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It’s no secret that satisfied customers bring you more sales, while unhappy customers can prevent them. People who feel strongly about a service they received or a product they purchased in either a negative or positive way are very likely to tell others about their experience.

Before the internet, this effect was limited to actual word of mouth. A customer could tell his family, friends and co-workers about his fantastic or horrible experience with your business. But this took some effort on the customer’s part to get the word out, however, and many customers wouldn’t take the time. Very few people actually took the step of writing a letter to the business or would even tell friends about their experience more than a few days after their interaction with a business. Only if they were extremely pleased – or displeased – would the word get out.

The growth of the internet has made it much easier to praise or complain about a company in a public way. But there are many online directories that allow anyone to post a comment about a business. Not only does this allow a customer to make their opinion of your products and services known to many more people, it also opens the door to abuse. Business owners pretending to be customers can post positive reviews. Or disgruntled employees and competitors can post negative reviews. There is no verification that the information posted is true.

All of those reviews are about to become ten times more visible to potential customers who are looking for a local business. Google Places, formerly Google Local Business Listings, has displayed reviews entered by users on their site and a number of other directories. Now Google is integrating information from the Google Places listing into the organic search.

So you’ve worked hard to ensure that your company is one of the first few listings that shows up when customers are looking for the services you provide in your area. Now, right next to the organic listing is a link to customer reviews. Immediately below your URL is your address and phone number from your Google Places listing. Often a snippet of a review is there too. If this happens to be a negative review, the potential customer will almost certainly click on a different listing. It’s the online equivalent of someone standing in front of your business with a sign telling people Don’t Shop Here.

What can you do about it? Well, first of all Google won’t remove a negative review just because you ask them to. But they also won’t take the time to find out whether the information is accurate. You must encourage positive reviews and address negative ones – with your customers and online.

Always Encourage Good Reviews

If there are more positive reviews than negative, the odds say there’s a better chance that a review that shows within the body of your listing will be a good one. Also, if a customer takes the time to look at several reviews, hopefully they will be swayed by the happy customers. You could encourage all of your customers to write an online review, but that will result in more negative reviews as well as positive.

So how can you approach only the satisfied customers with a request for an online review? There are a number of great techniques that we use here at Hat Trick Associates. One of the best takes advantage of the system already in place to solicit customer feedback in place at many businesses already, often in the form of a telephone follow-up or written questionnaire. You could sort out those who have responded favorably and send them a request for an online review. If your request is in the form of an email, you could provide links to your business’s listings on various sites that accept user reviews. You could provide something to your customer in return for taking the time to post a review. A free ice cream, 10% off their next purchase from you, or some other prize could entice them to make the effort and make them feel good about your business at the same time.

Address Damaging Reviews Head On

If you can contact the unhappy customer and solve whatever problem he or she had, they just might be willing to remove the negative review. Whether or not you think the complaint is valid, it’s in your best interest to fix it. This may cost you money – but not doing so could cost you even more. Think about how much you spend to bring in new customers. Don’t let a relatively small amount of money get in your way, even if you’re right and the customer is wrong.

Sometimes it will still be impossible to get the customer to rescind his post. But there are still techniques that you (or we here at Hat Trick Associates) can still use to help mitigate the damage by responding to the complaint online. Post your own comment explaining the situation or apologizing to the reviewer and stating your offer to fix the problem. If another potential customer takes the time to read the whole post, they will see that you’re trying to make your customers happy, and will be far more likely to still do business with you in spite of the negative review.

Other Advice

• Occasionally, a negative review will violate the terms established by the review site, for example using foul language. If this is the case, you can flag it for review and it might be removed by the publishing website.

• Don’t enter multiple positive reviews yourself. Online directories try to prevent fraudulent reviews because they make their site less useful to their visitors.

• Google Places displays reviews from sites such as Insider Pages and Yelp, as well as reviews posted directly to Google. If you ask your customers to post positive reviews, give them links to a variety of review sites. It will look more natural if reviews come from more than one site.

It’s always been critical for a business to cultivate a good reputation, but never before has a dissatisfied customer been able to reach the public, right alongside your advertisement. The majority of consumers are bypassing the yellow pages (when was the last time you used one?) and turning to their favorite search engine to find a business instead, making these reviews more important than ever.

You can no longer afford to not know what reviews are out there or to simply ignore dissatisfied customers. They have more power than ever before. But managing your reputation throughout the internet with an Online Reputation Management Campaign certainly takes time and resources, and a long-term commitment from you.

As part of a comprehensive social media platform or as a stand-alone service, Hat Trick Associates can help you manage your online reviews to maximize the positive word of mouth for your business, and minimize the negative. Contact us for more information on how, including a specific pricing quote created just for you.