Solving issues for your customer
Reviews online can be crushing to a business
We’ve all had issues with businesses, and as we’ve said before on many other Rating Bee blogs that no business is perfect. Sometimes when getting that cup of coffee every morning you expect consistency, the same faces, the same level of customer service that you’ve come to enjoy. And because you’ve been going to that business for so long you understand that there are times when they’re not perfect, so you can “cut them a little slack”.
But I wonder if we don’t do the same for those businesses that we don’t frequent all the time?
Businesses on Rating Bee focus on customer resolutions
Successful Resolutions with clients are by far the best outcome for a small business. A resolution opens the communication between the client/customer and the small business giving them a platform to solve any issue. All of these conversations occur in a private message board, however with the customer’s permission, those discussions can be made public, thus giving the business yet another opportunity to show how they handle the resolution process. Once complete, this is called a successful resolution.
Write a review for a business
Every resolution, successful and unsuccessful, is scored against the business and its rating. We take the overall score based on other reviews as well as the resolution outcomes and calculate a score. This is why you truly get the most honest review and rating possible for any business when searching on Rating Bee.
Get those issues solve today and start a resolution with a business.
Understanding the difference between a review and a resolution
Resolutions fix customer issues, reviews are written by your customers
Reviews are a powerful way for a customer to share their experiences with a business. Everyone is quite familiar with how reviews work, but they don’t always understand the consequences of those reviews. We’ve written several blogs sharing more insight on good and bad reviews written by customers and how it affects small businesses. We encourage you to see the Rating Bee Reviews Blog here….
Online reviews have lasting damage
Reviews being written by a customer about a business allows the business to respond to that reviewer, and try to solve the issue, however, it is not an ongoing conversation, what’s more is other customers can never know whether or not there was a resolution to a bad review. This negatively impacts a small business as the poor reviews pile up without a fix, sometimes for years within the business review profile, I’m sure you have see those bad reviews for 4 years ago on a business profile, how can that be fair?
Resolutions help solve issues before a bad review is written
Resolutions on the other hand give the customer an opportunity to communicate with the business about an issue and in turn also gives a small business a chance to solve that issue. We generate every successfully completed resolution and we share this information with the public allowing them to see a history of that small business doing their part to solve the issue for their customers. Every business wants to demonstrate their commitment to customer service, resolutions give them a way to do just that.
What’s more, a business can generate a resolution for a bad review on other websites such as Yelp and Google by simply creating a resolution from their Premium account and posting that resolution ID within the answer for any bad reviews anywhere and on any review site. This gives any other customer reading those reviews a clear indication that the business has reached out to the reviewer leaving a negative review and is offering an opportunity to solve that issue, publicly. Nice…
Rating Bee brings customers and businesses together solving issues
Now you see why it’s so important and why we stress resolutions for small business. Our entire business model is built around bringing the customer to the small business and opening the lines of communication allowing them to resolve negative issues and posting those successful results publicly. What better way is there for a small business to demonstrate their commitment to their customers?
Go beyond just a review
If you are a business and you’re just answering reviews, you are losing the opportunity to not just get better reviews and higher ratings but return customers. Your customer base is everything, start resolving issues with them and keep your customers and find new ones who see your reviews. Better review ratings are waiting, get started here by claiming your business.
The review blender for small business
Corporate Online review companies are crushing small business
In the last three years, we’ve seen more review sites online. Commercials every 30 minutes convince consumers that entire industries of small business have now been blended down to reviews and customer ratings. The local business competes now with Corporate America and the big business machine and their seemingly infinite marketing dollar. These media spots crush the smaller businesses as it reaches their customer base in a way they never could, business owners are now competing not just against other businesses in their city; but now with Angie’s list, Glassdoor and others. Marketing is much different than it was 10 years ago as well. Marketing standards have changed entirely. Small business owners are compelled to consider online reviews to be a path to success and is as important as the product that they provide. Reviews are the future. Small business owners have no choice but to adapt and compete.
Large companies are changing marketing for the little guy
We look at the reviewers on these corporate sites who unknowingly empower large corporations to make determinations on how small business functions and markets in the United States. In an earlier blog, we spoke about it being a tax, I’ll go a little further and say it is the destruction of the personality of small business in America. The stripping of the personality and the personalities behind a business. I remember the days when small businesses had a character in their marketing approach and focused on expanding their own niche. Those were the days of great commercials, word of mouth and lots of personality!
Your small business needs to adapt to new ways to market
The truth is small business has to adapt, these large corporations are not going anywhere. The fact is that reviews and review sites are the future because of their adoption by consumers. With the crowd review, every business in America is now subject to reviews, it’s even more important to ensure that you’re protected as a small business owner. So who will be the Vanguard and the protector of small businesses? How do we get those businesses to stand out, not to just be blended categorically into small business soup? What does it take to ensure that these large companies are held accountable for those bad reviews? Is there a way to change it so the public sees the effort of the business? Granted sometimes poor reviews are justified but more often than not, they should STILL be solved. Where are the resolutions? I love the idea that the customer has choices and can go with recommendations from others and are matched with the best service. It’s a great concept; except who is looking out for the little guy? Small businesses that may have received one bad review out of their five reviews? Does that mean the next guy after him with that one extra star gets the job before he does? Who helps that small business and how does he compete in the corporate review world?
Look beyond just marketing and focus on online reviews
Rating Bee has come up with a solution that allows us to be able to resolve these bad reviews. The best way for small businesses to display their personality and their resolve is to respond by using a review engine that allows them to publicly and decisively solve the clients’ issues. Get that one-star bad review removed. Don’t let it sit, don’t just apologize, do more, resolve it. Do what’s needed to ensure that the client updates that review and gives you the chance to remove that negative review. Stagnant, bad reviews from four years ago can crush your overall score. Don’t be homogenized, and don’t settle for negative reviews. Get to Rating Bee and get those reviews solved now.
Consider Reputation and Review Management Services
Consider Reputation and Review Management Services
Your online reputation is everything, reviews from your customers can be posted at several locations throughout the Internet on websites such as Google, Yelp and Score Client. For a small business, this may seem to be a daunting task to manage so many different websites, combing the pages for negative reviews, and yes we do believe that it is entirely necessary to consistently manage your online reputation on an ongoing basis. Many larger companies have entire teams that handle the management of their reviews online, comments from customers, even good reviews being responded to by their team. As a small business, you too should have such a team! Excellent customer service goes well beyond in-store attention. For some business owners, it’s difficult to manage all of these different websites. What to do?
Rating Bee Reputation Services
Let the Rating Bee reputation service team manage your online reputation by monitoring Google, Yelp and Rating Bee for reviews. If in the event there is a customer service issue and a customer requests a resolution, we handle that resolution to its completion for you, and you focus on your business and we handle those reviews. In addition, beyond negative reviews, we handle customer service questions, good reviews and general information all for you online using a private message board allowing both the Rating Bee team and you, total transparency so you can follow and track requests allowing you to interject whenever needed.
Signup here for reputation management
Online reputation management guarantees not just that your customers will be responded to for both positive and negative reviews, but the hidden benefits also include an improvement in your Google trust rank (as shared by Brian Dean at Backlinko). So, as your online reputation grows, and the more credible your business, the better SEO your website will achieve. Search engine optimization now goes well beyond just keyboards on the page. Your online reputation and credibility are now factors calculated within the Google search algorithm to ensure the very best businesses are displayed on google search results. Online reputation management is an essential part of any marketing strategy for small to medium businesses. We make it affordable with packages starting at $80 monthly for small businesses and $500 monthly for medium to large businesses. And if you’re an organization or looking for a corporate account, contact us here and we will build a customized solution for you.
Get started now at Rating Bee to begin protecting your reviews online.
A second chance for a GOOD review
Here’s an interesting concept, let’s imagine that a small business opens its doors, and for the first few months they’re working out the kinks on how the business will run, how to give dedicated customer service, how to lock down that menu and deliver consistent meals all while juggling hiring and training staff. Those first few months are crucial in the development of the business in the long run. Granted, having new customers flowing into the door and giving them the best experience possible is the goal, but when you’re starting out it’s sometimes difficult to get it exactly right every time until the management and the staff gets everything down to a science.
Consistency, especially in the food service industry is no easy task. This is where it’s absolutely crucial for a business to pay very close attention to what’s happening with their customers, and most importantly how they are being reviewed online. And for patrons visiting these new businesses, can we say we should give the business a chance? Can we say that we don’t flame the business with a bad review on the first experience? Can we give that business an opportunity to demonstrate that they’re capable of consistency and longevity in your community? We at Rating Bee say that every business should be given that chance and a second chance.
Here’s another thought, imagine early in life as a young adult, you may not have made the most sound choices financially and you’ve made mistakes with your spending or student loan debt. If things didn’t go as planned, your bad credit doesn’t stay with you forever, after 7 years you can get a fresh start, barring bankruptcy. We wonder… what if small businesses had the same opportunity? What if bad reviews can stay for a period of 1 year. Can a business improve over time?
Rating Bee says yes. Businesses get better as they hone their skills by offering the best representation of the original design modeled for that business. We say, let’s give every small business the opportunity and wipe out bad reviews. After so many months (6–12) an automated request goes out via email to the reviewer and asks if they want to change their review, or remove it. If they choose nothing or do not respond, the review will be removed and the business gets a second chance.
As Reviewers, we suggest returning to that business and giving them a try again, consider it a civic duty for the community! We have a feeling that on that second visit you will see improvement and your updated review will not be as harsh!
Allow a business to grow beyond its beginnings. There’s a better way to review business, join us by sharing your favorite businesses and reviewing them fairly, give small businesses an opportunity to solve your issues with resolutions that will help you and your local community in the long run. Start reviewing at Rating Bee.
Better Google SEO with Good Reviews
So, we have Google reviews and Yelp reviews… These businesses account for 80% of all search reviews online. And although many businesses may focus only on Yelp as the primary review website, the truth is, Google reviews is still, and will continue to be the largest and should NOT be ignored when it comes to managing your online ratings. If you consider that Google accounts for 65% of all searches worldwide and that Google business is listed prominently on all search results, it’s a no-brainer to consider that Google; and it’s reviews, should be one of the top priorities for any business.
Granted we’re talking about reviews, and Rating Bee focuses most of its technology on managing and resolving bad reviews. However; another important aspect of online reviews is the search engine optimization (SEO) and the benefits that go along with good reviews online. The focus of this article will be primarily understanding the basics of a google search and how it affects your business when customers use google search to find you.
A quick note: Please keep in mind that these assumptions and examples are a very simplified description of how Google search works. But as a business owner, we need to know at least the absolute basics. If you can understand the 4 simple rules to search, you can employ practices that will help you to be more visible on Google for a higher placement in search results and reviews online. In later articles, we will go deeper into search engine optimization and how to employ the most effective review strategies.
Google uses highly complex algorithms to ensure that every search has the highest relevancy. So let’s talk about the anatomy of a search with google… For this simplified example we will search for an electrician. Your customer begins a search by going to Google and typing in the keyword “electrician” to find results:
Keyword: The keyword “Electrician” is being used by several websites, let’s imagine that the search yields a collection of 100 websites containing that keyword.
Location: Out of those 100 websites Google then gathers the closest location to your IP address during the search and narrows the search down to 60 websites.
Device: Google then recognizes the device being used by the searcher and in this case let’s imagine that we are using a mobile device which brings that search result down to 30.
Scoring Relevancy: Google then uses its scoring algorithm to take into account several factors, search relevancy is based on bounce rate [which is how many people have gone to that site before, and how many have stayed for that keyword), the more people that have stayed on the website for that search, the higher the relevancy, the more people that have left the website the higher the bounce rate. Lesson: Be relevant and keep your customer on your website…
Google then takes into account all of these factors, and most likely presents the searcher with Google Map results which then show you businesses closest to you along with Google reviews allowing you to choose and get directions and contact information all at once. Consumers will always choose businesses with good reviews and those that provide clear and concise contact information.
So what can you do to ensure that you use strategies that will get you found? Let’s use the four points above:
Keyword: make sure that your website has the relevant keywords that your customers will use to find you. You can use Google keyword to define the most relevant keywords for your business.
Location: make sure that on your website your location is listed. Make sure to also include the areas that you serve i.e. metros, counties etc.
Device: make sure that you have a responsive website allowing users to view your website on all devices.
Scoring relevancy: make sure that throughout your website you follow Standard search engine optimization practices for better placement in search results.
Build a strategy to be found online
Get your contact data right
Give a customer every opportunity to be able to reach you through phone, email, live chat etc. Whatever it takes to keep that customer communicating with you. This is an important part of customer relations to ensure that the client can give you their business.
Get on Google Business
This is a big one, go get listed free! This is a priority, Google reviews are a must…
Expand your SEO, get on Rating Bee
Along with website optimization, you can use the power of Rating Bee profile pages, simply do a search for your business and claim it, it’s free.
Every business that signs up, has its own business page with highly optimized content for search engine optimization. We provide the relevant information to enhance your search by validating your website content, what you do, your mission, your contact information and most importantly highly relevant reviews with resolutions. Rating Bee takes Google and Yelp reviews into account and uses an advanced algorithm to give you the most relevant reviews possible online. Google will notice…. Get your business signed up here for better search engine optimization on Google. As an added bonus, you can now resolve those pesky bad reviews that will help your business skyrocket in the results of Google.
Stay informed
Be sure to sign up for the Rating Bee Medium channel here and follow us on Facebook and Twitter, we will be creating a series of articles on how to get better reviews and improve your search engine optimization all at once.
The hard truth about Yelp
The whole mission of Rating Bee is to make sure that every business gets a fair shake, an opportunity to fix negative reviews in an unbiased and fair platform. I’d like to preface this article with pointing out that we’re not in the business of writing negative opinions about any other competitor, but we are in the business of ensuring that small business gets a fair shake, and we’ll call it out as we see it. This article is one of those call outs.
Yelp is a necessity now for small businesses; they’ve grown their following and become one of the top five review engines online. Granted, in the early days it was quite a different model; but, now it is harder for small businesses to succeed on Yelp more than ever because of their antiquated ranking algorithm. So what is this algorithm? There are multiple instances online where websites have entire discussion boards pertaining specifically to Yelp and it’s business practices toward small business. In essence, most of these articles are businesses that have experienced difficulties using Yelp as a reliable source for reviews and most importantly seeing Yelp as strong-arming businesses into paying for enhanced Yelp reviews and recommendations. Sadly, many of these businesses complain of unfair practices mostly to do with negative reviews and the resolution of those reviews. In addition, many businesses have worked hard to get positive reviews on their profiles only to have them hidden in a section called “not recommended“. Shockingly, Yelp also discourages you from requesting your clients to review your services. That is nuts. Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, the good experiences demonstrate to the rest of the Yelp community your commitment to their satisfaction. How is it possible that a business would discourage reviews for your business?
We at Rating Bee believe that you should absolutely encourage your customers to provide fair and unbiased reviews about their experience with your business. You’ve worked hard to build this business; we want to make sure that your customers share the love.
Many believe that businesses will only invite customers that are sure to leave good reviews, and that may be so, because of this let us clarify…
You should offer your clients every opportunity to share fair and unbiased reviews by offering them opportunities to share their experiences. Give your client base a voice by allowing them to leave suggestions to improve the business with in-store surveys, satisfaction cards, reviews on Google, Yelp and Rating Bee. The smart business owner uses negative reviews to improve their business.
Every opportunity that you have with your customer should be spent encouraging more business and asking them of their experiences. “How can we better help you today”, should be your primary question. In essence, how can I get you to return to my Business? How can we improve? These are essential questions for the growth and prosperity of any business.
No, we don’t discourage customer reviews, we encourage it.
We expect that all businesses listed with Rating Bee take advantage of every opportunity to promote their business. So this is not a Yelp bashing article, it is merely stating the difference between Yelp and Score Client, we don’t hide your good reviews, we won’t hide your bad reviews, but we will give you an opportunity to solve those reviews if they are negative. We don’t use strong-arm tactics to force you into huge monthly payments. Our packages for our very best Premium service is $15.99 and Standard is $9.95. That’s it.
Be fair to your business, get your business noticed and reviews recognized. Use every opportunity to enhance your listings to grow your business. Our mission is to prove that small businesses can get better reviews, one resolved review at a time, join us and get your business listed and get your business profile started.
Is your business misrepresented?
Before the internet
Before the internet; a business placed an ad in the local paper, put balloons outside their front door for sales, and received free and easy word of mouth recommendations to drum up business.
Today, a lot more is required. In addition to being good at your job, whatever that is; a business needs to be able to juggle online marketing, and how their business is being represented online. While claiming your business on a review site, and adding your businesses’ information doesn’t take a lot of time, managing them certainly does. Having your business on a site that gets a lot of traffic seems like free advertising, but you don’t have control over how your business is being represented. You’re at the mercy of their ulterior motives and terms and conditions, not to mention relentless sharks calling you from their advertising department.
Several different sites exist requiring your attention and sometimes money; like a tax for simply having a business. They all claim to be doing you a favor, then turn around and not only give little assistance to the business but create more hoops for you to jump through just to stay alive on their site. Forcing you to feel as though you need to pay the site, and hire someone to manage it all for you. You wind up scratching your head saying “this isn’t a good representation of my business, shouldn’t this be easier?” But you have to play the game… It’s as though the review sites are dictating what your business is about and what it’s worth, to you! They’ve got you by the proverbial… huevos.
For example, Yelp’s algorithm decides that your new customer’s review; that they were so happy with their service, isn’t worth seeing, but the negative review is. Home Advisor is making money by charging for leads and advertising, but they still have contractors who are scammers and have not been looked into. Costing their customers thousands of dollars. Porch charges an arm and a leg for their leads, and you’re still not guaranteed to get the job. Facebook doesn’t have a way to dispute negative reviews that appear on your business’s page… Check out this Irish business owner that had his account hacked, and received over 100 negative one-star reviews. Plummeting his score from 4.9 to 1.8 and has no recourse.
These review and lead sites should not have this kind of dominance. Most business owners are hard working and genuinely want to take care of their customers. They deserve to be assisted based on their needs, not to make success harder to achieve. Shouldn’t there be a site that actually helps the business and the client? Showcasing the great businesses, and exposing the poorly run business in a fair way? Allowing all of your positive reviews to be seen, let the negative reviews fall off after one year, and, giving you the business owner; the ability to expose those bad clients that have harmed your business?!
At Rating Bee the business is able to do all of the above and then some! Creating a fair site for fair reviews for the client and the business. Online review sites have been biased and unethical for too long. It’s time balance, and justice was instilled on a review site. Go to Rating Bee to begin by claiming your business and cleaning up those bad reviews.
One Review, One Star… Crushed!
Spring repairs for the home have come around again and it’s time to get some electrical work done. Granted, I’m one of the bloggers here at Rating Bee, so I know how this whole review thing works and how to search for a contractor. So, I do a quick search on Google and cycle through the search results for an electrician. Google goes out and gathers the most relevant results from Google business and displays them based on location and ratings. From this list, I can choose from one of the better contractors in our area. Sadly, I noticed one particular contractor that stood out. Because I work here, I know how to spot those small businesses with review issues, inconsistent contact information, no website, no online customer communication with their clients and no social media involvement. I happened to notice this poor contractor that had ONE review and it’s an ONE STAR. He is showing up in the top 20 in my area, yet he will never be chosen by anyone searching for an electrical contractor because of that ONE review.
This is a very important subject. You may think that reviews don’t matter to some businesses, but you can clearly see that if you don’t pay attention to your reviews, you’re cooked. I can easily assume that this poor guy tries his hardest to do his best for his clients, and he probably does not even know that he’s been reviewed and was crushed by one customer with that one single review. He will lose a lot of potential customers from that search. It’s nuts, there has to be someone looking out for small businesses like him.
Don’t be complacent when it comes to reviews, check the five major review websites from our last blog, bookmark them and set up an account to claim your business to ensure that you’re always protected and that you are alerted when someone writes a bad review. You should always be able to respond and see it as an opportunity to correct an issue! Don’t be like this contractor; protect your reputation. Here’s a link to the last few blogs. Do yourself a favor and go through it and claim your business on each one of the services we have listed.
It’s time to claim your business
Get listed and fix your bad reviews
In the last few posts, we focused on the good and bad review websites and what to avoid. But with everything else in life and business, they are part of the necessary marketing steps that every small business should consider. Today, we will focus on the top five websites you should get your business listed on. You’ll need to go into each website and claim your business to take advantage of the free listing. It gives you a chance to see what customers are saying about your business. Then, if you find any bad reviews, you can reach out to that customer and resolve the problem using the Rating Bee resolution engine with each one of these websites. When claiming your listing, be sure to always have consistent information. Make sure to have the correct contact info, the location of the business, hours of operation and provide easy opportunities for the customers to communicate with your customer service reps.
It’s time for spring cleaning of your reviews!
Our list
Google My Business
Google gets 158 million views. Granted, not for your specific city. But in total, it’s huge. By far, this is the most important business listing you can have for your business. It’s important to keep in mind that whenever someone does a local search, Google business provides listings with reviews directly in the search results. Signup here
Facebook reviews
Social media websites like Facebook account for a huge population of reviews. As a small business, companies can create business profiles giving their customers an opportunity to leave business reviews directly within the platform. Having a Facebook page for your business is one of those necessities every business should consider. Signup here
Yelp reviews
Yelp gets about 40 million visitors and although it’s not as big as Google reviews, it has grown to be incredibly popular. We’ve written a few blogs about Yelp that we recommend you review. While they’re not liked by many, it’s still a requirement for a small business online. Get yourself listed by claiming your listing and start communicating with your customers straight away. Fix those bad reviews by posting a resolution through Score Client on Yelp and show your customer you are there to solve their issues. Signup here
Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages sounds like it’s from the stone age, but it is still a viable site with 10 million visitors. Their listings are borrowed on occasion by some of the larger search engines. This is why it would be beneficial for you to get listed. We suggest taking advantage of their free account. Signup here
Rating Bee
We’ve written this post specifically for the purpose of using Rating Bee to resolve your bad reviews on all of the sites listed above. Rating Bee gives you the opportunity to fix those bad reviews. If you really want to clean up those negative reviews, and at the same time demonstrate your commitment to customer service; then claim your business and get started generating resolutions that you can post on all of the above platforms.