Posted in News

Online reviews give you great feedback and help your Google ranking

By admin

Review sites such as Google, Yelp, UrbanSpoon, CitySearch and others are becoming increasingly used as a method of gaining invaluable feedback from your customers, but also to increase your business’s visibility and improve your search engine ranking because of the links that reviews often provide.

However, it’s vital to harness the power of reviews in the right way.

The first step is to see reviews as useful even when they’re negative.  Very few people will write a negative review of your business for no reason at all.  They will have a good reason, and even if you disagree with their reason you should consider whether you can improve your business in a way that would mean the reviewer would not be impelled to complain.

When you respond to a negative review, don’t lash out at the reviewer, or even argue with them.  By all means gently point out factors that you think they have overlooked, or explain why your service is provided in the way that it is, but your overall tone should be conciliatory and even apologetic.  Your aim should be to placate the reviewer and assure him that his complaint is seen as valuable and that it will be acted on if possible.

Customers don’t expect firms never to receive complaints – they know that is impossible.  What will impress them is if you handle complaints courteously and attentively, and seriously consider how you can act on them to provide a first-class service.