It takes a lot of time and energy to run a small business. Because of this, many business owners find themselves looking for a means to earn more revenue with less effort. Now, this is not about cutting corners, but it is about finding shortcuts. One shortcut that you might not be using is leveraging your online reputation to find more customers and as a result, yield higher profits.

While some businesses have the resources to hire marketing teams and spend thousands of dollars on advertising, the rest of us are trying to double down on organic efforts. We look to word-of-mouth marketing and improving the customer experience so our customers transition from buyers into loyal brand advocates.

In the chapters that follow, we’ll explore how to create an online reputation management strategy, and take your business to the next level leveraging the power of online business reviews. Here’s a brief overview of what we’ll cover:

Introduction

Before we get to all of that, who are we? And, why should you listen to us?

We’re Hellopeter - South Africa’s authority on online reputation management. Our reputation management software helps business owners collect more reviews with less effort, and use those reviews to increase profit margins, garner more leads, and set themselves up as the go-to business in their industry

For more than 20 years we have provided a Platform for consumers to give feedback to business owners about what they’re doing right, and what they could improve on. The customer feedback system we’ve perfected over the last two decades holds the power to boost a business towards unprecedented success. We give you all the tools you need to improve your online reputation, and create social proof your business can be trusted.

You can read more about who we are and what we do in our post, Introduction to Hellopeter. Now, let’s dive into the chapters we just mentioned and get your business on the fast track to success.

If you read the introduction to this eBook, you already know that we believe reviews are the secret to building a stellar online reputation for your business. In our post, about the fundamentals of online reputation management, we explain that the cycle of review management looks like this:

Ask for Reviews --> Respond to the Reviews --> Leverage Your Best Reviews

However, the first step before you can even get to a review is to impress your customer. When you wow and delight your customer with your products and services, that’s the best time to request a review. It wouldn’t make much sense to ask someone to rate their experience before they buy, would it? Nope! So, before you even get to the review stage, it’s a good idea to set yourself up for success. What does that look like?

Laying the Foundation for Receiving Great Reviews

Begin by training your team in providing the best customer service experience possible. They should be ready to take phone calls, and greet customers with a smile.

Next, improve your website. Make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for - including answers to frequently asked questions. If you ship goods, make the order process as painless as possible. If you provide services, it should be equally effortless to book appointments.

Then, once the customer is ready to do business with you, every step of the purchase should feel good. Don’t give them any reason to regret giving you their hard-earned income. 

Set Up Your Hellopeter Business Profile

You need a place for your customers to go to leave feedback. Using Hellopeter’s online reputation management software provides a way for you to gather it in one easy-to-use Platform. Then, after you have wowed your customers, it’s time to ask for the review!

Hellopeter simplifies the steps of asking for a review by providing multiple avenues of review collection. We also give you the ability to respond to reviews and display the best examples on your website. We’ll cover more about our features, and explain how we make it easy to collect reviews in the next chapter. For now though, go ahead and create your business profile by trying a Free business account.

In our post, How to get your first 10 reviews, we shared ideas for how to quickly collect your initial set of reviews and how to get more once they start coming in.

Here’s a brief overview of the tips in that post:

1. Begin by creating a list of potential people to ask for a review:

Ideally these will be recent customers who had a fabulous experience working with you.

2. Draft your review request:

Don’t ask for the review with a plain, impersonal request. Instead, let them know you appreciate their business, and mention something about what they purchased. Then, you can finish off with a request for feedback.

3. Send the request:

With Hellopeter your review request can be sent via Whatsapp, SMS or in a link via email.

4. Follow up:

It’s not uncommon for people not to respond to your initial request for feedback. Using our messaging features, send a follow up request with a link to your review profile.

5. Display the reviews you’ve received:

When you share the reviews you’ve received on social media, on your website, and in other places, it encourages other customers to share their own experiences.

In our post, Identifying the best reviews to leverage, we discussed the anatomy of a perfect review. A stellar review isn’t just about giving your company five stars. It should also include:

• A title that’s informative

• A story that is well-written

• Images or videos that give context

• And profile data that helps your audience understand the purchase experience more

The best reviews will help potential customers determine at a glance, whether or not you offer the products and/or services they need. For example, if your sporting goods store only sells gear for football, it won’t do a tennis player much good to visit your shop.

In the next chapter, we’ll discuss the keys to effective review management. And, in a later chapter we’ll uncover how to leverage the reviews you receive to grow your business.

Effective review management doesn’t need to be an all-consuming task that takes lots of time and energy. With Hellopeter reputation management software, it’s never been simpler to read and respond to the reviews you receive. While you could hire reputation management companies, and review management agencies, it’s much more cost-effective to do it yourself.

That said, here are the two keys to effective review management: 

1. Respond to every single review

You may be wondering if you need to respond to positive reviews, and the answer is a resounding YES! People want to know you’re listening and that you care. They also want those warm fuzzy feelings that come from hearing the words, “Thank you!” because they took the time to say something complimentary about you and your business.

We cover this in greater detail in our post, How to respond to positive and negative online reviews, but here’s what you really need to know about responding to every single review:

How to respond to negative reviews

The simplest way to address negative reviews is to come from a place of genuine concern and curiosity. Ask questions if you need more information. Look into the complaint. Investigate what went wrong, and make it right if you can. Reacting in this manner will help you a lot more than defensive responses will.

How to respond to positive reviews

Graciously and from a place of authenticity. Do your best to avoid a simple word of thanks. You’ll get much more from the engagement experience if you reference what they purchased, and share a message that doesn’t seem like a robot could’ve written it.

2. Respond quickly

Not only is this key to getting more reviews, but it shows the public you’re not just sitting idly by as people share their thoughts. People are watching to see if you’ll take the time to convert a negative image into positive online chatter. If it seems like you couldn’t care less how customers feel about their experiences, new customers will be more likely to visit your competitors instead.

By the way, this is another great reason to use Hellopeter for your online reputation management strategy. We notify you as soon as a new review comes in so you can respond in a timely manner!

We’ve made it clear that SME reviews are gold. We’ve covered how to respond, and how to get more reviews. Now, let’s look at how to effectively leverage those reviews to grow your business. We cover this extensively in our recent post, but here are the highlights

Identify and Display Your Best Reviews

Hellopeter gives you some amazing tools to display your best reviews. We shared earlier what the anatomy of a good review looks like, and once you’ve identified some, you can display them in the following ways:

Use Insights From Reviews to Improve

Gathering insights from reviews gives you the ability to improve your business without the need for overpriced consultants. Your customers are telling you what they like and what they don’t. Take the feedback they’re giving you, give them more of what they are praising you for, and correct the things contributing to negative reviews.

For example, if everyone is saying Gladys is a horrible customer service representative, maybe move her into a different role. Or if dozens of people are complaining the lighting and paint colours in the dining room are unappetising at your restaurant, maybe change things up with new colours and light dimmers. When you give the people what they want, you stand to make more money!

Improve the Customer Relationship

Engaging with your customers helps you build better relationships. When you speak to them and get to know them, you become a more friendly entity in their mind rather than just a place where they buy goods and services. As you develop these relationships with your customers, it’ll be easier to ask them to spread the word to friends and family about why people should be patrons of your business.

Increase Your Search Engine Ranking

Syndicating your reviews will help you to rank better in search engine result pages (SERPs). As you increase your ranking, you’ll earn more organic traffic as a result. You can then leverage that traffic to turn more visitors into paying customers.

In our last chapter, we’ll cover how to use analytics to optimise your online reputation.

We’ve covered how to respond to your reviews, how to get more of them, as well as how to leverage your reviews to grow your business. In this final chapter, we’re sharing more about one of Hellopeter’s most exciting features - Review Analytics. We discussed this at length in our recent post, but here are the highlights:

How to Use Analytics to Get More Reviews

Review analytics are crucial to determining which methods of outreach are yielding the most reviews. With Hellopeter, you can use the following tools to secure reviews:

With Analytics you’ll know which one of these outreach methods is leading the most people to giving you feedback. And once you know how your customers prefer to leave a review, you can focus more on that method to request feedback.

Why Review Analytics Are So Important

They keep you from wasting your time. For example, if none of your reviews are coming in through email, you can stop sending email requests for reviews for a little while. By spending more time on the outreach methods that are working, you can receive even more feedback, which can lead to new levels of growth for your business. Bottom line: your review analytics are one of many secrets to earning more money!

Additional Analytics Tools Hellopeter Provides