Today the customer service you provide online is just as important as the customer service that you provide in person.
Before anyone decides to do business with you or your company they check the Internet. Online feedback and reviews have a major impact on their purchase decisions.
It?s very important to keep on top of your online feedback and reviews. You also need to make sure you?re responding to comments you receive as well.
Here are some rather sobering facts about online feedback:
- 33% of all customer complaints are never answered and most of these are posted on social media websites.
- Answering a complaint online increases customer advocacy by as much as 25%.
- Not responding to a complaint online decreases customer advocacy as much as 50%.
- 40% of customers who complain on social media expect a reply within 60 minutes.
- The average time it takes a company to respond is 5 hours and many don?t reply at all.
It takes businesses an average of 44 hours to reply to a customer?s email.
When it takes this long people feel like they?re being ignored. When they feel like they?re being ignored they take to social media to have their voices heard.
After a customer makes a complaint online the most important factor for customer satisfaction is the speed of the response.
It?s even more important than accuracy.
This is why it?s absolutely imperative that you designate a member of your team to monitor and handle online feedback.
If you don?t make someone responsible for this then it?s very easy to miss.
When starting out role play common complaints and questions. You might be surprised to find that most of your complaints usually fall into the same categories. These situations probably come up frequently and you can rehearse how to respond.
Always respond to a customer review whether it was positive, negative or neutral
Your customers want to know that their voice was heard.
Thank your customers when they leave you positive feedback. Send them a personalized response and they?ll know that you?re paying attention.
When responding to negative comments it?s important to build trust. Thank the customer for any insights they might have provided and make them know that you understand the situation.
Offer a positive solution as well as a way to contact you personally or the correct person at your company.
It?s often quite easy to resolve negative situations just by responding.
You need a good mixture of reviews
No one trusts a company that has only 5 star reviews. A mixture of both positive and negative reviews is important to build trust. Otherwise it looks like your business is writing the reviews themselves.
According to Tech Crunch, consumers best respond to reviews that are around the 4.2 to 4.5 range.
These reviews come off as genuine while still reflecting positively on your business.
Sites to focus on
There are a few major websites that you need to focus on. These include:
- Zillow
- Yelp
Get into a habit of monitoring and responding to reviews on these sites daily. It won?t take much time but it?s easy to forget.
Also be sure to search for your own name as an agent or your company?s name on Google.
Try searches like ?your name + reviews? or ?your name + complaints? to catch feedback that you might otherwise have missed.
Like it or not people are getting more and more social. A lot of information is shared by word of mouth across the Internet and social media.
The more you talk and interact with your clients online the better chance you have of getting positive feedback, building trust and creating a base of loyal clients.
Make sure you respond quickly with excellent information and you?ll be sure to win over today?s home buyers.
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