Review Management 101 – Part 1: Providing Amazing Customer Service

Review Management: The Art of Increasing and Maximizing Your Positive Online Reviews

If you want 5 star reviews, it all starts with providing 5 star service. The first step in Review Management is providing amazing customer service. Review Management is the process of increasing your positive reviews, and then capitalizing on those reviews to generate new business and traction.

When you’re a business owner, you probably have a lot to juggle at once. This could include driving sales, increasing your marketing efforts, building brand awareness, expanding your online presence or even hiring new staff members. But one goal that should outrank the others is providing amazing customer service. Your customers are your lifeblood and can turn into life-long patrons if they leave with a positive impression of your store or services. Unfortunately, customer experience can get lost in the daily shuffle and what’s worse, one negative review can have a lasting impact on an otherwise positive brand.

This Review Management 101 guide will outline several tips in going above and beyond for your customers during the selling and buying processes. It will also do a deep dive into how you should go about requesting customer feedback without seeming pushy or inauthentic, instead letting reviews come about naturally. While you can’t always control your customers, you can control how you approach serving them.

1. Have a Deep Knowledge of your Products & Brand

You can’t sell without knowing what you’re selling. Your brand is unique and your products reflect the story of your business. Make sure you know your products and services inside out and that your sales representatives understand this too. This is the best way to field off any tough questions and articulate answers in a way that leaves customers satisfied. If customers feel like you really love and believe in your products, they probably will too.

2. Be Friendly and Say Thank You

There’s nothing worse than going in a store and feeling unwelcome. You and your representatives should greet every new customer with a smile and warm welcome as they come in. This will help make them feel more comfortable and interested. If a customer isn’t ready to buy anything that day, make sure to say thank you or incentivize them to come back another time.

3. Train Your Staff

You can’t be at your business 24/7, so make sure you’ve properly trained and prepped your staff for all sorts of customer service situations. After all, your reps are a reflection of you and your business. If you want them to talk to or interact with customers in a specific way, you need to give them the right tools and training to assist efficiently and effectively.

4. Listen & Be Respectful

Never assume you know what a customer is looking for or how they feel. If a customer complains, take the time to hear them out sincerely and don’t let emotions get in the way of righting the situation. Be courteous, respectful and responsive.

5. Maintain a Positive Attitude

Sometimes, even after you’ve taken all the above steps, you’ll get a customer who is down-right rude or just having a bad day. All you can do is maintain a positive attitude and attempt to solve the problem as best as possible. If you’re attempting to solve an issue over email or chat, sometimes picking up the phone and talking one-on-one can go a long way.

6. Ask for Feedback

Perhaps the most important tip on this list, asking for feedback is the best way to identify specific areas for improvement and check in with your customers on how you did.

So, how should you go about requesting customer feedback? You don’t want to be too pushy, but many customers simply forget to leave reviews, even when they’ve had a good experience. Unfortunately, often the bad reviewers are the ones that remember. Keep reading to understand how you can increase organic, positive reviews coming to your business.

Asking for Feedback

Any business leaves themselves slightly vulnerable when asking for opinions on their products, services and the business itself. No one wants to hear they didn’t rise to the occasion. But you may be surprised to learn that feedback is a great way to incorporate new ideas and opportunities into your business, add a new product line or simply handle things differently at checkout, making your business that much better. In addition, simply asking “how did we do?” shows the customer that you truly care about them and their opinions and want to incorporate their feedback.

There are several different ways to ask for feedback. You can send out customer surveys, feedback forms and questionnaires, or simply ask customers first-hand for feedback as they checkout. The best way to receive customer feedback is to actually use it! Make sure you’re regularly reviewing your feedback and analyzing for common trends. If you’re getting multiple reviews about a specific part of the buying or ordering process, see what could be done differently. Or, if negative feedback comes about, reach out to the person as soon as possible to amend the issue and incentivize them to come back. We get more into how to handle feedback in Part 2 of our Review Management 101 Series.

Many businesses struggle with asking for feedback or remembering to at all. If your business is growing, you may be wondering how to reach out to all the new customers you’re getting. A great way to make the review process more effective is to automate it. Review Monkey manages the entire review process by closing the customer experience loop with a simple, automated “how did we do?” Review Monkey sends an immediate text or email to a customer after they’ve purchased a product or service, evaluating the customer’s experience. Customers who had a positive experience are encouraged to leave a review and are directed to an easy place to do so. Customers who had a negative experience are asked to leave real-time feedback. This gives you the opportunity to amend the customer’s bad experience as soon as possible. Overall, automating the review process increases real, positive online reviews with minimal effort on your part. Online reviews are vital to the health and success of your business and a plethora of good reviews is an amazing way to show the world you value excellent customer service.

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