What’s the first thing you do if you’re thinking of using a new company or service? For most of us, it will be tapping their name into a search engine and find out what others think of them. And as you scroll through, the results you’re most likely to click on are any kind of customer reviews or ratings. We value these because we regard them as providing honest and unfiltered opinions.
Positive reviews can help to reassure customers and negative ones can quickly set alarm bells ringing. So for a business, these online comments can have a major impact on the success or failure.
It’s particularly important for businesses that provide mobile services because so much depends on customers and clients trusting you. Before committing, they have to feel confident that your company can deliver…literally.
It’s why it pays for a field service business to get to grips with online feedback; to understand how it works and find ways to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks.
Here’s a look at how:
Understand value of feedback
Many companies spend large amounts of money on trying to find out what customers think of their services with assorted surveys, questionnaires and focus groups.
Customer reviews provide this kind of valuable information for free. Irrespective of whether they’re good or bad reviews, they’re providing a valuable insight into how your company is perceived.
It’s a way to help highlight any cracks which need fixing. It also helps to understand those things you’re doing right and are valued most by your service users.
Encourage customer reviews
Generally speaking, a person who’s angry or annoyed is more likely to leave a comment than a happy and contented customer. And that’s a problem, if the only views found online about your company are the negative ones.
As a business, it’s beneficial to encourage all your customers to leave feedback so that the voices of the vast majority, those who are more happy and content your service, are also being heard.
Turn negatives to positives
No matter how perfect your company is, you’re always going to get people who aren’t happy. But each negative comment provides an opportunity to demonstrate the positive way your business handles criticism.
When feedback is reasonable and valid, you can turn a customer’s anger into appreciation by taking their comments ‘on the chin’ and trying to rectifying the problem. In this way, a negative comment can often have similar benefits as a positive one.
Keeping track of comments
One of the difficulties with keeping tabs on online feedback is the sheer number of different places it can appear - whether it’s social media, review sites or forums.
It helps, therefore, if you can direct people to use one particular platform. This could be a company Facebook page or one of the dedicated business review sites such as Trustpilot.
When customers see that a company responds to feedback on a particular platform, they are more likely to choose that option. By focusing online feedback in this way, it helps keep things more manageable.
So, while it’s easier said than done, it will benefit your business to start thinking of online feedback as more of an opportunity than a threat. The more you engage and understand customer reviews, the more your business can get out of it.
MyMobileWorkers is digital workforce management system which can integrate customer and client feedback into your employees’ workflow.