Digital marketing has brought with it a whole host of new possibilities for getting your name out there. There are more ways than ever to connect your brand with new audiences, and different solutions are available when you find that your business is stagnating.
Online reviews are a core part of that – giving a voice to every customer and allowing them to have their say, potentially impacting the future success of a business. The way that this differs in construction from something more immediate, like hospitality, is both more and less than what you might expect.
No matter what kind of business you find yourself in, there will inevitably be a time when you need to interface directly with the customers. This might be a regular part of your routine – again, as it might be in hospitality – but it might also be that it only occurs when a complaint is made. In either case, you need to be ready to give the kind of customer service that will leave the client feeling as though they were listened to. While receiving negative feedback can be a confrontational situation, you have the ability to try and turn it on its head, diffusing it and making it something positive.
A review left for your business might incur this exact situation, and while you might be unhappy about the negative attention it brings to your business, showcasing in your reply that you’re willing to listen and learn might reflect more positively on you than starting an argument.
Additionally, it’s important to understand that online reviews are a simple fact of modern businesses. Trying to spend all of your time replying to them or engineering them so that it feels as though they’re painting the kind of picture that you want might end up being counterproductive.
The reviews, after all, are (usually) left by people who have worked directly with you. That means that what they’re going to be reviewing is the quality that your brand has to offer. Focusing your attention directly on this quality in business means having a skilled and productive workforce, the right tools like portable batch plants or impact crushers, depending on what the job demands, and again, that strong sense of customer service. If all of these things are in place, there’s no reason the reviews should be anything other than positive.
However, what the prominence of these reviews does illustrate is just how many clients and customers will be looking for your brand online. That means that even if you have strong online reviews, you need a digital presence so that new customers can come and see how they can enlist your services for themselves. Stumbling at this hurdle and having an old, outdated website (or worse, no website at all) might indicate to these customers that it’s too much effort to get in touch with you, and they might opt instead for one of your competitors.
