Many small companies are so busy with the daily demands of business that they neglect to manage, or even look at, their online reviews. As the marketing team at Blue Zone Marketing can tell you, it’s a mistake that could be costly.
With a world of options at their fingertips, customers often compare business reviews when choosing where to spend their money. In the age of online engagement and cancel culture, consumers have the power to destroy a company’s reputation in record time. The only way to avoid the negative reputation trap is by actively managing your online image, making sure that every engagement with customers online leaves a positive impact. After all, when you neglect your online reputation, you risk letting small problems grow into large ones, and the result can damage your business.
Neglecting your online reputation hurts your business in two ways
- Driving Away Customers
Research shows that businesses with an average review rating of at least four-stars (out of five) receive the most sales, while those with less than 3.5 stars are at risk of losing business. Companies that maintain an average of 4-4.5 stars earn 28% more than their competitors! Fortunately, providing a superior product or service is not the only way to build goodwill with your customer base; statistics show that consistently responding to customer reviews also provides a positive bump in customer satisfaction. Despite this, 75% of businesses do not respond to their reviews at all. Those businesses are leaving money on the table. Those that do respond and deal with negative reviews in a positive way earn 35% more than their competition.
Key takeaway: Make sure you reply! Responding within 24 hours to reviews and establishing a strong social media presence demonstrates that you are paying attention to your customers, solidifying your reputation as a trustworthy company. Failure to do so could lead to fewer sales, difficulty hiring, and increased employee retention costs.
Neglecting a seemingly minor problem today could result in tenfold negative publicity in just a matter of days or weeks. Failing to intervene promptly and respond to negative reviews looks thoughtless and impersonal. Allowing negative reviews to accumulate before responding could lead cynical individuals to assume that you deliberately ignored the issue or were too busy to care about your customers. A delayed response after the problem has already snowballed may make it appear as if you only responded to save face or stem the disaster. Once the word is out on your business among consumers, it’s extremely difficult to claw back what you’ve lost.
- Destroying your profit margin
The second way an unmanaged reputation damages your business is by hurting your profit margin through industry fallout. It begins with a decline in sales as potential customers search online, come across negative reviews, and choose to take their business elsewhere. However, it doesn’t end there because not only customers, but investors, stakeholders, and lenders also care about your company’s reputation.
The consequences increase as your industry standing takes a hit, making it difficult to attract and retain talented employees. The best candidates may hesitate to work with you, forcing you to pay exorbitant costs to retain your top performers. What may seem like a minor issue – a few negative reviews on websites that you may not even know about – could have a significant detrimental impact on your profits.
We Can Help!
Monitoring and responding to reviews is a large task, but Blue Zone can help by constantly soliciting, auditing, and reacting to reviews for you. Using a reputation management strategy crafted to reflect and support your brand’s personality, our experienced staff curates thoughtful and professional responses that engage customers and limit potential damage to your business’s reputation.
Alternatively, we offer a software solution in our Blue Zone Dashboard, a one-stop tech solution that allows you to monitor and manage your online presence across multiple platforms at once. The Blue Zone Dashboard is specifically designed to help you keep track of reviews and manage them with ease. At Blue Zone, we don’t want you to merely maintain an online presence; we want to help you dominate your market. Contact Blue Zone today to find out how to manage your online reputation effectively.