Besides improving your SEO and boosting your rankings on Google, reviews provide a variety of benefits.
When collecting reviews, don’t just let them sit there gathering electronic dust on Google.
Use them to your advantage.
Learn what your customers think and say about your business, and understand their language to speak to your customers using language that they know.
This is known as your Voice of Customer data (VoC).
Take note of your best reviews. A lot of customers will leave short reviews, but some will take the time to tell you what they appreciated about their experience. Highlight those top reviews on your website, and throughout your marketing materials and content to showcase your business.
Ultimately, reviews also provide actionable information in the form of feedback. Pay close attention to those that leave constructive criticism and use their words to improve upon your business.
When in doubt, look at your customer feedback to understand what’s really going right—and what’s potentially going wrong.
By maximizing your VoC data, you’ll reach more customers with the added benefit of increased loyalty and clear communication with your clients.
Once you master your VoC, you’ll be a community favourite.
Voice of Customer data
Your VoC data is your lifeblood as a business. The last thing you want is to ignore what your customers and clients have to say about you.
VoC data comes in different forms. According to Sprout Social there are three types of VoC: direct data, indirect data, and inferred data.
Direct data is direct VoC from customers such as through social media comments, thank you page surveys, customer interviews or customer service recordings.
You can even try your hand at focus groups.
Indirect data is indirect VoC from customers through the reviews they leave you on Google, how they write about you in articles, and through comments left on related content, such as Tik Tok, YouTube, and other platforms.
Inferred data is inferred VoC and is usually calculated through the buyers journey, including purchase history, downloads, website behaviour and general customer analytics.
All three types of VoC are valuable and help you better shape the way you speak and conduct business with your customers. The one we focus on at Taptik is indirect VoC data captured through Google reviews.
It’s important to take note of what people say, how people say it, and why people say it. You might begin to notice patterns and soon you’ll have a deeper understanding of your clients wants and needs.
Social proof
Social proof is worth more than its weight in gold. You might be able to make the best guarantees on your website or in your marketing materials—but at face value, most people rely on the opinions of others to tip the scales and make their decision.
In fact, according to BigCommerce, by consistently using testimonials throughout your website you’re likely to generate 62% more revenue for every customer, every time they visit your website.
Increased revenue has a pretty nice ring to it—right?
Capturing the reviews that really stand out and represent your business will turn potential customers into paying customers.
It’s important to choose the right reviews. And, by the right reviews we don’t mean picking and choosing to make your business look better than it is—rather, choosing the reviews that best represent what you do.
That means that they describe a positive experience and a caring business.
Customers want to feel valued, and when they see a nice thoughtful review that showcases your business, they also want to join in on the fun.
If their experience is as described they’re likely to provide similar feedback. If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t happen as described, they may then leave you a constructive review. Either way, it helps your business by providing valuable VoC data.
Actionable feedback
One of the worst things for a business owner is reading a negative review that trashes their business. And those reviews exist and pop up from time–to–time.
As we discussed in our article, 9 tips on how to deal with negative Google reviews, bad reviews are bound to happen.
No matter how hard you try to avoid them.
The thing that some people don’t realize about negative reviews is that there are positive silver linings—if you look for it. These aren’t necessarily bad reviews, they're reviews that provide constructive criticism.
The difference-maker is that you can act upon constructive criticism, and use it to improve your business. It often features suggestions or recommendations from the customer.
A customer leaving authentic feedback will feel more valued when they see their voice heard, and see their changes implemented into your business. This leads to increased loyalty.
And, as a result, increased revenue as your business improves with increased customer visits or reviews.
Moral of the story?
Always take feedback into consideration because if a customer cares?
You should too.
Get more Google reviews with Taptik
Make getting Google reviews a part of your marketing strategy. Add Taptik to your everyday operations and get more Google reviews.
Thanks to Taptik’s quick and easy customer interaction you can get even more Google reviews than you dreamed.