How 1-grid has created a loyal community using online reviews

The company

We're 1-grid, a South African web hosting provider, and we offer products that assist SME's to move their businesses online. We provide Domain and Company Registration; Professional Email ;  Web Hosting; Web Security; Web Design and Social Media Marketing. 

As we offer products that assist businesses in creating and developing their digital presence, we were classified as an essential service when the president announced the National State of Disaster. We identified an increase in domain registrations in the initial months of lockdown as well as a continued surge in our website traffic. 

We assisted our company registration customers with their essential services paperwork, as well as conducted COVID-19 updates on their websites. We launched our per mail box collaborative email tool that enabled video conferencing – an essential feature for those working from home during lockdown. It’s evident people were starting to understand the importance of building a digital presence. 

The entire company operated remotely for the first three months of lockdown, which resulted in an adjustment of company and employee KPI's. We utilised lockdown to focus on our customer service KPI's. 

Our support strategy was slightly adjusted, and with the additional focus on resolving customer queries and relaying feedback within our teams, we saw a steady first-place ranking in the ISP industry on Hellopeter for four months from April to September 2020. With the assistance of the Hellopeter Platform, our customers could share their honest opinions about us.

The challenge

We understand people are spoilt for choice, and that deciding on a trustworthy service provider is an essential part of their end goal. Over time, we have understood the value of feedback and the impact it has on businesses. 

Online users turn to online reviews before making the choice to purchase. Each review has the ability to influence a decision, and ultimately enhances the trustworthiness of a service provider.

1-grid has a digital presence on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, allowing people to openly review us. However, we’ve noticed that the majority of our online reviews stem from Hellopeter.

The solution

Hellopeter has allowed us to serve our customers better, it has given people a platform to share their experiences. The opportunity for us unfolds in taking the time to digest each review to understand our customers and their needs. 

Regardless of the sentiment around the review, we’re given the opportunity to thank and acknowledge our customers who leave us reviews every day. The interactions become more personal not only for us but for our customers too.

The results

Builds trust

When customers leave us positive reviews, it enhances our brand integrity and builds a community via word-of-mouth. If our customers are leaving positive reviews for others to see, they’re probably referring other entrepreneurs to us too. 

Honest reviews and daily interactions allow us to build rapport with our existing customers. We’re able to expand our community based on our solution-orientated approach to negative reviews that may surface from time to time. 

Often, we’re able to turnaround negative sentiments. This allows our customers to trust us more as our dedicated team of professionals work hard to provide solutions to their business needs. 

Provides balance 

Negative reviews can enhance the accuracy of a business's reviews. The shared amount of mostly positive and a few negative reviews show a balance in the experiences amongst the customer group. 

Highlighting both positive and negative aspects of our business give 1-grid character and relatability. 

Value-added feedback 

Lastly, feedback is golden to the entire team at 1-grid as real-time, information-specific comments allow us to observe areas in our business that are performing well, along with areas that need to be improved on. 

On many occasions, customers make special mentions to staff who have gone above and beyond what is expected of them, allowing us to boost staff morale and give praise where it’s highly due.

Thomas Vollrath, 1-grid CEO and industry expert states; “We aim to maintain this quality by holding our customers at the heart of everything we do by equipping them with our industry knowledge and available resources.”

With this being said, we receive reviews on a daily basis of varied sentiments. Each review is handled independently and with consideration. We’re given the opportunity to thank and acknowledge our customers for providing us with feedback that enables us to improve our business and service offering. 

With the efficiency of Hellopeter’s system, our social media manager is able to prepare an appropriate response for each review received. Reviews are escalated to the allocated social media support agent, who contacts and assists the customer timeously. 

The Hellopeter Analytics feature is utilised on a daily basis as it assists in collecting review data and benchmarks our performance in relation to key competitors in the ISP industry. 

With over 20 years of experience, we pride ourselves on our diverse product offering. Through placing our customers at the heart of everything we do and zeroing in on our weak points, we have seen a significant increase in our customer and employee satisfaction in the past few months. Our customer feedback via reviews has enabled us to reward and rectify our team where appropriate. 

With thanks to Hellopeter, we’ve been able to action this swiftly and will continue to place our customers as the top priority to ensure optimum service quality levels.