10 Steps to Help You Manage Your Online Ratings

Bill Owens & Shashi Bellamkonda

#RDJ2016

Thank you for coming!

Bill OwensBill Owens, CGR, CAPS, CGP, is president of Owens Construction, currently celebrating over thirty years as a leading residential design/build firm in central Ohio.

Active with:

National Association of Home Builders

Home Builders Institute

Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies

Shashi BellamkondaShashi Bellamkonda is the Chief Marketing Officer of Surefire Social - Solving Local Marketing for successful remodelers.

Shashi Bellamkonda is also an Adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University teaching Marketing Analytics and Digital, Social Media and Mobile and keynote speaker on Digital Marketing and Small Business.

Background: Remodeling Companies’ Challenges

Resting on our laurels

Do great work

Clients love the experience

Great team

Problem jobs:Work out issues with clients privately Do right by the Customers - Always to a mutually satisfying conclusion

“Word of Mouth” has gone to “Word of Mouse”Believe the vast majority of our opportunity is referral and repeat business

But what are we perhaps not seeing?

Make (or at least soften) the sale even before prospects reach out to us-Very likely lost opportunity because:

Search before homeowners contact usPotential clients see few or no ratingsMaybe some average ratings on a few websites

Understanding the growing importance of an online, social presence

Tough time getting clients to engage

Small number of yearly transactions (30 to 50 jobs/year)Lackluster number of reviewsHow to best excite and encourage clients to rate and review us?

Where to send customers, let alone, where are prospects looking?

We know Google is important….confused on what sites we should be focusing on.

Feeling defensive, insulted and destroyed by 1 star reviews

Source: MotherJones

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

How to think about this….

Reinforce Your Beliefs

Do excellent work and have lots of pride in your process as well as the finished product

Expect that this could

happen

.....because it will…..and that’s OK!

Get ahead of this - Manage through these events

- Don’t react emotionally, internally or in the public eye

Create a shift in how

the public views the

industry as a whole.

Posted by Web Staff - Email | Facebook | TwitterCLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) - It's bad enough when you find out the contractor working on your home is unqualified. Imagine if you never hired that person in the first place.It's the latest home scam.The scam typically hits the people least equipped to deal with it, mainly the elderly……

Readjust our thinking● Spend more on creating

satisfied clients ● Well-developed and properly

channeled reputation management system

Reputation is more than Just Reviews5 things to check/do today

Today customers know more about the business than the business owners themselvesMark Richardson Author, Keynote Speaker and Remodeling Expert

1. Outdated Web Presence

Website has not been updated in years - Are you still in business?Recent content? Typos….Not mobile friendly?Do you have your own domain name?

2. Consistency of Information

Inconsistency of data - Name, Address, Phone confuses not only your customers but search engines

3. Broken Websites

Websites with broken images or broken links indicate you do not care about customers’ experience

4. No Reviews for Your Business

“88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business.”

5. No Feedback Channel

Provide an easy way for customers to contact the business first

Why Folks Write Reviews?

15

25 22

Understanding the Reviewer Emotion

Warn other Consumers

I want to warn others of bad products

I want to save others from having the same negative experiences

Venting negative feelings

I like to get anger of my chest

I want to take vengeance upon the company

The company harmed me, and now I will harm the company

Help me shake off frustrations about bad buys

J.M. Rensink - What motivates people to write online reviews and which role does personality play?

Help other consumers

I want to help others with my own positive experiences I want to give others the opportunity to buy the right

product

Helping the company

In my opinion, good companies should be supported

I am so satisfied with a company and its product that I want to help the company to be successful

Emotion – Negative>> Positive

Intensity

Harness Customer EmotionsSocial benefits

I believe a chat among like-minded people is a nice thing

It is fun to communicate this way because I meet nice people

Self enhancementThis way I can express my joy about

a good buy I can tell others about a great

experience I feel good when I can tell others my

buying success My contributions show others that I

am a clever customer

Advice seeking I hope to receive advice from others to

help solve my problems

I expect to receive tips or support from other users

J.M. Rensink - What motivates people to write online reviews and which role does personality play?

10 Steps to Act on your Reputation Management

1.Goals and Objectives

A proactive strategy to get reviews is required for all businesses

Create a well-defined strategy

Mission: “We will strive to get nothing less than 5 Stars”

2. Plan

Set responsibility

Proactive

Getting Customer Reviews

Reactive

Monitor >> Respond>>Resolve

3.Training Every member of your company can help you with your review strategy

Define the experience

Explain the process

Reinforce importance of reviews

Set rules of engagement

Provide service standards

Power of conversation, eye contact

2016

4. Wide web presence

Proprietary + Confidential

www.yourdomain.com

5. Target campaigns to customers where they can review you

HouzzYelpGoogle, etc.

6. Ask but don’t reward

Use Messages like “People on Yelp like us!” or “People love us on Yelp!”DON’T offer incentives for reviews

7. Engage

Increase your chances by non-review type engagements such as check-ins, photos, liking, or adding tipsCreate Ideabooks on Houzz

8. Using Mobile & Apps

Reviews can be done from anywhere including on the phoneUse SMS to send customers links to reviews with their permissionTake pictures and send to your websiteUse Geo Location check-ins to add reviews and location data to your website

9. Get alerts for new reviews

➔ Google Alerts are free

➔ Other tools like Mention.net

➔ Reputation Management Tools

➔ Agency

10. Respond to all reviews

New prospects can come across old reviews

Customers form opinions on company response

Guide to Responding to Reviews

Get Ahead with TESTIMONIALS

Step 1:

Setup a client testimonials plan

Step 2:

Use tools and automation to setup a system to seek reviews

Train & equip your employees to get reviews

Step 3:

Publish testimonials on your website

Use testimonials in sales materials

WHO TO RESPOND TO

Positive Reviews: Not necessary all the time, but still good practice

Negative Reviews: You need to respond 100% of the time

Don’t respond angrily

WHY RESPOND

Turn a negative review into a positive experience!

1. Show clients you care

2. Demonstrate your passion for customer service

3. Increase customer retention

4. Increase new customer acquisition

HOW TO RESPOND Thank them for the review

Be humble and appreciativeExplain the future changesHow are you going to prevent this from happening again?

WHERE TO RESPOND

1. Publicly

Shows both other, and potential, clients that you care

2. Privately

Address and resolve the client’s personal issues

WHEN TO RESPOND

The sooner the betterAim for under 24 hoursOK to respond to older reviews

BAD REVIEWS NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING...

Getting bad reviews can be good?

Opportunity Customers

Valuable feedback and opportunity to improveMore honest and transparent

Having only positive reviews may not be trustworthy

REPUTATIONBad reviews are not the problem, not answering is the problem.

ELEMENTS OF A RESPONSE1. Always Say Thank You

2. Mention positive points from the review

3. Apologize if things went wrong

4. Suggest contacting you by phone or email

5. Offer to work with them

Response Best Practices

1. Respond to reviews fast but take the time to think through your response

2. Resist the urge to vent on the reviewer or focus on how to get the review resolved

3. Don’t get defensive and get into too much detail

4. Take the conversation offline

5. If reviewer has not responded search in your records and reach out privately

6. Be transparent and apologize if a mistake has been made

Reviews should reflect your brand

1.Be conscious of the Streisand effect -”phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely”

2.If there are repeated bad reviews on the same issue, you may need to look at your operations

3.Your review represents your brand. Avoid typos, grammatical mistakes and stay positive

Don’t ignore reviews hoping they will go away

ConclusionSetup, implement, and manage your company's reputation plan long before a problem or crisis strikesYou can really change/regain your reputationGet back the business you are losing because of your reputation

My Advice, “from the trenches”Proactively-

Focus on showcasing all substantial projects on social media and your website

Aggressively seek more and better quality ratings and reviews on specific sites

Mandate responsiveness to any reviews by all company representatives.

Group Exercise

Create a Reputation Management Plan

1) Audit your current reputation plan

2) What would you change?3) What resources and budget to

allocate?4) How do you measure the

results?

New Trends in ReviewsWhat will you do with your findings next? How will you further your research/findings?

We don’t go online. We live online.

Proprietary + Confidential

Reviews on Instagram

Amazon

Source:BGR

Amazon

Maps

App Reviews

Neighborhood Networks

Employee Reviews

More importance to reviews on Google

CONSUMERS MAKE DECISIONS USING MICRO-MOMENTS

Thank YouShashi@surefiresocial.co

mBill@owensconstruction.

com