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You've heard again and again about the importance of getting reviews for your business.
You've also seen businesses basically begging you to leave them a review. They have pop-ups that come up, sometimes way too often, they give incentives like a discount or something for free just for leaving them a review.
Why is there so much emphasis in reviews these days?
The short answer, people don't buy something unless they know from others that said item or service is worth the money.
Let’s explore this in more detail...
The importance of reviews - an overview
It’s pretty well known that reviews are very important to a business. As I mentioned before, you see businesses asking for them left and right. You also see Google and business coaches and the like telling you how important they are.
I stated before that people don't buy something unless they know from others that it's a good buy. Here's my deeper examination on this.
Let’s go into my thought process as I explore products or services I may spend my money on. In this scenario, I already know what I want or need. I'm just looking for the best option available. As I browse the options, I first look at what the vendor has provided ie. photos, description, marketing copy, etc. In most cases, the vendor does a good job at selling me with what I see. But, I want to know if it really is a good thing without the vendor’s biased opinion.
So, where do I go to get such unbiased opinions? You guessed it! The reviews section. But looking at the reviews is a lot more complex than you may think because a lot of the 5 star and 1 star reviews may be biased as well. We'll go into that in more detail in a second.
The best way to see unbiased opinions is to look in the 2-4 star reviews. This eliminates the outliers (mostly). You don’t have the customers that are just overly positive and rave about the product, and you don’t have the people that are either really negative, or just the unlucky few that had a bad experience because, whether we like it or not, that's a reality for every business; while the business works super hard to give you a great experience, mistakes are made or something goes wrong and you end up with a bad experience, one that you just have to share with the whole world. But, I digress.
I spend most of my time in those mid ranged reviews so I can get more of the facts rather than the emotion that can come from an amazing or a terrible experience.
Once I have an idea of the reality of the business and product/service, I make a decision and either make the purchase or not.
A lot of the decision weighs heavily on what others are saying about the product/service.
So, to sum this section up, your customers can help you in many ways through their reviews, and you can help other businesses in the same way as their customer.
Negative reviews - The 1 star reviews
Believe it or not, negative reviews are the most important type of review you can receive. They help you see what you're doing wrong or not doing at all. Once that's brought to your attention, you're able to pivot, make changes and improve your business.
While these types of reviews are important, there are a lot of mean people out there that don't understand the power their words may have on someone, so they say what they need to say without tact. I'll go into more detail in a bit on this matter when discussing the business’ reactions to negative reviews, but this is why I don’t go to the 1 star reviews to get an idea about the product or service in question.
From our perspective as business owners, we know what it's like to receive those bad reviews. We know that it can cut us to the core if we let it. Since we have that perspective, we have the responsibility to treat other business owners with the same respect we would hope to receive. It’s as the golden rule states, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Positive reviews - The 5 star reviews
Positive reviews are more of the obvious reviews to talk about in regards to why they're important. Positive reviews make your business and product/service look good. They tell about what the customer liked about you and the product/service. In these types of reviews, you see a lot of good things about why the person loved the product/service as well as telling everyone about that one person that treated them like a king or queen making the business look amazing.
If you have a lot of 5 star reviews, then at first glance, you're offering a great service/product and you're a great business to buy from. You obviously want to get these as much as you possibly can! So keep working hard to provide stellar customer service and amazing products or services.
Just like with the negative reviews, the golden rule applies here. Since you're looking for great reviews, a great practice is to give great reviews to other businesses that performed well for you as well. Another famous phrase goes well here, “what goes around, comes around.” I could go on and on about how being positive with others brings positivity to you as well, but let’s save that for another occasion.
Your reaction - keep it professional
How you react to both negative and positive reviews speaks volumes to a potential customer or client about you.
I recently was looking into a certain product and was looking at the 1 star reviews… I know I said I don’t look at them to get an idea about a product… But I do look at them to get an idea about the business. Anyway, looking at those one star reviews, I read many reviews that were very negative and down right mean. Anyone can understand that it would be hard to maintain a professional attitude when responding to said reviews, of course, but this business just couldn't handle the criticism. And it made them look bad!
They really never took the blame for anything that happened; it was always the customers fault. They said things like they did everything right and the customer was the one that made all the mistakes. The customer didn’t use the product right or they didn’t respond fast enough, or they sent their message on the weekend, etc.
While it's true that the customer does make mistakes and they don’t see that most of the time, the best thing a business can do is take ownership of the situation and take the blame. (Easier said than done.) It's true that there are times when “the customer is always right” just is not true. However, expressing this in a public forum like a reviews section isn't the right place to do this. In fact, it's probably the worst place to do it.
The bottom line: as a business, we should always treat others with respect. When we do this, other potential customers will see us as great companies to do business with. And remember, it’s not personal, it’s business!
To conclude my story with the above-mentioned company, I didn't buy from them. I knew from their responses to negative reviews that they would be very hard to work with and that they don't have the right attitude toward their customers. The company I did buy from did an excellent job owning up to their mistakes (even if it wasn't their fault) and offered different options to make up for it. They even asked the customer how they could make it right. This is a great example of how to respond well to negative reviews and should be common practice.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article helped you see how important it is for a business to have reviews, good or bad.
I also hope that this article helps us all be more respectful when it comes to leaving reviews for other businesses as well as when we respond to negative reviews.
What are your thoughts on the matter? I would love to hear them!
You know, as I mentioned in the article, a great way to get great reviews is to provide great customer service, as well as amazing products and services. FIREpreneurship.com can help you do so by taking content creation off your plate so you can focus on these very important aspects of your business. You can find out more by visiting our "Content Creation Services'' page here.
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