to ask your customers directly for reviews, tread carefully. Most consumers are bombarded with review and feedback requests from every business they interact with and can feel annoyed by multiple requests. They may take their business elsewhere if your review requests or incentive programs make them uncomfortable or call your ethics into question. <\/span><\/p>\n

One effective strategy that got me to leave a review for a cleaning service was the knowledge that my cleaners would get a performance bonus if I left a review that described their work and mentioned them by first name. I was happy to do so, because<\/span><\/p>\n