Do you take advantage of retail holidays to receive more customer reviews?
If you're not already doing this, stick with me until the end, and I'll explain why you should start doing it immediately!
Holidays and special occasions are an excellent opportunity to increase the volume of reviews, because these are the dates when the flow of people is greater, and a greater flow of people equals more people reviewing your establishment.
But why do you need more people reviewing your establishment?
Online reviews impact Google's local pack search results by 15% – that's quite a lot!
And did you know that, according to Facebook, 1 in 3 people on the platform use it to search for "where to go," "where to eat," and "where to buy"?
According to research, consumers trust reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations:
93% Consumers read reviews to decide whether or not to do business with an establishment (Bright local).
Having your business well-rated online directly impacts the consumer's decision in the new retail buying journey.
Based on our experience here at Harmo, for an establishment to be well-rated and ranked on sites like Google, TripAdvisor, Booking, Yelp, iFood, and others, it needs to meet four requirements:
- Quality: having good ratings. This is in complete agreement with the experience you deliver.
- Quantity: Having a high volume of reviews. The more online reviews, the greater the social proof.
- Recency: having recent reviews. Recency is one of the ranking factors for a local search, because the more recent the reviews, the closer to reality the experience delivered by that establishment is.
- Response rate: Responding to reviews. This is an excellent opportunity to improve SEO, as reviews impact 15% of the local Pack results. Therefore, take advantage of the response space and use terms important to your business in your replies, for example: "free parking", "kids' area", "vegan pizzas". Furthermore, Google itself recommends responding to reviews to impact SEO: "What better indicator of credibility than a business that goes beyond publicly responding to complaints and thanking customers for their praise? Google is encouraging businesses to respond to reviews to improve their local SEO ." Source: Chatmeter
Suggested further reading: 4 fundamental review management metrics you need to know today!
In addition to improving your business's visibility in local searches, managing reviews will help you improve the customer experience.
Follow this case study from the Almeida Júnior Group.
We made a comparison between some of the most important dates for commerce between the years 2019 and 2018.
Notice that the number of negative reviews dropped between 2018 and 2019 (except on Mother's Day). But what does this mean?
With the help of customer feedback, the Almeida Júnior Group has been able to improve the customer experience on each of the important dates for commerce.
Online reviews are an excellent source of intelligence for monitoring and improving the experience delivered by the brand; you just need to know how to use them.
See below for a comparison between the commemorative dates of 2018 and 2019:
What can we conclude from the results above?
The number of reviews increased from 2018 to 2019 in all periods analyzed. This is mainly due to the moment customers realize that the company responds to reviews. In the case of Grupo Almeida Junior, the response rate fluctuates between 95% and 100%. When the company responds to reviews, it increases customer engagement, motivating them to rate the company because it is attentive and responds to evaluations.
The rate of negative reviews fell in 3 out of the 4 periods analyzed. However, we found that when the rate increased (May 2018 vs. 2019), it only rose by 5%. And when it decreased, it fell to much higher levels: between 10% and 30%. This drop proves that the shopping malls improved the customer experience after applying our solution and methodology.
The RRi* grew in all periods analyzed, and even though the group's shopping malls already had a very high score, they managed to improve even further.
Read this testimony:
“We use Harmo's information extensively in practice, especially the improvement insights you provide in your reports. We share this with our managers so they can work on the specific situations in each shopping mall. One insight we use frequently is the feedback on the parking lot, which we evaluate and work on improving to implement in our customers' daily lives.”
Sendy Luz, Digital Marketing Specialist
In the current context, customer experience is where brands need to focus, but there is still a difficulty in knowing where to begin.
So why not start by listening to your customers through their online reviews? It's simple, and they're already there waiting for you!
How about seeing how review management works in practice when applied to customer experience? Come talk to one of our specialists! Talk to a specialist.