Enterprise Risk Management is a topic on the radar screen of most large and medium size businesses. As we witnessed, Facebook and Twitter have energized the population of several Middle East countries which ultimately led to the fall of governments. Closer to us, on a daily basis the Internet inflict damages to businesses reputation and bottom line.
Today, 80% of consumers are searching the Internet before buying in a 10 to 20 miles radius. When managed properly Online Reputation builds trust and boosts revenues.
Most customers that complain online do NOT want to “hurt” businesses. They just want to be heard and get help with their problem. According to an independent study, with proper containment procedures, 67% of negative comments and reviews are removed or corrected by their authors.
After analyzing user reviews from hundreds of companies, another study found that 80% to 88% of the people that review products give those products a 4 or 5 star rating (out of 5 stars). These percentages hold up worldwide and across a variety of industries.
Allowing a mix of positive and negative reviews on a business website is perceived by customers that such business care about what they say – both good and bad. QuickBooks found that Customer Support Advisors with reviews had their profiles clicked on 555% more than those with no reviews. They also found that Advisors with more reviews got more clicks than Advisors with higher overall ratings but with far fewer reviews.
To summarize several significant case studies:
- Review users generated 98% higher revenue compared to non-review users
- Shoppers who read reviews convert 178% more often
- Site visitors who read reviews click “where to buy” 82% more often than other visitors
- On average, Reviews reduce product returns by 20%.
- Products with 50+ reviews have a return rate that is 50% of those with less than 5 reviews.
- Review-related paid search terms on Google, Bing, & Yahoo deliver 30x click-through rates and cut pay-per-click cost by 50%
- Reviews can increase product page search traffic by 17% to 200%
- Pages with Reviews were crawled by search engines 200% more frequently
Comments on Social Networks and Reviews on Websites are great sources of customer feedback. When significant number of customers is complaining about a particular aspect of a product or service, this point to a weakness an organization should address. For example, Domino’s Pizza made headlines several months ago with its “Pizza Turnaround” campaign, publicizing its decision to act on customers’ feedback to radically improve upon its 50-year-old recipe.
Social networks are making it easy for people to share their opinions. Ignoring customer opinions in the digital age can be perilous. When Consumer Reports gave Apple’s iPhone 4 a bad review, Apple deleted all references to the article that consumers posted to its discussion board. This prompted an outrage about censorship, which bloggers and other social network users brought to the forefront. In the end, Apple was forced to fix the issue but… was rewarded with record profit sales!
We understand you currently spent a significant part of your revenues in advertisement and public relations. Unfortunately, Advertisement and PR firms are not equipped to address Online Reputation issues.
Our business can help:
- diagnose your online situation
- identify pressing issues and address them
- instate a system to generate positive feedback from customers
- monitor and report online chatter that could affect your reputation
- suggest course of actions to contain situations
Online Reputation Management is here to stay. Your company cannot hide. Be pro-active; avoid situations growing out of control.
