THE POWER OF CUSTOMER REVIEWS IS THAT – WHEN MANAGED WELL – THEY LET YOUR CUSTOMERS DO YOUR SELLING FOR YOU.
What makes customer reviews so impactful for companies operating in the financial services sector?
Here’s the bottom-line: 83% of customers don’t trust advertising, while an astounding 97% find user- generated content like reviews to be more credible than other forms of content.1,2
In fact, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.3
And they work: customers who read reviews are 58% more likely to buy and spend 3% more per order on average.4
But here’s the problem: what if your organization doesn’t have any reviews, or the reviews of your business are negative?
Without a structured, organized review management program, payment processors and merchant services vendors will under-perform with their reviews. They’ll get fewer reviews overall, and those reviews will skew negative because only “customers aroused by an emotional experience [like frustration or anger] tend to submit reviews on their own,” says Norman Rohr, SVP of Marketing of location marketing firm Uberall, in speaking with Search Engine Watch.5
But how do you minimize bad reviews and instead increase the overall quantity and quality of reviews while raising the average star rating? How do you cultivate an ongoing stream of new reviews, given that nearly half (48%) of customers only consider recent reviews?6
Ultimately, maximizing the impact of reviews on customer acquisition depends on strategy.
Your business needs a clear, goal-oriented approach to managing reviews and review sites. In this paper, we will present a 10-step process for effectively managing your reviews to maximize their impact on lead generation and customer acquisition.
Let’s get started.
In This Paper...
1: Deliver outstanding service
2: Determine which review sites to use
3: Understand the way those sites work
4: Determine which customers to ask for reviews
5: Time the review request just right
6: Use the right channel for requesting the review
7: Ask the right way
8: Follow-up on non-responses
9: Resolve any complaints
10: Respond to reviews
The step-by-step process
-
DELIVER OUTSTANDING SERVICE.
The single best way to prevent bad reviews and cultivate good reviews is to delight your customers – or at least satisfy them. In other words, the first law of review management is the old adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” By delivering outstanding service from the start, you will ease the entire review management process.
To this end, you might consider setting up a strategic account management program, or something that marketing automation platform Salesforce refers to as “clienteling.” In this situation, your business will assign each customer a strategic account manager. That person’s job is to ensure that your customers are happy. The Harvard Business Review reports that account management programs like this are associated with a 20% boost in client satisfaction.7 The result: better reviews. -
DETERMINE WHICH REVIEW SITES TO USE.
When beginning a review management program, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The Internet is home to an inordinate number of third-party review sites, far too many for most businesses to be able to manage. Even if you use an outside vendor to assist with review management efforts, your ROI for the investment will hit a point of diminishing returns if you don’t choose wisely.
You want to monitor the review sites where your ideal target customer is most likely to go. Think about the process that your customer goes through when researching payment processors and similar businesses. Most likely, they start with a Google search, since 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine.8 Pay attention to the review sites that show up in both paid and organic search listings for the various searches your customers are likely to perform, e.g. “best credit card processing companies.” Make sure you also look at searches that focus on specialized service offerings as well as the specific industries in which you operate, e.g. “best high risk merchant account providers”, “best restaurants credit card processing”, “best enterprise ACH processing services”, and so on. -
DETERMINE WHICH REVIEW SITES TO USE.
Visibility is key on review sites. If your business listing is buried under a mountain of other businesses, it might as well not be on that site at all. Think about Google search results: the vast majority of searchers – as much as 98% – never go past the first page of results.9 Fully one-third of searchers just click on the first position and don’t even scroll down the page.10 The same dynamic plays out on review sites. That means, if you want to get the most benefit from the review site, your business listing needs to be prominent. Figure out how that review site prioritizes ranking. For example, listings with the most recent activity might get listed higher. In other cases, it’s related to the number of reviews. Sometimes it’s the average review rating score.
Investigate if the site offers any alternative options for boosting your listing. That can be very helpful while your review management program gets started. If you can’t gain visibility according to the site’s normal algorithm, or if it will take time to do so, promote your listing. -
DETERMINE WHICH CUSTOMERS TO ASK FOR REVIEWS.
In general, you want to ask most, if not all, of your customers for reviews. Don’t worry about whether people will agree or not; according to SEO group BrightLocal, over two-thirds (68%) of people are willing to leave reviews upon request.11
Note, however, that companies operating in the financial services sector are subject to marketing and advertising regulations that put more pressure on how they solicit and use reviews and testimonials, so a degree of care and caution is required. Be equitable, don’t pay for reviews (no quid pro quo situations), and don’t dictate what reviewers say. Still, not every customer is a good candidate to leave a review. Don’t ask for a review until you are sure the customer is satisfied with your business offering. In fact, your review solicitation process might not start with the actual review request at all. Instead, it might begin with a simple customer check-in following up on the customer’s experience. -
TIME THE REVIEW REQUEST JUST RIGHT.
When you ask for the review can be a complicated question, especially since many merchant services companies and payment processors engage their customers through long-term contracts and ongoing service agreements. In general, the request should come at a time that makes sense given the business relationship. In general, for businesses that favor long-term and repeat business, create a standard operating procedure where a request for review is made at specific touchpoints, such as those listed in the sidebar. Those situations should serve as triggers that kickstart the review request process.
Touchpoints or Triggers for Requesting Reviews
After the customer:
Completes 2 to 6 months of service
Renews an agreement
Reorders a product or service
Refers a new customer to you
Compliments your business or offers other positive feedback -
USE THE RIGHT CHANNEL FOR REQUESTING THE REVIEW.
The way you manage your relationship with your customers should determine the channel(s) you use to request the review. For example, if you’re very hands- on in customer service and support, and/or if each customer has an assigned account manager, then a personalized request by phone or even in-person meeting would be appropriate. Otherwise, email requests are also fine.
You might also consider outsourcing the request process. Third-party vendors who specialize in review management can request the review in your place.Sometimes customers even prefer to deal with a disinterested third-party.
Email
In-Person
Third-Party
Make requests quickly and easily
Up to 8x more likely to lead to reviews
Saves time & manual labor
Can feel impersonal
Can be inefficient
Must trust a 3rd party with customers
- ASK THE RIGHT WAY.
Keep It Simple
Personalize
Automate
Everything about the request should be easy, simple, and straightforward. The more hoops your customer must jump through to leave a review, the fewer customers will do so.
This applies to your own team as well; the harder it is procedurally or logistically to execute a review request, the less likely your own team members will follow through consistently.
Avoid the request feeling generic. It should come across as a personal request made of a valued customer whose experience and feedback you want to respect.
Personalization of the request can also help to boost response rates. For example, email personalization has been shown to increase email open rates by 26%.
Your review request process should also be as automated as possible. If you use a third-party tool or service, they’ll take care of this for you.
Otherwise, have a standard operating procedure; use templates or scripts; and automate the actual request if possible, e.g., send the email automatically in response to
specific triggers (tip #5 above).
- FOLLOW UP ON NON-RESPONSES.
Just because your request doesn’t result in an immediate review doesn’t mean that customer is a lost cause! While you don’t want to nag customers, it’s reasonable to follow-up on an unanswered request. A follow-up is a good way to catch recipients who are willing to comply with the request but forgot. And following up works: One study of email campaigns found that the average response rate jumped from 16% to 27% when the campaign added at least one follow-up message.12 In sales, 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes.13 The same dynamic applies here. Sometimes it just takes persistence. - RESOLVE ANY COMPLAINTS.
Ideally, the customer will be satisfied before a review request is ever made, but some complaints are still guaranteed to slip through. If a customer notes a complaint in their review, deal with it. Remember that addressing such customer complaints is not just for that one customer, it’s for every potential customer who reads that review. You want to subliminally communicate to everyone that you take customer concerns seriously and will take whatever steps you can to resolve any problems.1
2
Do not try to solve the problem on the review site itself;
take the problem-resolution process offline.
Once the problem has been dealt with, ask the customer
if they would be willing to revisit the review.
3
4
If appropriate, note the resolution in your own response to the review, so others know what
you did.
Respond non-defensively, no matter how unfair the complaint may be. Potential customers are reading too.
- RESPOND TO REVIEWS.
Respond to positive reviews
Respond to negative reviews
Responding to reviews is a laborious, time- consuming, often tedious activity. For that reason, many businesses de-prioritize this effort. In fact, three-quarters of businesses don’t respond to reviews at all.14 Others respond to relatively few reviews and focus primarily on negative ones.
This is a mistake.
Responding to reviews can help to increase ratings, the number of reviews, and conversions. For example, one study found that when enterprise locations replied to one-third or more of their
reviews, they enjoyed 80% higher conversions than others.15 Businesses that reply to even just a single review earn 4% more than average.16
Responding to reviews, including positive reviews, has several benefits.
First, it reinforces the positive reviewer’s impression of the company.
It demonstrates that the business has an active customer support operation, takes comments and feedback seriously, and appreciates its customers. It’s an excellent way to reinforce a positive relationship and cultivate customer loyalty.
Second, it lets the business highlight and draw attention to positive comments.
That way, when others – namely prospective customers – are reading reviews, their attention is more likely to be drawn to the reviews you want them to see.
All businesses must deal with negative reviews; it’s a fact of life. But negative reviews are not lost causes, and they may not even be as bad as they seem at first glance.
First, negative reviews can actually help you. It turns out that a perfect review score is sub-
optimal. Research from Northwestern University
found that reviews are most likely to lead to a new purchase if the average review rating falls
between 4.0 and 4.7.17 Scores over 4.7 are essentially considered “too good to be true.” So, a small number of reviews can actually boost sales.
Second, negative reviews often reflect temporary frustrations rather than enduring impressions of your business.
This is more likely if your business doesn’t employ a good feedback or customer satisfaction process; the review may be the only channel the customers feels they have available to voice their complaints and resolve issues. Fortunately, in these cases,you can often turn bad reviews around simply by responding to them.
Specifically, a Harris Poll survey found that one- third of customers who leave a negative review will post a positive review after receiving a response; another 34% will just delete the negative review.18 When responding to negative reviews, remember to be non-defensive, as mentioned above. Even unfair criticisms are just a reflection of an underlying frustration you both want to resolve.
Referencces
1 https://statuslabs.com/reputation-management-stats-2019/
2 http://www.thismoment.com/content-marketing-blog/b2b-customer-reviews/#.VFfx8oc3evV
3 http://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803
4 https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/customer-testimonials/
5 https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/10/23/roi-of-improving-online-reviews-0-1-stars-can-boostconversion-25/
6 https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/
7 https://hbr.org/2007/09/managing-global-accounts
8 https://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-stats-to-justify-seo/36762/
9 https://www.smartinsights.com\search-engine-marketing\search-engine-statistics\
10 https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2013/06/20/no-1-position-in-google-gets-33-of-search-traffic-study/
11 https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/
12 https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/
13 https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/
14 https://www.womply.com/impact-of-online-reviews-on-small-business-revenue/
15 https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/10/23/roi-of-improving-online-reviews-0-1-stars-can-boostconversion-25/
16 https://www.womply.com/impact-of-online-reviews-on-small-business-revenue/
17 http://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/online-reviews/
18 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/332549
