Project Description
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Reviews are Really Ongoing Feedback
We live in a society today where every person wants to be seen and heard. There are hundreds of millions of reviews added each month to top sites like Google, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor and more. Some people may be writing reviews about your business; others, reading reviews about your business.
When you look at the staggering number of reviews online, it is no wonder that a Harvard Business School study found that a one-star increase in a business’s rating can mean a 5% to 9% increase in revenue. It’s a fact that your ratings correlate with revenue. The reoccurring themes in your reviews can indicate what causes your customers to spend money or not spend money at your business.
With so much feedback from customers online, the need to monitor and reply to your reviews has never been more important for your business’ online reputation and revenue.
One of the more valuable roles your reviews play for your business is that they provide an ongoing survey or customer feedback loop.
By reading your reviews and identifying reoccurring themes you can learn what customers are saying they like and dislike about your business. Many large businesses pay significant sums of money to conduct surveys and customer analysis. You have the opportunity to read your reviews right now and gain that valuable consumer insight on what is working and not working for your business. AND… it will only cost you the time it takes to read the reviews.
The number of reviews can vary based on several factors including the industry, the amount of time a business has been operating, the business location, etc.
If your business has a few reviews, reading them will be short, easy and should be the beginning of an ongoing process to identify recurring themes or issues in your reviews. If you have hundreds or even thousands of reviews, we recommend filtering your reviews…
…and starting with the negative reviews first, which should greatly reduce the total number to start with.
Now filter those reviews by date…
…and you can read through the most recent reviews first to learn what customers most often say they don’t like about your business.
Look for key issues related to service, surroundings, product experience, and price. Are customers saying service is slow, unfriendly, non-attentive? Do you see comments about the surroundings being dirty, loud, too crowded? Feedback about your product being too pricey or lacking overall value? You can prioritize the issues you identify from reading your negative reviews and set goals to address them.
The example above demonstrates a real situation a Merchant Centric client observed. The owner of a neighborhood sit–down pizza restaurant found that many consumer criticisms were related to having outdated and too few TVs.
The owner set a goal to replace the old TVs with several new flat screen TVs. This was a difficult decision and the initial challenge was to figure out how to pay for them. The owner was able to finance her televisions and has seen business increase every month since making that investment in her business!
