To leverage this insight, Zinia partnered with Hellopeter Business, the review and reputation management leader, to discuss Zinia's business goals. And once they clearly defined their end goal, Zinia and Hellopeter quickly inputted an automated survey and review mechanism, allowing them real-time access to the conversations relevant to their brand.

Zinia discovered, via Hellopeter's Business Analytics and Competitor Analyses, that being open to customer feedback allowed them to leverage their positive feedback as oh-so-valuable Social Proof. While, at the same time, using negative reviews to grow and showcase their willingness to continually improve their customer service. 

"The review platform through Hellopeter has made it simple and easy to request customer reviews, and the integration of reviews across Zinia’s platforms means they can create a positive impact across channels." - Warren Bonheim, Managing Director at Zinia.

In 2021, Zinia decided to focus its customer reviews on Hellopeter after they offered an easy way to collect customer reviews that did not involve a lengthy process of creating a Hellopeter account and logging in. Now, Zinia can log in daily and send requests for reviews via Email, SMS and WhatsApp.

“We have created the WOW factor at Zinia by making the experience of dealing with us extraordinary. Our customers love dealing with us because we don’t just provide a purchase, but rather an experience that is welcoming, friendly and personal.” - Warren Bonheim, Managing Director at Zinia.

Zinia's Hellopeter Business partnership has made it simple and easy to request and interact with customer reviews. Furthermore, the easy integration of Hellopeter reviews across Zinia's customer-facing platforms means they can multiply the positive impact of their engagement efforts across all their channels.

Zinia’s Industry Ranking started in the #39 position in the Telecommunications industry on Hellopeter in March 2022. However, by April 2022, they secured the #1 spot, and have since remained at the top.

“The ability to respond promptly and professionally to customers is always important. The team at Hellopeter are responsive and helpful whenever we have any queries.” - Warren Bonheim, Managing Director at Zinia.

Join the ranks of South Africa's Top Businesses 

If your business is ready to take that important step toward business growth, sign up for your FREE Hellopeter Business account. 

Our Customer Success team is looking forward to helping you reach for the (five) stars!

RT: Absolutely, while the needle may not be moving as quickly as we would like, there are more and more programs and initiatives out there that are encouraging females in the tech space to help address the gender gap. Women in Tech ZA is a great example, as this global movement assists in representing females in this space and helps make it more appealing for future females to consider these career paths.

On a side note, I have to mention that I have some kickass female colleagues who are absolutely dominating their roles and who I cannot imagine working without. Ladies, we've got this! 

RT: That the role is misinterpreted as "support". Customer Success is about so much more than just assisting your clients when they need assistance with your product. It's about becoming a part of their team, understanding the ins and outs of their product, team dynamic and ultimate business goals and assisting them in using your product to reach their goals. 

RT: It's not always easy, but it's ALWAYS worth it! Take the time to listen to your clients, like really listen! Client feedback is essential in improving your product, and you must always bring any pain point or feature requests to the attention of your product and tech team.

The ultimate satisfaction is felt when you assist a business in achieving goals you had set out together! That, and it's important to keep up with tech trends in the digital space or the space you're working in.

This is probably the biggest reason people write and read reviews on trusted online review platforms like Hellopeter. They want to learn from other customers' experiences and then "pay it forward" by sharing their own wisdom too.

Reading and writing reviews can foster a communal standard, making reviewers feel part of a greater community of like-minded people. We've seen this time and time again with our Hellopeter Community! Since it's nice to know that your opinion could help another potential customer, reviewers may feel like they're making the world a better place in a small but influential way. 

Once you've experienced the benefits of actively (instead of reactively) managing your online reviews, you'll wonder why you waited so long to start. Want to see a quick demo of how Hellopeter Business can help? 

Or, simply jump right in and sign up for your account by clicking here today!

Generic, brand-narrative-focused communications are all well and good, but for Black Friday, consider limiting your 'education' and 'brand’-focused efforts to secondary communications. Instead, place a heavy focus on practical, value-emphasising communications.

Remember that, during the Black Friday rush specifically, no one is checking for your brand history. So, get to the point, and save the brand-building communications for another campaign.

• 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in under two seconds 
• 53% of online visitors will simply leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load
• Even just a one-second delay can cause 7% reduction in conversion rates for some websites

*statistics courtesy of hostreviews.co.uk.

When was the last time you checked your site speed and quality? If your pre-game Black Friday prep is well executed, you should be expecting high volumes of traffic to your site.

Losing Black Friday sales and damaging your brand reputation due to site crashes or slow site speeds is entirely avoidable! 

In today's connected marketplace, finding professionals to test and upgrade your site and digital presence is affordable and super convenient if you know where to look!

People like being treated like human beings, instead of just another number or sale. With today's readily affordable and accessible software solutions, businesses have access to a huge amount of their customers' personal data—from A/B-tested campaign performance to individual shopping and engagement histories, from brand and product preferences to a physical location and online behaviours. 

Ensure your IT and marketing teams are geared to extracting actionable, personalised information to drive your Black Friday email, engagement and SMS strategies.

Consumers enjoy being 'seen'. Market your Black Friday offerings in as personalised and specific a way as possible. This includes, of course, using their first names, even in bulk-communication sends and marketing to them based on their purchasing history.

If, for example, a particular customer has purchased Samsung products consistently, that offers insight into what personalised marketing communications will drive them to action.

Test and analyse all your communications during the year to identify which performed best, why they performed well, and what insights you can apply to your Black Friday strategy.

Black Friday should cause (healthy) competition between retailers. After all, it all comes down to who has the best value proposition. But what if shops selling similar items manage to get the same goods at the same price point? 

Think of it from a consumer's point of view: if two retailers both offer the same Bluetooth headphones for the same special Black Friday price, how would you choose which business to go with? Simple—by checking how they deal with their consumers via their online ratings and reputation.

For Example

Business A never checks in with its consumers online. They don't answer when someone leaves a compliment or a complaint. Or, when they do, they seem to make excuses without offering recompense or a solution.

On the other hand, Business B regularly responds to and acknowledges its consumer's reviews (good and bad). They make an effort to ensure their customers feel appreciated and listened to. When they drop the ball, they are quick to acknowledge the issue and just as quick to offer a solution.

So, when competition is Black Friday fierce, your business's online reputation management is the difference between a sale and a pass. Remember that up to 90% of your customers will use online reviews to inform their consumer choices. 

Here are our top tips for managing your online reputation during Black Friday. 

• Respond to Every Review

Whether it's a raving review or a raving mad review, ensure your response time is the same. Someone took the time out of their day to help you improve your business, and they deserve a response.

• Be Empathetic

While something may not be such a big deal to you, it could be a big deal to a consumer. Make sure you respond with empathy and respect.

• Offer Solutions

By offering solutions, you're acknowledging your customer's experience.

• Share Positive Experiences

It's great for consumers to come onto your social media page or website and see happy customers. Our Hellopeter Widget Library is the best way to display five-star reviews on your website to grow your Social Proof and attract more sales.

• Ask for Reviews

Check in with your brand advocate consumers and invite them to leave positive reviews leading up to Black Friday.

 Running a business is hard enough as it is. Want to get access to tools that will make your life so much easier?  Leverage our online review technology by signing up for a free Hellopeter Business account today.

AM: I have, over the last few years, in particular, been inspired by the increase in the number of women starting their own businesses, which partly encouraged and motivated me to do the same.

Although a daunting yet exciting experience, I've been humbled by the support and guidance I have received from fellow women who have their own businesses and are in leadership positions, as well as previous colleagues and my broad range of networking relationships, both male and female. 

AM: Leveraging online reviews solidified my belief that achieving a leadership position in a market sector is possible if you consistently offer the quality and value of service your customers deserve. 

Both positive and negative reviews are so powerful. They can make or break a deal and contribute toward staff motivation and market position. Although positive reviews are great to receive, the negative ones assist a business in understanding its shortfalls and where to focus on improvement.

Too many times, we find ourselves giving excuses for bad reviews instead of picking up the phone and calling the customer to understand the root of their frustration. By then remediating it, you create a relationship for life with your customer because they suddenly feel "heard".

What has pleased me about reviews in South Africa, particularly on Hellopeter, is that the reviews have aligned to an equal amount of positive and negative reviews. In May 2022, Hellopeter recorded, to my knowledge, and for the first time, a 50/50 split of positive and negative reviews. And this compared to 2014 when CEO Alon Rom took over the company, when the split was 92% negative and only 8% positive. This unbalanced split is now a thing of the past because more and more businesses are making an effort to improve their customer experience, fostering more positive reviews and encouraging customers to review their service, be it positive or negative.

Why? Because getting reviews from customers matters, and it makes your customer realise that you are interested in their opinion on the experience they had with you.

AM: Be practical and set goals that are achievable. Take the time to think about what you want to achieve, and remember to do what you love. 

An important lesson I learned during my career is that I will (and trust me, I did) make mistakes. Own those mistakes and learn from them, which makes you stronger. Use that strength to your advantage when identifying a gap or a need in the market and how you will make your offering unique.

After all that is done, open a bottle of wine, sit back, look in the mirror and cheers yourself, "you've got this girl"!

PM: My greatest success was when our school opened in 2006. It has been one remarkable journey of learning and growing, even failing in some areas but finding the resilience and courage to get back up again and push forward. It has been so rewarding to see parents with children with learning barriers walk through our doors feeling lost and helpless and then stay with us. And they work together with therapists to help their children grow, thrive, and overcome obstacles to enrol into primary school and succeed without reservations.

PM: It helped us see how much our services are valued and appreciated by our parents and their children. We tend to feel that we are not doing enough for the parents until we receive positive or even constructive feedback from them.

The financial services industry — more than any other — is built on trust. So, when it comes to managing people's money and credit, one's reputation is everything. For Mobicred especially, their customers' Hellopeter opinions are central to what they do.

"People can be quite sensitive to negative reviews since our product affects their ability to make the purchases they need to make, whether this be a new laptop for pursuing education, an important birthday or anniversary gift, or even day-to-day groceries and clothes shopping."

By working closely with their dedicated Hellopeter Business Customer Success Manager, Rochelle Thompson, they were able to easily start collecting more positive reviews. They even improve their timing so that customers were asked to review their services straight after their interaction with Mobicred, while the experience is still top of mind.

"Things sometimes don’t happen quite as quickly or seamlessly as we aim to provide, and we found that these customer experiences were the ones filling up our Hellopeter page. We needed our customers to hear about the positive experiences in our customer’s lives, thereby increasing our social proof and gaining the trust of South Africans."

• Improving their review invitation timing to ensure they communicate with their customers when they are most likely to respond with a review
• Closely monitoring their Hellopeter.com page performance and constantly evaluate feedback to action improvements they pick up in real-time
• Using the Hellopeter.com platform to share the Hellopeter WhatsApp Review option directly with customers in chat.
• Sending customers Review Invites directly from their Hellopeter email channel, allowing for speed and convenience
• Responding to all reviews, whether negative or positive, thereby demonstrating that they are responsive and care about their customers' experiences
• Creating an internal reward system incentivising employees to offer service that gains positive feedback
• Turning their best reviews into beautiful Social Ads shared across all digital channels, providing Social Proof
• Upgrading their package to be able to collect and respond to a larger volume of reviews

Mobicred Financial Services Average Star Rating increased from 1.4 in July 2021 to a high of 4.6 in April 2022. In the same time period, Mobicred has significantly increased the number of reviews collected, with solicited reviews (Hellopeter.com review invitations) far outweighing organic reviews.

Mobicred's industry Ranking has also significantly improved, moving from a 2.8 rating in July 2022 to enjoying the number one spot across Financial Services during April 2022 (9.2 Trust Index).

They've also recently taken advantage of linking their Google Business Reviews to their Hellopeter platform, allowing for centralised ease of access and review management.

• Email review invites

Soon after your customer's experience with your business, send them an email using our Hellopeter Business feature, asking them to review your business. They don't even have to exit their inbox to submit their review! 

• SMS review invites 

On your Hellopeter Business portal, you can send your customers an SMS to ask them to review you while your brand is still top of mind. 

• Facebook review collection tab

Using our Facebook integration, you can add a Call to Action button to your Facebook page to ask for more reviews.

• Review share link

With Hellopeter Business, you get access to a review share link that you can then embed into your customer service emails and social media profiles. This link will take them straight to our website, where they can write their review. 

Hellopeter's solutions are all automated and professionally designed to add value to your offerings. No prior technical or design skills are necessary. If you can send an email, you can use Hellopeter Business! 

The best way to attract reviews and grow your feedback loop is by simply replying to all your reviews timeously and intentionally. 

The value-exchange inherent in an online review community is that the customer takes the time to give the business free, valuable feedback. On the other hand, they expect the business to respond.

'Listening' simply isn't enough. Consumers want to feel valued and that their issues and feelings matter. Make sure you have a plan of response. Ask yourself what your business's goal is when responding to reviews. To solve an issue? To be seen as responsive and responsible? To avoid bad reviews or to attract positive ones? All the above?

Then, craft well-written responses that speak to the issue at hand and your business's goals. Remember that your responses are public. This means they are an invaluable opportunity to demonstrate to the world just how amazing your customer service and success efforts are, attracting even more business!

While no one enjoys criticism, your bad reviews can be even more valuable than good ones.

Your bad reviews are an opportunity to demonstrate to potential and future customers that you are ready, willing and able to swiftly make amends on the rare occasion that you do drop the ball. This type of public customer interaction is invaluable in building Social Proof and is key to a loyal consumer and review base.

Furthermore, bad reviews are your most valuable source of product and system feedback, directly from the horse's mouth. Many large businesses pay a fortune to tap into what their customers say about them. However, actively managing your Hellopeter profile achieves the same for much less!

According to Forbes, up to 87% of consumers use online reviews to evaluate local businesses. For the South African retail space, this means that your small business is being scrutinised closely and talked about more than ever before.

So, take control of the conversation by registering your small business with Hellopeter.com for FREE today.