2060 Tackles Frequently Asked Questions about Customer Reviews

| 2060 Digital

We receive a lot of questions about online business reviews. Businesses large and small ask us a range of questions about receiving, responding, managing, and harvesting customer reviews. As a business owner or marketing manager, understanding the world of customer reviews can be overwhelming. There are a ton of platforms to manage each review is unique, and at any moment you could be faced with a challenging review. At 2060 Digital, we have experience with all types of businesses and customer review situations. We have gathered our expertise and experience into a frequently asked questions segment.

Best Practices

Can I delete customer reviews? If not, what should I do?

Yes and no. Yes, you may physically be able to delete a review on certain platforms. No, don’t delete the review. Unfortunately, bad reviews are going to come in from time to time. But, if handled correctly you can use them to your company’s advantage. People understand that not all customer experiences will equate to a five-star rating. Keep reading for best practices on how to respond to negative reviews.

Can I ask my employees or my family to review the business?

The short answer is it’s best to create a process for gathering customer reviews. Employees may leave a review as long as they disclose that they work for your business. Family members shouldn’t leave reviews. Even if they are customers or have used your business professionally, their feedback can be biased and may end up representing you in a negative light.

How can I dispute a bad review?

Some review outlets offer an option, located on the review, to dispute a review that may be incorrect or irrelevant to your business. However, most reviews cannot be deleted and it’s unlikely the review outlet will remove a negative review, but it never hurts to try!

How can I “take the high road” in responding to reviews?

Always be positive in your reply. When applicable, apologize for your error and offer to take the dispute offline by providing a manager’s direct phone number or email address. If you’re creative, you could turn a response to a negative review into a great opportunity.

How to Respond

How quickly or how often should I respond to reviews?

If possible, all reviews, both positive and negative, should be responded to. It also looks great for your business if you can reply within a few days. Consider adding auto-replies to your Facebook Page’s messenger. That way, customers know you will respond soon.

How far back (time) should I go to respond to reviews?

Here’s a stat: 44 percent of consumers say a review must be written within one month to be considered relevant (Source: BrightLocal). Don’t worry too much about the not so cheery review from 2011. Go back a few weeks at most. Create a system for responding to your reviews and try to stick to it.

Grow Your Business

Where should I tell my customers to leave a review?

If you want to keep it simple send customers to the main websites most people visit: Google, Facebook, or Yelp. With that being said, there are other websites that may also fit your industry. Think about TripAdvisor for restaurants, events, or “things to do” types of places. Think Angie’s List for contractors or other service businesses. We are leaving out a lot of popular websites, but the point is to spend some time thinking about what makes sense for you. The goal is to keep all of the reviews as populated and up-to-date as possible.

What are the most popular review sources?

We have found there to be three to four common platforms where most customer reviews take place. With that being said, these are biased towards B2C companies. B2B types of businesses are different. For typical B2C companies, these platforms include Google, Yelp, Facebook, and (depending on your business) a mix of platforms like TripAdvisor, Amazon, or Angie’s List. If you want to focus on one or two, focus on the platforms where you see most of your reviews come through and work on those.

Are there tools out there help me manage my reviews?

Yes, there are several options that can help you manage your reviews and online reputation. We have experience with business partners using a few tools, including ReviewBuzz, ReviewPush, and GetFiveStars. Utilizing a review management tool is dependent on how much control you want to have over your online reputation. If you are unsure as to what you want your next steps to be, give us a call and our team can help you to find the right solution.

These are the most popular questions we receive from our business partners. If you have a specific question or unique situation with your business, please tell us more in the comments!