Is online word of mouth good or bad? Call 281-343-3284 for expert online reputation management help. Serving small businesses in Sugar Land, Metro Houston, and the US.
Whether you ask your customers for reviews or not, odds are that your business had already been reviewed on the Web or it soon will be reviewed. You may not ask for the review, and the reviewer might not be a regular customer or even a customer at all. You may not even be aware of the fact that someone posted a review for your business until a friend or another customer tells you about it. Don’t be surprised — make it a regular, frequent practice to check your name and your business name on the Web on several major search engines. This ability to check your reputation using search engines is one of the advantages of online word of mouth.
You know that the best strategy for small businesses is to encourage customer feedback. However, even if you are personally involved with every customer, you don’t really know how they perceive your business until you ask them. Comment cards and yearly surveys don’t ever get much of a response and they are not focused on what the customer feels is most important. The Web is encouraging customer feedback in a new way. It doesn’t come directly back to you on a survey or comment card, but the information in these customer comments is just as valuable to the growth of your business.
You can take more control of community word of mouth by asking your customers to provide you with feedback and to post reviews on the Web. If they comply, you’ll get timely feedback from a broader cross-section of your customers. If a customer refuses your request to provide you with feedback, you’ve learned something new too, and you can talk to the customer to resolve the issues that stand in the way of a recommendation. IX Brand SEO Services has software solutions to make collecting reviews and boosting your online word of mouth much easier!
This online customer feedback information is gold for you. You can grow your business by doing more of what the customers tell you they like and try to eliminate the things about your business that they dislike. It’s a simple formula for success, but it works.
If you have questions about helping your online word of mouth work for your small business, please call IX Brand SEO Services Company at 281-343-3284.
