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Monday, March 18 2013
A colleague of mine recently told me that roughly 70% of millennials (consumers from their late 20’s to early 40’s) make purchasing decisions based upon online reviews. It surprised me enough to get out the calculator and run the numbers.
To start this word problem, I would need to determine what an average customer is worth to me. If I figure 2 referrals a week at $2000 each, that’s $208,000/year in revenue. If a customer comes across a few bad online reviews for my business, then, following the math, those reviews can cost me as much as $145,600!!! Worse yet, a lot of businesses don’t even know these negative reviews are even out there. Those that do know often feel powerless to do anything about it. Reputation management firms often charge $1000-$1500/month to address the problems, but these solutions are often not nearly as comprehensive as they need to be.
Ideally a reputation management system would do the following:
-Put a solution in place that makes it easy for your customers to leave positive or negative reviews.
-Funnel negative reviews to the business owner for an opportunity for immediate service recovery.
-Provide an HR function by identifying which specific staff member the customer dealt with around the negative experience.
-Send positive reviews to various popular online review sites which push down negative reviews and increase the visibility of the business.
-Help establish credibility for your business in the eyes of the search engines due to the number of positive reviews.
-Increased visibility and credibility online would actually increase referrals to your business.
The ROI for a system like this is immeasurable, but ROI in this instance may just as well stand for “risk of ignoring” which could make or break the bottom line. In fact, an effective reputation management system can help ensure the success of the business.
A system like this is just a strong strategic element in developing an overall marketing strategy at an affordable price. For more information, call Make It Loud Web Design at 770-295-9466
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