Every review matters! A single review can make or break your brand’s reputation. In today’s competitive digital landscape, it is important to monitor all the reviews. As social media has gained popularity maintaining an online reputation is a continuous process. Negative reviews and reputation can hamper your brand and its sales. Once your reputation has been harmed, it becomes challenging to change the perception of the public.  

Hence it is important to monitor your online reputation from time to time. In this blog, we’ll explore some tools and techniques for tracking customer feedback and some best practices. By following these practices you can maintain a positive online reputation.

What is an Online Review Monitoring?

Monitoring online reviews includes all the processes you use to maintain a record of your brand’s online mentions, reviews, ratings, etc on various websites and social media. By monitoring online reviews you can resolve customer issues quickly and learn more about their experience. 

According to luisazhou, 95% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase and 94% say reviews have made them avoid a business.

Also, 97% read reviews for local businesses and 81% of customers say they are likely to check Google reviews first before making a purchase.

Now imagine a situation where your brand has gained some positive reviews but on less popular sites. Then are they not valuable for your business? Indeed they are valuable and review management software will help you monitor all your online reviews and mentions and if you want publish them on other review websites as well like Google My Business, Yelp, etc. 

Reviews are a great source of information as they provide you with all the information related to your customer’s experience and your strengths and weaknesses. Responding to negative reviews can help you in resolving customer complaints and build a trustworthy relationship.

Benefits of Monitoring Online Reviews

Let’s explore some of the benefits of monitoring online reviews. These benefits will help you understand the importance of monitoring online reviews.

• Improves visibility and SEO: Brands that have more reviews especially positive, tend to rank higher on Google. Encourage your customers to leave reviews or feedback, it will increase your chances of ranking higher and increasing visibility.
• Customer engagement: Whenever you respond to a customer, you engage with them. This engagement is good for your brand as it helps in building a relationship with your customers.
• Encourage customer loyalty: Once you have established a relationship with them. They will trust your brand more and will spread positive word-of-mouth about your brand. They will make repurchases from you encouraging loyalty.  
• Competitive advantage: Monitoring your reviews and competitors’ reviews can provide you with important information such as market trends and customer’s pain points. This information can help you in knowing your weaknesses. Fixing these can provide you with an edge over your competitors.
• Customer insights: Feedback and reviews reveal to you what customers desire or need from your brand. Working on them can help you in fulfilling your customers’ expectations.
• Maintaining reputation: Regularly monitoring and responding to reviews build a positive online reputation for your brand. Responding to negative feedback indicates that you value your customers and their input.
• Builds credibility and authority: Responding to their feedback and resolving their complaints builds the trust and credibility of customers. Regularly monitoring your reviews helps your brand operate in an organized way where all the reviews are being monitored effectively. By doing so you gain customer loyalty, which enhances your authority in the market. 
• Potential Audience: Many people read reviews about a brand and its products before making a purchase. If you have more positive reviews then probably you can attract new potential customers. 
• Expand Business: If you have authority in the market and make a profit then you can expand your business in the future or chances are that some investors might notice your presence and authority in the market and invest in your business.

Tools and techniques to monitor online reviews

Here are some of how you can monitor your online reviews

• Relevant platforms: Select relevant platforms where your audience is more likely to spend more time. This could include social media and general or industry-specific review websites. Google is the most popular platform for making searches, so we suggest you make a good presence on Google. Our review management system can monitor and improve your ranking and visibility on Google.
• Monitor review sites: Regularly check the review sites such as Google, Yelp, etc. Although Review management software keeps a record of all your online mentions and reviews. It’s good to frequently check these sites. 
• Alerts and notifications: Many platforms let you enable the notifications. So whenever someone leaves a review you get notified. This helps you in responding to the reviews on time. 
• Review monitoring tools: There are various software and tools available that manage your online reviews. They gather reviews from all the sites and sources making it easy to monitor them. While some tools help you in collecting the reviews. Some such tools are Brand24, Typeform, etc.
• Analytics dashboard: Analyze your reviews by using an analyzing dashboard. This will help you in estimating the potential outcome of your efforts. Also in generating effective strategies for the future.
• Respond to review: Remember that you should respond to both positive as well as negative feedback. Your customers feel that their voices are being heard and valued.
• Ask for more reviews: Encourage your customers to leave feedback or review. The more the review more the information you’ll gather. Also, your ranking will improve. You can include a CTA in the website, email, SMS messages, and pop-ups. You can set up review requests within your post-purchase funnel to automatically collect reviews via email.
• Social Media: Social media has a huge number of users. Many people leave reviews on social media. Also, many influencers review products on social media. So check your social media frequently and make sure you respond to these reviews.
• Check email reviews: Many users like to leave reviews in private messages on email rather than on social media or other platforms. You should give equal importance to these reviews as well. Respond to them and try to resolve their issues as fast as you can.
• Visual Feedback: If your customers are comfortable then encourage them to leave visual feedback. You can use or highlight such reviews on your website. Visual feedbacks create a strong sense of trust and attract potential customers.
• Voice of the customer (VOC): It is a way of understanding customers’ expectations, preferences, and what they dislike. You can make improvements in your products and services based on feedback. 

Best Practices

Here are some of the best practices to enhance your online reviews

• Responding to positive and negative feedback: While responding to positive and negative feedback make sure your tone is correct. Respond to negative feedback with the same respect as you will to positive feedback. Avoid being defensive or argumentative. Try to resolve their problems. Show gratitude for leaving a review. Respond to their questions on time.
• Encourage customers to leave feedback by requesting feedback via email on the website
• Use review management software or tools: to gather and monitor reviews from multiple sources.
• Personalized feedback: Try to use their name if available while responding to them. Adding an element of personalization indicates that you care and pay attention to your customers, appreciate their reviews, and consider them. 
• Brand Voice: While responding to your customers make sure your brand voice is similar so that it leaves an impression that the same person is responding to them. If a client feels that multiple people are talking to them, it makes them confused,
• Analyze Trends: Regularly monitor the reviews on review sites. It will help you know what customers’ expectations, preferences, and areas of improvement are. Constantly improve your strategy. 
• Follow Guidelines: every review site has a set of rules and guidelines. Make sure you comply with these rules and guidelines. 

Conclusion

Maintaining an online reputation is very crucial for your brand. It increases your visibility and SEO, boosts customer engagement and loyalty, gives you a competitive advantage, provides customers insights and attracts potential customers, establishes your brand’s authority, etc. Use the above-mentioned tools and techniques to monitor your online reviews.

In case you need additional help, we at Lumia 360 are ready to help you. Our review management system can monitor your reviews and increase your ranking and visibility on Google. To know more about our review management system email us at info@lumia360.com or call us at +1 (514) 668-5599. 

Read Also: Building a Positive Online Reputation

Read Also: Navigating the World of Influencer Marketing

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