Publish Feedback To Push Your Profits

Customer reviews are crucial to continued business success. Not only do they let you know what you’re doing right, but they also let you know what you can improve. By reading comments and responding, you can develop ongoing relationships as well as securing future sales. It’s the best of both worlds for your company and your customers.

As such, it’s no surprise more companies are turning to this for customer communication. Check any receipt from a recent purchase, and you can bet there’s a call for feedback on there somewhere. Some companies opt to follow up purchases with email questionnaires. Others head to companies like SimpleSat, where they can develop a customer survey for ConnectWise or a number of other existing IT companies. Either way, the focus is on finding out what customers really thought of their experience.

Of course, many companies keep findings like these hidden. And, it’s easy to see why when it comes to reviews which are on the negative side. But, in an age where we turn to the internet before anything, many customers seek reviews before giving companies a go. Hence why you might want to think about publishing your feedback straight onto your site.

Bear in mind that, to make this work, you’d need to publish both positive and negative reviews. It’s essential this is feedback straight from your customer’s mouths, without editing or cherry picking. Behaviour like this wouldn’t be ethical, and a revelation could discredit your company completely and lose you a lot of money. But if you’re open and honest, you may find that publishing those reviews works well to boost your profits. If you aren’t convinced, let’s look at a few reasons why this is worthwhile.

A simple way to seal a deal

As mentioned above, many customers will head online and check out reviews before they consider shopping with you. As such, publishing these or not will have a direct impact on the people you get through the door, and thus your profits. Even if you have a few not so good reviews, you can be sure your customers will notice the good ones above all. We’re all human, and we understand that some customers just like to have a moan. And, your customers are sure to arrive at that conclusion if the majority of your feedback is good. By comparison, not having reviews available can be enough in itself to turn people away. After all, in this day and age, it’s a sure sign that you have something to hide. In the same way that no credit rating is as troublesome as a bad one, no reviews will be a sure black mark against your name.

What’s more, publishing positive reviews will do a lot of your marketing work for you. Without any effort on your part, your past customers will bring new ones to your door. Forget posting for hours on social media and paying a fortune for advertising campaigns. This is free marketing which you should be making use of.

Showing that you listen

Above all, customers like to know that companies listen. This can be enough to get new customers on your side, and also to turn a bad experience on its head. And, what better way to show you listen than to publish all the comments you receive? This indicates that you acknowledge feedback and make a note of what customers tell you. And, that’s sure to work in your favor. This could be enough to bring a  disgruntled customer back to shop with you again. It could also convince new customers that you’re a company they can trust in. And, trust is sure to take you a long way to developing ongoing customer relationships. And, all this because you opted to click publish instead of private on that feedback form. It’s easy money; you’d be mad not to make the most of the opportunity.

The chance to respond

It’s also worth noting that publishing feedback gives you a chance to respond to it. We’re not saying you should enter into arguments disproving those who leave bad comments. But, this is a fantastic chance to display how you deal with your customers. Make sure that you go into this with the knowledge that, in the business world, the customer is always right. Then, leave a comment to apologise for issues and explain how you intend to rectify them. This is a fantastic way around any worries you might have about publishing bad reviews. After all, every business makes mistakes. If you can show that you’ve acknowledged and learnt from them, there’s no reason this should work against you. For instance, if a customer had a bad experience with a member of staff, let them know about further staff training courses you’re investing in. If your product was the issue, make efforts to explain how you intend to improve it. As simple as that, you can give old customers new incentives to try again, and new ones a reason to give you a shot.

Conclusion

It’s natural to be nervous about posting reviews online. And, there’s no getting past the fact that a string of negative feedback could cost you some customers. But, that aside, this is a sure way to boost profits. All you need to do is handle each comment in the right way, and make sure customers can see the positive efforts you’re making towards transparency. There will, undeniably, be days when you wish you had opted not to publish after all. Your business may even take a hit. But, over time, you should never underestimate how many customers will come to your door due to positive reviews. While you may not see them doing their work directly, you can be sure that they will make a world of difference. What’s more, customers will come to you having already built some level of loyalty to what you do. And, that makes it much more likely you’ll be able to seal a deal.

Continued Business Success