If you’re running a customer-focused small business, reputation management software works to create a process for encouraging feedback and reviews from your customers. Try it! You’ll gather more reviews on Google and other platforms as you improve your business with feedback from your customers.
Summary of How Reputation Management Software Works
This video was recorded in 2015 and the information in this blog post has been updated. Information in italics is part of the update.
Howdy folks. My name is Paul Sherland from IX Brand SEO Services in Houston. And today I’m going to be talking to you about reputation management software or software that you can use to build reputations for your business website.
There are a bunch of them out there. A number of companies have built software that will help you gather reviews from your customers and that reputation management software works for small businesses.
One of them that I’m familiar with is Reputation Loop (now Grade.us). I’ve seen some of their advertising stuff and Customer Lobby is another one. And there are lots of others. But I use a company called GetFiveStars (now GatherUp.com). So this is a review of GetFiveStars.
How Reputation Management Software Works to Collect Feedback & Reviews
I have been using it for about a year (now five years) with most of my clients, and it works really well.
Step 1 – Collect Name and Email Address from Customers
The way it works is my client collects first name, last name and email address from their customers. My small business clients collect that information from their customers usually in the course of doing business.
Step 2 – Send an Email Asking for Feedback
Immediately after service, that first name, last name and email address are used to generate an email that goes to that customer asking for feedback about the experience. The customer responds on a 0-10 scale with a comment block. If the rating is a nine or ten, then that’s viewed as someone who’s a fan. If it’s seven or eight that’s someone who’s neutral, and if it’s six or below then it’s someone who didn’t have a good experience. The comment block will let the customer explain what happened either good, neutral, or bad.
Step 3 – Your Business Response Depends on the First Rating
If you have a promoter, if you’ve got a fan, the customer gets another request either by email or on a web page. That gives them the opportunity to leave reviews on Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook and maybe some other sites that are specific to the business like AVVO for lawyers, DealerRater for car dealers or Healthgrades for medical professionals.
If there’s a neutral or negative rating in that first feedback, then, the next webpage that comes up or the next page or form that comes up is a form asking for more information about what went wrong. So the business has an opportunity to take that information and either make it right if they can or at least use it to improve as part of a business improvement process. You should be trying to make your business better all the time.
Customers who have provided a neutral or negative rating in that initial feedback also get a request to give the business a review on Google, Yelp and other websites. But because of the initial feedback, the small business is now aware of a problem with that customer and has the information needed to act and patch the relationship if desired.
How Net Promoter from GatherUp.com Gives Your Business an Advantage
So what separates GetFiveStars from the other review systems? First of all, it’s that 10 point scale in the initial feedback request. That’s based on a study that was published in Harvard Business Review in 2003 called, “The One Number You Need to Grow.” That 0-10 scale was established as part of an intensive statistical case study. The study found that the Net Promoter Score is one of the best metrics predicting business growth.
The Net Promoter study also determined what a six means or what an eight means. GatherUp.com competitors other scales like one to five, and you have no idea what the number means. The Net Promoter methodology is one of the big pluses of GatherUp.com.
The other thing is that you get this business improvement information, and that’s a big plus for the smart businesses that use it.
And the last thing is that it does well is help the businesses get reviews on review sites like Google My Business, Yelp and some of these other more specific sites as well.
So GatherUp.com works. It’s also reasonably priced.
Reputation Management Software only Works if you Use It
You’ve got to use your reputation management software for it to benefit your business. You’ve got to send that initial feedback request out to all of your customers. If you don’t do that then it’s not going to work, but hey, nothing’s going to work.
Some businesses will try to guess who the happy customers are and only send the feedback requests out to those customers. That’s not a good idea because it really cuts back the Google and other reviews you get from your customers. It’s also a bad idea because you’re not getting that Net Promoter feedback you need to affirm what you’re doing right in your business and fix what’s going wrong.
So for my customers, my clients who use that, who send the GetFiveStars feedback survey out regularly it works great. If you have any questions please contact me. This is Paul Sherland IX Brand SEO services. Thank you very much.