Should business owners be required to ask unhappy or angry customers to put a review on review sites like Yelp/Google+?
Old fashioned bulletin boards with notes from customers have become more of a novelty. They have been replaced with testimonials on websites that are indexed by search engines. Many businesses like to showcase their happy clients because it leads to more clients and repeat business. In virtually all cases, a business will never showcase a bad testimonial.
Review sites, such as Yelp, Google+, and now even Facebook (yes Facebook now has
reviews and ratings), have provided an alternative to the “in-office customer bulletin board” by providing a 3rd and hopefully trusted, party to manage those sentiments. However, in too many cases, a larger proportion of the unhappy customers are writing these testimonials simply because they now have a place to vent their frustrations. Instead, the happy majority of customers stay passive and silent. Consequently, businesses have resorted to asking their more satisfied and happy customers to write reviews.
We wondered what consumers thought of this practice and so we put it to a vote. ReviewInc surveyed 778 random U.S. consumers in March, 2015. We wanted to know if they should treat their unhappy or angry customers in the same way as their happy customers with respect to asking them to write reviews. We anticipated that consumers would want an equal voice, but we found the results surprising:
In this case, consumers overwhelmingly sided with the business owners. Presumably, this is because consumers know they always have the choice to go directly to a review site without instruction or requests from a business owner.
Reputation management services can make a big difference in the success of a business. ReviewInc provides services to businesses to help them with their reviews and testimonials. For more information and no-obligation consultation, call 877-9REVIEW or request a call back here.
