Courting Customer Reviews Online

Marketing and promotions could be a tricky game even in the old days of one-way mass communication. When all you had to worry about was commissioning a jingle to be written or mocking up a Yellow Pages ad, at least you had final say over the overall message.

These days, with the proliferation of social media and (more importantly) online review sites like Yelp, businesses have to deal with the complicating fact that the public is out there writing some of your most visible marketing material. Think about the last time you went out for dinner in a new part of town – unless you had a pretty strong recommendation already, chances are you checked restaurant ratings online. Booked a hotel on vacation?  Hello, TripAdvisor.

It’s no different for MI retailers. The key for you, then, is how to best harness the power of these reviews.

Rieva Lesonsky is an entrepreneurial expert who runs the online group WeGrowBiz.com. When MMR checked in with Lesonsky, she explained that it all starts with getting your customers involved. “It’s really important that your customers post reviews of your business,” she said. “In fact a recent survey showed that consumers trust opinions of strangers on these sites just as much or more than the opinion of their friends and others they actually know!”

Lesonsky says that businesses which don’t respect these reviews are missing out. “I think the biggest misconception is that business owners aren’t aware of the impact reviews can have,” she says. “They don’t pay attention to what’s said about them, or they don’t engage in the conversation and try to ‘make it better.’ Many are also unaware of the numerous niche review sites. It’s not just Yelp and Google. TripAdvisor,  for example, is key to travel industry. Angie’s List is expanding from just covering contractors and Houzz is important if you’re an interior designer or contractor.”

MI retailers likely face more passionate than usual commentary from customers, thanks to the personal, emotional nature of the music business. “If someone has a bad experience, it’s not just a bad meal,” says Lesonsky. “They buy from you because they have hopes and dreams and are counting on you to help them achieve them. So you’re going to be rated on how you treat customers.”

“Given that, if someone has a negative experience, they’re likely going to share it. They’re going to be reacting emotionally. That makes it harder, but not impossible for you to fix the problem.”

It’s not always foolproof, but monitoring your pages on these review sites gives you a chance to respond to customers. This, of course, starts with thanking customers who wrote positive reviews. But there are options for negative reviews as well.  “If there’s a negative review, publicly (on the review site) say something like,  ‘I’m so sorry you had a bad experience. Let’s talk about it and see how we can resolve the situation.’ Then take the discussion offline to ‘fix’ it.

“Once the problem is resolved, if the customer is now happy, encourage them to post their ‘turnaround’ on the original site.”

There is etiquette involved – Yelp indeed frowns upon businesses blatantly telling their customers to go write Yelp reviews when they get home. They even have a filter to check for and eliminate what they deem “solicited reviews,” in an attempt to keep their reviews honest and trustworthy.  There are several red flags they look for, including reviewers who’ve only written one review and have no profile  info, reviews written with strong slants (positive or negative), and reviews that don’t seem to have many details about the business.  The system isn’t perfect, as real reviews are sometimes filtered out in the process.

Finally, don’t write fake reviews. It pops into everyone’s head at some point – “Why can’t I just log in and post a glowing review and point out all of my shop’s selling points?”  Bad idea. Review sites are always on the lookout for fakers and will catch you.

“Customers will be alerted to how untrustworthy and dishonest you are –  who wants to do business with ‘that’ kind of a business?” says  Lesonsky. “Also, no one will believe you’re an honest business owner if every one of your reviews are positive. It’ll seem fake. That’s not to say you should ignore negative reviews, you still need to ‘correct’ them. But faking reviews is a no-win game.”