Social Customer Service and Online Review Magic – Key Takeaways

The Changing Face of Customer CareAs a Chartered Marketer and committed contributor to the local marketing community in Northern Ireland, for the past decade (including a 2 year spell as Chair of The Chartered Institute of Marketing Ireland) our founder Christine Watson recently led a CPD workshop for The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) – Ireland region at the Entrepreneurial Spark Belfast base entitled: ‘Marketing Magic with Online Reviews’.

Over the course of 90 minutes delegates learned about:

  • The changing face of customer care
  • Social customer service and what to expect
  • The online review landscape
  • Rights and wrongs of social customer service
  • Harnessing the power of social customer service for your brand
  • Practical marketing steps for delivering an effective social customer and online review service strategy for your brand
  • How to entice customers to deliver marketing magic for you by leaving positive online reviews
  • Managing negative online reviews

It cannot come as a surprise to many in business nowadays that “Social Media has turned Customer Service into a Spectator Sport”.

With over 500 million reviews on Trip Advisor, a platform used by 390 million unique visitors each month and it’s very review results displaying on google searches alongside reviews left via google, facebook, yelp, trust pilot, Amazon, ebay, booking platforms, the very websites that you supply your products to and many, many more; the online review landscape is truly one to be ignored at a marketers peril.

Ultimately, what customers say about your business in their online reviews – and how you respond to these reviews – can sway purchase decisions more so than can brand-driven marketing messages, paid advertising, and traditional customer acquisition efforts. 

Key Takeaways from the session:

  • Only 3% of consumers don’t consider reviews when making a purchase decision with a local business
  • 91% of people read online reviews
  • Online reviews are trusted as much as recommendations from friends and family
  • 4 out of 5 consumers reverse their purchase decisions based on negative reviews
  • 88% of consumers have avoided a company because of a bad review on social media
  • Your star rating doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need at least a three star average rating for consumers to trust and purchase from your business.
  • The ideal rating for purchase probability is 4.0 stars out of 5, followed by 4.5 stars out of 5
  • 53% of consumers who interact with a brand expect a response on Twitter within 1 hour (32% expect a response in 30 minutes). This compares to the average response time for the top 100 US retailers on Facebook being 1 business day and Twitter – over 11 hours
  • 57% Consumers felt response time should be same during weekends and weeknights as in business hours
  • Customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business with excellent reviews
  • Reviews can boost your search ranking and improve conversions
  • Most people need to read 4-6 reviews, but this number ranges from 2-21 depending on the consumer.
  • For a consumer to trust a review, it needs to be written within the last six months.
  • It is estimated that 15% to 30% of all online reviews are fake
  • 50% of consumers say they’ll leave a review for a business if asked
  • Almost 1 in 8 complainers do so with the hopes of hurting the company’s reputation
  • Interestingly, consumers are more active in trying to find online reviews than in hunting for discounts, with over 50% of consumers ‘often or always’ checking out online reviews, compared to the 34% that seek out information on discounts and pricing. This suggests that having an effective reviews and reputation management strategy may be more beneficial to local businesses than launching special promotions or offering discounted prices.
  • There are already 30,000 active chatbots built into Facebook messenger
  • 60% of millennials said they have used chatbots already

Online Reviews poison

Top Tips:

Aim to bury negative reviews with positive ones

When responding online to a positive review do include your business name, keywords and location within your response, as this will help it appear in search results but do not use keywords and your ‘Brand’ name in any response you make to negative reviews. By avoiding the use of your business name and location in a reply to a negative review it is less likely to be prioritised (and found) in search engines results.

Get some extra marketing power out of positive reviews by sharing on your website and social media channels

When social listening ensure that you include variations of your company and product name as well as common misspellings. Indeed in one foul swop some businesses and brands are actively stepping into negative online conversations that consumers are having with their very competitors, clearly with the aim of acquiring this dissatisfied customer for themselves!

Verify your business so your information is eligible to appear on Maps, search and other google services. Only verified businesses can respond to reviews – claim your listings and add positive brand content.

To’ing and Fro’ing – Try and avoid the ‘flame war’ – try and take the conversation offline where possible. Communication via telephone or face to face is more effective than words alone – only 7% of written communication is said to be effective.

Encourage customers to share their positive moments with their audiences by implementing quirky moments of truth in your customer journey for example, a hotel who has a branded sign under the bed reading “Yes, we clean under here too”, a telephone by the bed with a number for bedtime stories or by simply asking them to!

If you suspect a review to be fake – make yourself familiar with each platforms rules and flag or report it as fake.

Marketers remember: “The longer a negative review goes un-addressed, the more opportunity it has to damage your online reputation. Difficult customers can be like social media poison – and only you have the antidote.” If you do not respond to a negative review you are potentially endorsing this opinion by your inactivity. Remember perception minus expectation equals satisfaction and online reviews read by prospective customers can impact both perception and expectation – be it reflective of reality or not. Online visitors are witness to how your business reacts to negativity and dissatisfaction and if this passive viewer is a prospect or at the research or pre-purchase stage of the buyer journey, one solo interaction does of course have the potential of impacting more than one future customer journey.

A one star improvement on Yelp can translate to a 5% to 9% revenue increase

70% will do business with you again if a complaint is resolved effectively and 95% if it is resolved quickly

It costs 5 times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one

For every complaint received there are 26 customers with similar concerns

The average business never hears from 96% of its unhappy customers

So – is social customer service your friend or foe? Find out by taking a little time to complete the homework handed out to delegates attending the Marketing magic with online reviews workshop for CIM Ireland:

Practical Exercise 1 Recommended by Watson and Co Chartered Marketing for CIM Ireland Workshop Marketing Magic with online reviews Social Customer Service Audit

 

 

 

 

 

Practical Exercise 1 Recommended by Watson and Co Chartered Marketing for CIM Ireland Workshop Marketing Magic with online reviews Social Listening and Asking for Positive Online Reviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

The workshop facilitator for the CIM Ireland Marketing Magic with Online Reviews session was Chartered Marketer Christine Watson – Founder of Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing and TrainingMatchmaker.com. Christine is a Licensed WorldHost and Digital Marketing Trainer – To find the next training schedule visit www.watsonsmarketing.com/events. To book Christine to deliver this workshop or discuss your training needs click here.

Statistics were researched online in July 2017.

Sources/Further Reading:

Jay Baer ‘Hug your Haters

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/how-deal-difficult-customers-social-media

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-listening-benefits/193533/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/4-benefits-effective-social-listening

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/12-best-social-media-monitoring-tools-consider

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/how-respond-negative-reviews-facebook-win-back-angry-customers

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/how-respond-every-type-review-and-why-you-should

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/how-and-why-customers-leave-negative-reviews-infographic

http://www.jaybaer.com/hug-your-haters/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/how-build-better-review-marketing-strategy

http://searchengineland.com/10-ideas-fix-damning-business-review-222141

http://www.smartinsights.com/user-experience/essential-live-chat-tools/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/how-deal-difficult-customers-social-media

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/new-study-highlights-importance-online-reviews-local-search

Actual online reviews: Noted on Graham Norton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrZATADuKNI 237,127 views

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/why-and-how-chatbots-your-social-media-marketing-strategy

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/social-customer-service-lessons-5-our-favorite-brands

Get Serious about social customer care https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6i6X_nROt4

Social Customer Service in KLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiCHvAY3zIA

How do chatbots work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJIOAKW3w

Inside the Japanese hotel staffed by robots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpzIQt6l4xY

The Future of Hotel Delivery Service – Robot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8IKfQLGIRQ

Retail Robots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9176vm7Co

Asda Pizza Telephone Complaint – Humour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV7SXmHq0Bk

https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-us/articles/200615417-What-widgets-are-available-for-free-for-my-website-

WorldHost principles of customer service training programme

Review Platform Policies:

https://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html?visit_id=1-636288329625562625-2674070969&rd=1

https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773?hl=en-GB

https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-gb/articles/200614797-Our-guidelines-for-traveller-reviews

“We allow names to be published to our site; however, we will remove last names upon request. This includes the last names of employees or owners associated with the property you are reviewing.”