Managing your online reputation can be a make-or-break aspect of any business.
Most of us have 24/7 access to the net, so leaving reviews is easier than ever – in fact, 84% of customers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
We’ve covered how to handle negative reviews in a previous blog post, so give that a read if you’re keen to learn more about optimising your online reputation.
In today’s post, we’re going to talk about how we transformed a client’s TrustPilot rating from a rather undeserving 3.5 stars out of 10 to a whopping 9.4!
Why so many negative reviews?
Our client’s TrustPilot rating had reached rock bottom before they reached out to us.
Out of 13 total reviews, 11 gave just one star, making their overall rating a disappointing 3.5 stars out of 10.
Unsurprisingly, this rating had started to have a really negative impact on the client’s business, knocking their sales and reducing work for employees.
This is where we stepped in – after being approached in a panic, we took a look into how we could effectively manage their online reputation.
What did we do first?
- A general assessment – we noticed our client only had a handful of reviews on Google and TrustPilot, and most were negative.
- Looked into customer accounts – after some crafty digging, we noticed that most of these negative reviews hadn’t been made by genuine customers! Proof of sale could only be traced for four of the 11 reviewers.
- Attempted to make contact with customers – we created a customer service email account to contact genuinely disappointed customers and see whether their issues could be resolved.
Getting the compliance team on board
We replied to all negative reviews, whether they were genuine or not, and asked them to reach out to us.
After two weeks, most hadn’t managed to get in touch so it was time to get serious.
We decided to report the reviews to TrustPilot’s compliance team with the view that they violated the site’s policies.
Within a week, these comments were taken down and the number of one star reviews fell from 11 to just four.
What happened next?
Having handled the negative side of things, we thought it was about time we generated some positive reviews for our client.
We knew most customers were happy with the service they received, and we wanted to reach out to them to reflect this. We drafted an email asking for reviews and had the client’s team send it out.
Within days, five star reviews were flooding in and many offered direct praise to individual employees which we felt was an added bonus!
We made sure to publicly reply to all positive reviews to show that the company is receptive and appreciate of all feedback. We continue to do this for the client, and never leave a review unreplied for more than 48 hours.
The client’s current TrustPilot rating is now unrecognisable – since we started managing their online reputation, their rating has jumped from 3.5 to 9.4 stars (as of Nov 2017).
They now have 127 reviews in total and an impressive 91% of these are five star ratings.
Because the client received so many reviews, we put Schema Markup code on their website which meant that their review stars now show up on Google – the only company that has stars in their organic listing!
They currently rank first in the organic listings (after ads and map results) for the most competitive search term in their niche.
They also rank above established websites that have been on Google for a long time, like The Guardian and MoneySavingExpert – no mean feat!
This was a serious success for our client and another win to add to UWP’s reputation management portfolio!
Managing your online reputation – a summary
This client case study is a great example of why you shouldn’t bury your head in the sand.
No business is perfect – it’s OK to get a bad review here and there but if you don’t actively manage them there can be nasty consequences down the line.
If your company receives a negative review, try reaching out to the customer to find out what issues they encountered and if the situation can be resolved.
If customers fail to make any further contact, and you believe the reviews violate the site’s policies, report them to the Compliance Team and they might be taken down.
If you’re a business owner and need help managing your online reputation, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.