Big Help Consulting

It never ceases to amaze me how some business types still act as if The WEb and Social Media are incidental to their business. (Is that stuff still around?)  Earlier in November I wrote a post on the Deep Ripples search marketing blog on Dealing With Online Customer Reviews. I would love to have your feedback and suggestions, not so much on my writing ability as advice for how small business owners should handle these customer interactions.

To augment what I wrote in that post here are a couple of helpful lists from SearchEngineNews.com.

Top Customer Review Sites (generally speaking)

1. Yelp.com
2. Yahoo Local
3. CitySearch.com
4. Urbanspoon.com
5. JudysBook.com
6. InsiderPages.com
7. TripAdvisor.com

General checklist of things to do/consider regarding your online reputation. (again, from SearchEngineNews.com)

1. Do a search for your business name and the variations your customers use to find you. Look to see what is ranking on the first page of the search results. Everything from Yelp to SuperPages.com needs your attention.
2. Check your business profile in these top review sites to ensure accuracy. If it’s not accurate then claim it as your own and correct the misinformation and be sure the listing (profile) is easy to understand.
3. Set up Google Alerts to track your company name, products and services. You can receive these alerts as they happen, as soon as your name is mentioned via email and rss.
4. If you don’t find your listing on the top review sites - go ahead and add it in there. Don’t add a review to your own business profile, just add it in as a business for others to review. The consumer review site will have a place for you to tell your consumer about your business, just don’t be the first to write a review about your business. Doing so will only make you look desperate to your consumers.
5. Search for other businesses in your area to see what review sites are getting used by Google Places and what is showing up in the search results. Then set up a profile on all the review sites that are active in your area including: JudysBook, CitySearch and Yelp.
6. Monitor and respond to all of your reviews. This shows your consumer base that you are listening and you care what they have to say.
7. Make sure you encourage your consumer base to share their positive experiences on the right review sites: JudysBook, CitySearch, Yelp and any others that are active in your area (these should be the ones you already added your business to above).
8. Give your customers an incentive to share their positive feelings. Encourage them with a 10% discount on their bill, a coupon to use during their next visit or even a free t-shirt. Let them know you care that they’re happy.
9. Have a great customer service team ready to respond to EVERY comment that you get, regardless if it’s negative or positive.
10. You have to pay attention to what they say and where they say it, even if it’s negative. The worst thing you can do is nothing. Ignoring the place where your customers go to vent or rave about their experience with your business can literally boost or kill your profits.