How Businesses Handle Customer Reviews
Hard Stats on Customers Reviews
You’ll notice that we’ve written several blogs around the subject of customer reviews. Clearly, we find this is one of the areas that businesses can improve their overall revenue and customer service.
I’ve gathered together some excerpts from an amazing article written by Andrew Hutchinson. See his full article here.
To glean more insight, the team from ZenBusiness recently commissioned a survey of over 1,000 people, “including 352 employees responsible for monitoring business reviews and 698 consumers who’ve posted at least one public review in the past year”, in order to get a better understanding of why people post reviews, how they use them, and how brands are adjusting to monitor and address any issues.
So let’s point out a few things within this infographic that we should pay close attention to:
The impact of customer reviews on businesses
For overall business success, you are looking at 30%, overall profit 26% and most importantly, attracting new clients and customers 23.9%. That’s huge, especially for small businesses struggling with increasing revenue. And if 98% of customers are saying that reviews are influential when deciding which business to frequent, it’s clear that paying attention to customer reviews is an absolute must.
Incoming business feedback
An important graphic is the number of reviews to which businesses respond:
We stress the importance of responding to absolutely every online review your customers leave you, whether it’s good or bad. You’ll notice that only 11.9% of businesses actually respond to every review. What’s also important is if you look at attracting new customers is 23.9%, it clearly shows that every review should be responded to.
Handling criticism
This section however gives us hope that businesses will actually try to resolve the issues for the customer, at Rating Bee, we focus on the resolution. Are you one of those 48.6% of businesses that will solve customer issues? We will show you an easy way to manage all of those reviews in one place and allow you to fix any customer issues. Signup and get listed on Rating Bee Review Engine Free and start fixing and solving customer issues.
Customers bad behavior
Granted, 77.8% the businesses believe that customers abuse a business’s desire to keep them happy, but frankly, as a small business looking to increase revenue, it is the path to keeping those customers and adding to your bottom line.
Enjoy this info graphic courtesy of ZenBusines and Andrew Hutchinson. See his full article here
Click here to view original web page at www.socialmediatoday.com
A Bad Review costs money, this Review Cost Calculator shows how much
What online reviews cost is often overlooked as it was not even known by the review industry, until now. Even the big boys of the online review websites focus on just reviews and scores. Knowing the cost per online review is so important for you as a business owner, but also imagine if a customer knows the impact of their damaging reviews! We go further that any review website has gone… Now you have a way to calculate cost per review! Online Review Cost Calculator – Click here to try it.
Measure the cost of every online customer review, good or bad
Simply enter your annual income, your number of reviews and your current rating, we display the cost per review up or down, good or bad. In addition, we calculate the number of reviews needed to get to 5 stars and in the worst case scenario how many stars to 1. Although calculating the lower rating is not preferred, it is a guide to demonstrate the loss in income if reviews are not managed well.
The future of online reviews have changed with the Review Cost Calculator
Customers will see the lasting impact of both negative and positive reviews. We are excited to integrate our new Review Cost Calculator into all reviews for every business profile listed at Rating BEE available this summer. This will allow your customers to be part of the success as your business. We also believe that customers are more inclined to give you as a business a second chance at getting their customer service issue solved. Once they are shown the full impact of a damaging review we believe they will consider a resolution.
Customer Review tools that go beyond just information
Rating Bee was created to allow you the opportunity to get better as a business and bring the customer issue to your attention for prompt settlement. Better reviews for you, more revenue. Nice.
These review tools are here to improve your business and to help in understanding that EVERY review is an opportunity to improve your business.
You can begin using the Online Review Cost Calculator now! Click here to try it.
Online Ratings Calculator – See what Ratings really cost your business
For the first time ever, we’ve developed on Online Ratings Calculator allowing you to clearly see income possibilities for your business with improved ratings. At Rating Bee, we have shared online rating and review secrets in countless review blogs and phone conversations with businesses just like yours, but because ratings are so foreign to the actual daily functions of many businesses, it’s hard for a business owner to grasp its importance, much less the time to learn.
If I say your business can gain revenue by improving your ratings, there’s no visual data that demonstrates that statement. Well now there is, now you’ll be able to see firsthand and test it out yourself. With this calculator, now you’ll know the direct impact on getting better ratings.
Each additional star makes you that much more revenue? Really?
8% up or down in revenue is huge for your business, there’s a cost to every review that’s left on your profile on Yelp, Google and Rating Bee, as it counts towards your overall rating score. So as an example: You currently have a rating of 4 STARS, using the Ratings Calculator, you can put in your amount of revenue annually, your rating score and the calculator will compile the results instantly showing you what you could be making or losing annually.
Every star below my current rating is a revenue loss? Yes!
It’s one thing to know how your revenue will improve, it’s an entirely new discussion when it comes to losing revenue because of not maintaining your online ratings. This tool also gives you a visual estimation of what happens when online ratings are ignored. How much revenue are you losing on a monthly basis because your online reputation is not being monitored? As a business owner you need to know this, and this ratings calculator will help you do that. It’s time to maintain your online ratings.
Online ratings are no joke, you’re losing money if you don’t know
One of the biggest hazards about the online review industry is that many small businesses are blindsided by these bad reviews. It’s understandable, you’re running your business and yet people are tagging your business with bad reviews, sometimes it can be absolutely daunting. What you don’t know can and will hurt you, Rating Bee helps you to be in the know, we give you tools to manage your online reviews yourself. Let’s get to it!
Know what you don’t know about your online ratings
It should also be understood that this ratings calculator, although it’s a good estimator on business revenue, it can’t be used as a single tool to help your ratings. Knowing this information is wonderful, but implementing a plan along with this information is powerful.
Let this calculator be a motivator for better online ratings, and as one of the many Premium review tools we offer to help improve your business ratings and skyrocket your revenue.
Know what you don’t know about your online ratings
The Online Review secrets are:
- Know what you don’t know, use the calculator to see the possibilities for better revenue.
- Get listed on Rating Bee Review Website and start getting more traffic
- Make your online profile public for Reviews and Resolutions
- Communicate with your customers and solve any issues using the online review and resolution engine
- Respond to EVERY REVIEW, good and bad
- Use Rating Bee Pro Listings to manage reviews for all the major review sites
- Market and submit your business with consistent information from one place
- Most importantly, continue to manage your rating, it’s the key to improved revenue
Let’s get you started, signup for a free business listing on Rating Bee Review Website
Sign Up
3 Ways To Make Your Online Reviews Count
What really motivates an online review
What motivates you as a customer to leave a review? Are you excited about an experience or a great meal? Is the review a passionate response to a poor customer service issue, or a meal that just was not as expected? The great part of online reviews is to share our experiences with others. BUT…. What if we could do more with our opinions and actually make a greater impact in the long run for the business and your review community? Here are 3 hints on how to make that happen…
With every review, always ask for a response from the business, especially a bad review.
If you have left a good online review
So you’ve taken the time to write a review about a business, did the company respond to your good review? How do you know if anyone has even seen it, other than it showing up in the list?
Rating Bee makes sure that businesses listed with us are responding to every review, good or bad, taking steps to communicate with customers like you. When you leave a review about a business, we make sure the business knows about it.
OR, a bad online review
If you’ve left a bad review, did the business take the time to ensure that you are answered and that your issue is solved? On some major review sites, how do you know that the business even cares if they don’t respond to your bad review? The whole idea of being in business is to ensure that your customers are happy and if they’re not responding and not solving customer issues, then that’s a business that you may not want to frequent. At Rating Bee, all businesses receive reviews good or bad, we make sure that the business understands that solving customer issues is the priority, and customer communication is especially important when there’s an issue. If a business does not respond and communicate with their customers, it reflects on their score and ratings. When you Review a business with Rating Bee, your reviews get responses.
Write online reviews and offer suggestions for improvement, don’t just flame the business.
Did your review change anything?
This is the most important part of everything that Rating Bee does. When you leave a review for a business, the whole idea is to make that business better and improve that business overtime with recommendations ongoing as businesses strive to solve issues one at a time. Every business wants to solve your review to get better and avoid those bad reviews. On other review sites, when you leave suggestions or a bad review how do you know it’s ever solved? Most of the time it’s canned responses from the business. Rating Bee guides and facilitates responses to EVERY review, business just get better for you.
Change the online review industry, review the business with Rating Bee and follow the progress of the business
Would you like to make sure that every time you make a review it actually has an impact?
At Rating Bee, your review helps change the business in a positive direction and you are updated on their progress ongoing, NOT just a response of “We’re so sorry”. Now you’re a part of the improvement of that business even if it’s a bad review. You make businesses better! Try a review engine that is different from any other, we focus on making sure that your issues are handled and that your reviews matter and are responded to. Don’t just leave an online review that has no impact on other review websites, leave a review that can contribute to the improvement of the business in the long run!
3 Hidden Ways To Expand Your Social Media Reach
Online reviews are a pathway to better Social Media Marketing
If you’re a business and you are trying to grow your social media population, there are a few hidden ways that are often overlooked but should be seriously considered in every social media campaign. This blog will touch on these 3 crucial issues from the perspective of customer outreach and online reviews. Consider social media as not just Facebook, but Twitter, Pinterest. Consider your online reviews as a perfect opportunity to demonstrate what you do, and how your customers see you. These online reviews give you a chance to share with the world customer experiences that are not just positive, but can be used as incredible marketing material. When someone speaks good about your business, everyone should know it. So here are three hidden opportunities to expand your social media.
Every good review is a marketing opportunity!
So as these reviews come in about your business, these customers are sharing their recommendations about your business. This is an actual review with a real customer, leaving comments, along with who they are and in some instances a photograph. These customers are in your community, in your service area where your other customers are! What better marketing could there ever be than that? These customer reviews are posted on the public domain which brings us to our next hint…
Add these reviews to your website
Did you know that you can add online reviews with an online review widget? You can display all of your best reviews directly on your website as a feed. This gives customers coming to your website incredible examples of your business. Nothing is more impressive than seeing online reviews that are true, from real people that are sometimes their neighbors. Rating Bee has an online review widget as part of the service to allow all of your best reviews to be displayed on your business website. It’s a no brainer, get your Review widget here and your free business listing here.
Bad reviews are still a marketing opportunity
We’ve seen some businesses actually putting on their signs outside of their store… “Come and try the worst burger in Chicago” as reviewed by Susan. It was absolutely brilliant, they took that sign and posted it on social media for the world to see and was trending giving their business free traffic. That is taking their power back from a bad review and using it for something positive. We encourage all businesses to do the same, take back your power and begin serving customers with confidence.
A customer leaving a bad review about your business is a chance for you to not only improve, but also to demonstrate to the general public that you’re willing to make changes, get better, and solve customer issues. Every business that receives these reviews can publicly display their commitment to customer service issues, and to the continual improvement on going of their services.
If you can solve customer issues publicly so everyone can see that each issue is resolved and that reviews are changed for better online scores, customers not only appreciate your commitment. Your customers will also be assured of being treated with fairness and issues will be solved in the same way as your other customers. Your customers will shop with confidence and will always be satisfied. You can take all of these public resolutions to issues and use them as marketing opportunities to be added to your social media. Post it!
Rating Bee gives you the opportunity to solve customer issues and get better reviews online. And as we’ve said above, you’ll also get your review widget as part of your service. Sign up for your free listing for your business here
Marketing Secrets For Painting Contractors Competing With CertaPro
Can a small business really compete with the CertaPros of the world?
How can a small painting company be able to compete with larger companies like CertaPro or even smaller ones that are big fish in a small pond?
The bigger companies will have more money for advertising, and have more employees; so how would it be possible to compete with these larger companies?
Having more money for advertising definitely helps, but what are your other strategies?
- Have lots of positive online reviews
- Make sure all of your business listings are accurate
- Make frequent and consistent posts on social media
- Quickly respond to all your online reviews
- Have significantly more positive reviews than negative ones
- Have your SEO dialed in
- Advertise as much as possible
All of these are doable; but how many small painters can squeeze all of that into their day when they have jobs to manage, bids to write up, painters to manage, payroll, and a life … it’s a lot of work. How can a smaller painting company compete with the likes of CertaPro when they have far more resources?
Rating Bee has solutions to online reviews and marketing for your business.
They are a review site like no other. They actually help small businesses instead of taking advantage of them.
Rating Bee has a new, revolutionary search engine that will compile and average a businesses online ratings together, so you get the most accurate ratings of a business. Then they go even further to help you resolve negative reviews with your customers. Turning negative reviews into positive ones.
Manage social media easily along with online reviews
As if that wasn’t enough, they have an easy to use dashboard that allows you to manage all of your Social Media, SEO, optimize your business listings, see what your customers are looking at online, and sync your business profile with over 50 different search engines and directories with the push of a button. They even give you a FREE online review business report to show you how your business is viewed online.
Yelp is not doing small business any favors
Many business owners feel taken advantage of by those other review sites. Between the ridiculous algorithms, false negative reviews from competitors, positive reviews that are never seen, and the relentless sales teams trying to get you to pay for advertising, it feels like a money making scheme!
You won’t find any of that at Rating Bee. When Rating Bee was developed, we had all of that in mind when we created a fair review site. If it seems as though one of the founders WAS the owner of a small painting company! That’s because he is. The founders of Rating Bee are real small business owners that were fed up with the injustice in the online review world. Tired of being taken advantage of by review sites; they came up with a site that will actually help small businesses AND their customers.
If you own a small business, you need Rating Bee.
Using their services will clean up your reviews, dial in how you are seen online, creating more revenue, and more time for you to actually run your business. And… It also feels good to stick it to other review sites too.
Why Rating Bee, and how does it help my business?
First… Why the need to change online reviews?
Online reviews for small businesses suck. Yup, I said it! The biggest problem in the review industry is that reviews are not fair to the business and quite frankly are not trustworthy to other customers. Many bad reviews are not at all relevant, not vetted, and sometimes are nothing more than competitors spamming your business. These reviews are not being analyzed properly by the review companies when leaving a bad review.
Worst of all, reviewers use reviews today as a weapon to terrorize a business. Some reviews are simply a 1 word or 1 sentence review with 1 star… “Terrible service”, “Hated it” or “…” and 1 star, really? How does that help a business get better? These types of reviews are no different than someone tagging your neighborhood walls with street graffiti. It does nothing for your community, the businesses, or your neighborhood. For smaller businesses or startups it could be crushing. There has to be a way for BOTH the business AND the customer to help each other with reviews that are FAIR, informative and reliable reviews. So…
Rating Bee is the most relevant online review website online
Reviewers can leave reviews and request resolutions to their issues from your business.
Why do businesses need Rating Bee?
EACH STAR BELOW 5 STARS IS A 8-10% LOSS IN REVENUE!
We help your business cleanup bad reviews and allow you to easily manage all reviews ongoing from the major review websites. Rating Bee harnesses the power of the community using fair practices to enhance the review process allowing a customer to get resolutions to issues. Rating Bee uses BOTH good and negative reviews to help a business get better, thus making the reviewer a hero in guiding a business to getting better over each review.
Accountability for both the reviewer and the business:
The Reviewer leaving a review
- Ensuring that negative reviews are not just flames but are actually relative to the issue.
- Adding to every review an opportunity to share how the business can be better and can fix the issue for future customers. Reviewers can also track the progress of an issue with the business ongoing.
- All requests contain a Resolution tracking ID with an incident time stamp for timely resolutions
- Negative 1 & 2 star reviews are posted for 1 Year and must be renewed by the reviewer yearly or that bad review is removed.
- Reviewers can reach out to moderators for assistance with reviews or resolutions
- Once the issue is solved, reviews can choose to make the resolution public benefiting the business and making the reviewer a SuperHero and allowing for an updated rating of the business!
The Business receiving and managing reviews
- Every business is protected by the Rating Bee Fair Review Act Policy, protecting not just customers but the reputation of the businesses as well
- ALL reviews below 3 stars are reviewed by a Rating Bee Moderator to help eliminate bogus or unfair reviews
- If a business suspects a review is bogus the review can be flagged
- Every Rating Bee Business Listing is vetted making sure a resolution or review is never dormant
- Every business has a rating which is scored not just on reviews, but also based on their dedication and commitment to your customer service. Basically a business that does not respond to a review or resolution is ranked accordingly, however, businesses want to solve your issue before you leave a bad review
- All responses by the business are made available in a private dashboard allowing for the protection of not just the conversation in progress, but also for the privacy of the reviewer and business.
- Only Reviewers can choose to make public their reviews and resolutions
- All business listings are optimized for Google and will bring more traffic and better customer conversions
Claim your FREE business listing here on Rating Bee to begin getting better reviews online. You’ll get better SEO, Rankings and enhance customer service for your client and customers.
Should I ask my customers for reviews?
So the quick answer here is absolutely yes!
It’s very important for every business to encourage their customers to support them ongoing by leaving a review for the business. We will make clear however that certain policies and guidelines for each review site vary. As an example, Yelp discourages the business from asking for reviews. Google on the other hand has no such restrictions.
Rating Bee absolutely encourages businesses to ask their customers to share the love!
This will give a significant boost to your business and reputation. This also gives you better averages to maintain a higher rating score overall. 84% of customers trust reviews before going to businesses.
What to avoid when asking for reviews
So before we get started on how to ask for reviews, I’ll give you some hints on some things to avoid:
- Stay away from giveaways for a review, this will most likely get you blacklisted or banned by many review websites.
- Focus on your customers and avoid the family and friends doing the favor of posting multiple times…. LOL
- When displaying reviews on your site, don’t re-word reviews from customers
How to go about asking for reviews
In person directly to your customer
There’s no better way to get a review from your customer than to simply ask. Many times as a business owner we’re fortunate to get a customer to come in and praise what we’re doing. This is a perfect opportunity to ask them to consider leaving a review.
Get the entire staff involved
As your staff is always serving customers, as part of their customer service responsibilities they should be asking customers when the opportunity arises to leave a review.
Directly from the point of sale
As part of the purchase process, it gives the customer the opportunity during the checkout process to leave a review quickly directly on your point of sale. It’s a great opportunity to also have customers share their experience during their purchase and after the purchase by sending them their receipt via email but allowing them to leave a review using the Rating Bee Review Widget which is part of your paid package.
Online Reviews via email
70% of customers prefer email communications with businesses. Because of this it’s a wonderful opportunity to receive feedback and reviews with a simple email or receipt as stated above. Try to avoid all of the fancy graphics, send out a simple, easy to read text email requesting a review. This could be as simple as:
“Hey there Susan, thank you for stopping in. We appreciate your business and we’d love to have you share your experience with others. Would you write us a review? Click the link here to leave us a review and share the love!”
Rating Bee has a review widget that is part of the service that allows you to gather reviews from your customers directly from your website. When sending out these emails you would send them directly to the page where you gather the review.
Business Reviews via Text messages
This is another fantastic opportunity for you to reach out to your customers quickly especially after a sale. Many modern Point Of Sale systems allow you to gather contact information about the customer, by gathering the phone number of the customer you’re able to send text messages to not only send receipts but also to post review requests. The Rating Bee Review Widget allows customers to be able to put in a review directly from their mobile phone. Awesome!
Rating Bee allows for you to gather all of these reviews and one convenient dashboard where you can respond, not just the bad reviews but also the good ones. We bring in all of the major review websites into one convenient list allowing you to quickly update responses easily.
Claim your business now for free to get started.
Rating Bee — The Better Review
So, what’s a bad review online?
Do more with a fair online review for businesses
Every hero knows, with great power comes great responsibility… to write fair reviews! With websites like Yelp and Google reviews, consumers have the power to make or break a business, often without knowing the repercussions. Many pro reviewers do give good reviews and when browsing Yelp, there is evidence of that fact. However, those new to reviews may not be as forgiving in their snap reviews of a business as a pro reviewer. Granted, some of these negative reviews are justified, the smart businesses see honest reviews as an opportunity to improve their business and use them as a benchmark to how the public views their business. This is why review websites like Yelp, Google, and Rating Bee are so popular.
First time reviewers have more power than your proven business, take back your power
If reviewers are compelled enough to write a review, most of the time that review will not be positive. What’s also interesting is if the reviewer on Yelp has not had many reviews or a first-time reviewer, you can almost guarantee that positive reviews will be listed within the “Not recommended” section, but if that review was negative it would certainly be listed… on the top!
Consider this, when someone wants to write a review online, it requires effort, most of the time with our busy lives, taking that 10 minutes to write that review usually is driven by something that has completely upset them enough that they would take the time to write a review about that business. Good reviews, however, happen most of the time from absolutely stellar customer service and an experience or interaction with the business that was extraordinary.
Every business has a bad day, online reviews never tell you that
But here’s something to consider, what if when a negative review is written that we take into consideration that every business; as with every person, has a bad day. No business is perfect, and no person is perfect. Situations pop up that may cause difficulties in performance in all aspects of a business. What if we gave a business the benefit of the doubt.
If you’ve had consistent meals and good service at a restaurant the last couple of times you visited, but on one occasion the wait staff was not attentive enough? Is that worth flaming the business and the years of dedicated service they have tried to provide? As a reviewer, should we not take more responsibility for making sure that we give truthful and fair reviews allowing businesses to use those honest reviews with suggestions as well? How could it be that the business has five stars for the last three years and then 3 people give a one-star rating? Explain that to the business? Could it be that the reviewer may have overreacted? How does a business fix that?
Fair online reviews for better ratings with Rating Bee
We at Rating Bee believe in fair reviews, positive or negative. We suggest to every reviewer to offer suggestions for improvement and review these businesses at Rating Bee giving the business a chance to make it right.
Rating Bee gives you the opportunity to post reviews WITH resolutions allowing the general public to see that business demonstrates their commitment to customer service and as a plus, you get your issue solved. Nice….
Yes, we have power when we make reviews, but like they say with superheroes, with great power comes great responsibility… in how you review with a little bit of consideration for the business. The business owner has spent years building that business, do they deserve the benefit of the doubt? Could it be that your issue was one of those 1 in 500 bad days?
Give small businesses a chance to correct those reviews. Resolutions on Rating Bee could save small businesses in your community. How about give a local business a good review online now?
Reviews for your business? With what time?
It’s worth taking the time to manage your customer reviews
As a business owner, it can be overwhelming and discouraging maintaining a healthy online presence. There are so many different things required of you in addition to running your business. No matter what your business is; you still must be tech savvy enough to handle all of your online reviews, maintain your website, social media, SEO, advertising, and business listings. It’s like having to do another full time job on top of running your company!
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average business owner works an average of 50 hours a week! Having all of this extra work just to keep your business current in today’s world sounds exhausting.
We can manage your online reviews for you
Sure, there are people that you can hire to do some of this for you, but they’re very expensive; and you often cannot trust them to actually do what they say they’re going to do. Then you get ripped off and stuck in a contract with someone who isn’t actually working for you … all because you don’t understand all of that tech stuff, or you don’t have time to do it.
What if there was a way you could have someone handle ALL of that for you? Someone you could trust to do a good job? What would that outcome be?
- Your SEO would be dialed in; allowing your customers’ searches to reach you.
- Your business listings would be accurate and consistent on all major internet providers; making your business show up where needed.
- Your social media would always be updated and working for you.
- Your online reviews would be tended to by having responses to every one of them. The good ones and bad ones; minimizing future bad ones, and knocking off old bad ones.
What would THAT outcome be?!
More customers. More revenue. More time for you to focus on YOUR business
Who does all this? Rating Bee! Rating Bee allows a business to DIY all of these things easily; or they can do it all for you. Imagine being able to have someone else take the wheel of your online business management and see real, powerful results! Businesses that do all of these things; and do them well, are way more successful than ones who don’t. But they have money to hire expensive professionals, or are savvy enough to do it themselves.
Not everyone can do that. Especially small businesses that are starting out. They need all the help they can get with all the corporate giants out there monopolizing the market.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and about 50% of small businesses fail in their fifth year. They need to succeed NOW, before it’s big box stores as far as the eye can see. The American dream is getting harder and harder to reach when the top company made 514.4 billion last year and they are an “everything store”. The future needs “mom and pop” stores in every town or we’ll turn into Disney’s WALL-E.
That’s where Rating Bee flies in. They’re providing a modern solution to a modern problem, and boy they are nailing it! Handling online reputation and management isn’t where it stops. They also have their own revolutionary review engine that is more fair, accurate and truthful than any other site, with new rules about writing reviews.
Rating Bee helps businesses fix online reviews
The goal is to help businesses AND customers while encouraging a positive exchange with each other; as well as help businesses thrive, and support them wherever they are with packages that any business can afford; and making a successful business within reach for all.
Rating Bee — The Better Review