Consumer Reviews

Online reviews have a lot of influence a frowny icon or a short stack of stars can be all it takes for a potential customer to pass you by. When you think about it, a positive review is not the easiest thing in the world to attain. Most happy customers go their merry ways and keep their feelings of satisfaction to themselves. It’s the disgruntled ones who always seem to find their way back to that “post a review” button. So you’ll need to put some real effort into getting your customers to do you the very big favor of spending their precious time writing nice things about you.

Your Reviews: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Major places to find online product reviews or ratings are Google (it displays its own Google Maps reviews, as well as some sourced on other review sites), Yahoo!, Yelp, NexTag, Epinions, Amazon, and Citysearch. Your business may also fall into a niche that has its own review sites; SnowBoard Reviews at boardreviews.com is an example.

Your first task is to find out how your business fares in the sharp-toothed world of online consumer reviews. Visit each of the sites listed in the previous paragraph and search for your business name and location, for example, “Zappy Construction Boston” or “Zappy Construction 02143.” This search is likely to bring up your company listing if there is one (although we’ve seen misspelled business names, so take some time to dig if you don’t find your business on your first pass). We don’t really have to tell you the next step, because once you see a review of your business online, you’ll have a hard time tearing yourself away.

If you didn’t find a listing for your business, you can add one today some sites have a free submittal, some do not.

Now: Add a listing for your business on any review sites where it’s missing.You can skip Google Maps and Yahoo! Local for now you’ll be revisiting these next week during your Local Search optimization day.

Accentuate the Positive

Here are some ideas for cultivating positive reviews: Come right out and ask. If you have happy customers, a polite request for a positive review is not bad etiquette it’s good business sense. Send a follow-up e-mail after you’ve shipped your product. On your “thank you” page, mention how much you’d appreciate a review. Print a reminder on your packing slip. And while you’re asking, make it easy to follow through! Provide your customers with a link to the reviewer page. Send a freebie. If you’ve got a new product and you’d like to generate some reviews in the blogosphere, you might try sending freebies out to the bloggers whom you’ve been tracking as part of your social search efforts last month. As with any contact you make in the blogosphere, use great care when you stick your neck out: Only send your products to bloggers who have a reason to care about your product, and who you feel are likely to respond positively.

While you can ask them to consider posting a review on their blog, don’t make demands. Freebies should be sent with no strings attached. Follow your reputation. Keeping an eye on your reviews is a fairly straightforward task. Bookmark some websites, search for your company name, and read what you find. You might even consider assigning this task to an intern or administrative assistant who can collect reviews from several sites and compile them into one document for you to read once a week. (For example: Sybex, the publisher of this article, generates a regular report called “What They’re Saying on Amazon.”) You’ll benefit from knowing your online reputation, and you’ll also benefit from knowing which locations on the Web might need a little extra effort on your part. For example, if your Epinions reviews are lukewarm, you can work extra hard to drive your happy customers to post positive reviews there.

Give a little guidance. Not everybody feels confident about their writing skills. You can help by politely providing “talking points” to your potential reviewers. We’re not suggesting that you write your own reviews, but you can say, “We’d be honored if you’d consider mentioning our fast shipping when you review us on NexTag.” And it never hurts to provide simple instructions on exactly how to create a review.

Write your own review. Really? Seriously? Yes, you read it correctly. It’s OK to write yourself a review if, and only if, you clearly identify your relationship to the business. Introduce yourself and your business, and thank your customers in advance for helping you make your business better. Keep it simple, and you’ll avoid any breach of etiquette or ethics that a self-review can tread perilously near.

Don’t tempt fate if you don’t have what it takes. Reviewers on the Web have a lot of power, and a vicious review can carry a lot of influence. That’s why we recommend taking an objective look at your product, your customer service, your order fulfillment time in short, any aspect of your e-commerce experience that could be commented on. If you’re not ready say you’ve just had a massive turnover in your customer service department or your supplier is causing a delay in shipping don’t put yourself out there with freebies and shopping search listings.

Stomach the negative. As the Yelp website states, “Negative reviews can feel like a punch in the gut.” When you run across a particularly spiteful one, here are a few steps you can take to mitigate the situation:

• Step up your efforts to crowd it out with positive reviews. Here’s a tip: If the offending review is displayed on Google Maps but is sourced from another site, a positive review posted directly on Google may be more prominent.

• Resist the urge to respond in your own defense this only makes you look worse. If you must respond, stick to expressing your gratitude for the feedback.

• Check the review site’s editorial guidelines to see if the review violates any. It probably won’t (mean, nasty, and crazy talk is within bounds here), but if the review contains personal attacks, second-hand information, or bigotry, you have a chance of having the review removed.

Paying for Blog Reviews

Although it is clearly contemptible, no-good, sleazy, and slimy to pay for a positive review on a consumer-generated review site, there is some wiggle room in the area of paying for blogger reviews. Services such as PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews, and ReviewMe connect businesses with bloggers who are willing to write about their product for a fee (ranging from roughly $50 to $200, last we looked). ReviewMe differs from other services of this sort in that it requires the blogger to disclose the paid relationship, which keeps it out of the ick zone. However, if you choose to go this route, be aware that the links in the reviewer post will probably be considered “paid links” in Google’s ranking algorithm, so don’t expect a ranking boost from them.