The Importance Of Reviews
Whether you are starting your own new business or already a business owner, it is always good to know how to improve a business.
One significant influence of a business that can either make or break your foundation is the satisfaction of your customers. Therefore you should always strive for the best possible service you can deliver.
Unless you provide or sell something necessary, like the cure to a deadly disease, you don't necessarily need to be friendly and make sure customers like your attitude so that they will return.
Either way, it doesn't hurt to be a lovely human being!
One way of finding out how well the customers appreciate your service or product is by providing them a survey to answer and fill out specific questions you've written down.
Whatever the majority leans towards will be your rating. If, for instance, over 70% are delighted with your service, make sure to keep up with whatever you are doing and try to discover what displeases the other 30%
It would help if you always accounted that you will never satisfy 100% of your customers.
When I was running a coffee van business, 8 out of 10 people would love our product, 1 out of 10 would find it alright, and there would always be that one exception that would criticize, either the taste, the price, or whatever else they could find.
Technology vs. Traditional
keeping in-touch with latest technological innovations, being informed, reading tech magazines is always good. I'm sure you've been handed a survey before once you've left a store. Most of the time, we throw these away without giving them a second thought. I either fill out a survey if I feel like something was perfect, am in a good mood, or extremely bad. Other than that, I don't bother to waste my time with these.
You will end up having quite a few costs trying to style the leaflet and print several thousand copies etc.
Instead, you could create an email list and send out a mass email with a survey attached.
This way, you will have reached all or most of your customers in no time, save a lot of money and get results back that can be analyzed within seconds even by using a cheap laptop.
You can even create graphs and other statistics with your newfound results. With the manual version, you would have much more problems such as:
- Counting and gathering all the filled out surveys
- Typing out the results (where most mistakes happen)
- Create graphs that will be inaccurate due to the above first two tasks unless you go through these several times
- Waste a whole lot of time
- And as previously mentioned, spend a lot of money on it
If you do everything online, you can quickly get everything done for you with simple software programs such as Survey Monkey.
All you have to do is write out the questions. Then, once you're done with it, you get a personalized link that you can send out to those people you want to answer the questionnaire.
Once all the results are in, you will be provided with statistics, graphs, and everything else that comes along with it.
There are, of course, other methods to be reviewed and rated. For example, you can ask apps, such as Tripadvisor or Yelp, to list your stores, where people may want to rate you.
I, for instance, use Tripadvisor quite a lot when I go abroad. Generally, you get pretty good results.
Mass Effect
These days, the greatness of technology is that we are almost all geared up with a tablet, laptop, or smartphone whenever we are moving around. Therefore if you fancy going to a restaurant, especially in a foreign place, you might want to go to a specific cuisine or store.
Applications like Yelp and Tripadvisor could be the deciding factor of your business.
An easy way to get people to rate you well is to ask them if they were satisfied with your service simply. If they agree, you may want to hint that you are on one of these apps where they can leave behind a comment if they wish so.
You could also leave a business card with each receipt where they might end up going on your website (if you don't have a website yet, you should consider it as always helpful no matter how big your business is).
Especially for small businesses, this approach can boost your income. Small restaurants, for example, usually have quite a bit of competition with other restaurants just being down the road or around the corner. To stand out in the crowd, you need to find out what your clients want.
Once you've received a bunch of reviews all telling you what you could improve on, you take the necessary steps and see how these customers can be returning customers (if you send them an email saying you've done what they asked for) and you will see the word spread around and reach more people.
What To Do If They Don't Answer
If you are being left empty-handed with surveys and reviews, you need to figure out how to get people to fill out these precious forms for you.
One of my least desired approaches is when people automatically take down my email to sign up at the gym. I receive countless Emails with new promotions, but it is unnecessary since I'm already signed up and don't need to be reminded of the prices.
However, when they have small competitions and send me an email that I could be winning something by attending, it grabs my attention.
Another more popular approach would be to offer them a discount on a small freebie by filling out a survey. It doesn't have to be anything massive, but it could be a 10% discount on the next person's order if you own a restaurant or a store.
By simply offering some small people will be more inclined to fill out reviews and surveys. They don't necessarily want to redeem their discount either but giving them the option will make them answer your emails more frequently. Besides, you don't need more than a survey a year if your purpose is to get information on how to improve your business.
Prevention Of Disaster
A lot of times, surveys can help to prevent people from making huge mistakes. For example, when I travel, I like to explore the local cuisine and taste what local people love to eat.
Therefore I tend to try and find little sideways restaurants. However, this could be a little dangerous if you walk into the wrong road in the wrong place.
However, with reviews that you can easily pull up on your smartphone, you will know exactly where to go and what to expect.
The reason I include reviews on my website is to help people make a decision on which program to choose when trying to make money online. Millions of products and programs are out there, claiming to make people rich within weeks after subscribing to them.
Of course, almost all of them are full of lies and rip their customers off. I find these very immoral, and sadly a lot of desperate people fall for them. This is why I have included a review section at the top of my page, so people can stay away from these products.
So this is how reviews can prevent disasters from happening and simultaneously improve or ruin your business.
Once you have the information, don't hesitate to thank people for their comments or let them know if changes have been made according to their desires. Invite them back with a discount if they write negative reviews and see how their mind will change to a more positive one.
I hope you found this to be a helpful post. Please share your thoughts below and let me know if you have any questions.