Customer reviews are the new word of mouth for increasingly online culture. Gone are the days when paper advertisements and brand names dictated customer trust. Instead, online reviews dictate how customers seek out and invest in new businesses. You can see this in the prevalence of user review sites like Yelp. Customer reviews can make or break a business’s chance at securing new customers. Some companies depend on social media to boost their business. However, good online reviews can work as well, if not better, than social media.
The same goes for online store reviews. More customers consult with reviews before making a purchase. When was the last time you made a purchase online without checking the reviews? Since online shopping removes the tangible element from shopping, online reviews act as a test run. As Forbes noted, “the number of people who read customer reviews is higher than ever, with 77% of people saying they ”always’ or ‘regularly’ read them.”
Here we discuss three ways that offering superior customer support can benefit your online reviews. We also outline steps to improve the quality of your customer support to take your business to the next level. You may be surprised that customer support is critical in securing customer loyalty. It can also drive brand recognition and generate online reviews.
At a Glance
- Cultivating Customer Honesty
- Securing Client Loyalty
- Spreading Brand Awareness
- Building a Great Customer Support Team
Cultivating Customer Honesty
With fake reviews popping up across businesses of all niches (including high-profile companies like Amazon, Yelp, and Google), garnering honest customer reviews is crucial. Even negative customer reviews can bring value to your business. While many companies associate negative customer reviews with bad press, negative customer reviews can provide a new direction. A bad review can turn into a great review after your customer support team assists the dissatisfied customer.
As the co-founder and CEO of PissedConsumer noted, “Negative reviews are conspicuous in their absence…their presence, in a sense, can lend legitimacy to the positive feedback under your name.” Many customers avoid a website or product where every review is positive.
Websites that hide negative customer reviews damage credibility and drive away potential clients.
Not all that glitters is gold. For online reviews, customers prefer to see the truth about a product, flaws and all, instead of a whitewashed product version. A good customer support team can cultivate honesty by following up with dissatisfied customers.
Securing Client Loyalty
Good customer support with excellent customer support workflow connects with customers on an individual level. You may remember your previous online shopping experience. If you interact with a customer service member, that experience becomes personal. We all hear horror stories about harmful customer service interactions. These stories solidify that excellent customer service can make or break client interaction.
Providing dedicated customer support can leave a positive impression. In order to provide excellent customer support, you need the right channel. A reliable customer portal solution can help you effectively communicate with customers and help them whenever they are in need. This impression carries through even if you cannot fix a consumer’s complaints. Instead of walking away from your business with a bad taste in their mouth, your client should walk away feeling heard and respected. As the famous Vince Lombardi says, “It takes months to gain a customer…seconds to lose one.” Thankfully, good customer support can help with client retention. To keep your customers happy, you can do call center analytics and get insights from it. This is the process of collecting and analyzing call center data to improve customer experience, agent performance, customer service, and operational efficiency.
Spreading Brand Awareness
Good customer support involves more than just answering online questions. A good customer support team helps spread brand awareness and reinforces the goals of your business on a client level. A critical aspect of customer support is reaching out for client reviews on your products or services and their performance. Some email services offer abandoned cart follow-up messages. These messages can be helpful for online storefronts. However, only some services offer review request follow-ups. Even fewer provide natural-sounding prompts that avoid driving away your clients.
Thankfully, companies exist that help naturally contact clients for reviews. These companies make it easier to secure genuine reviews for your products. Using an automated review request service is worlds away from buying reviews. Instead, the service acts as an extension of your customer support team. These services work by reaching out for review requests after a purchase or other interaction.
There is a fine line between making customers aware of your brand and overwhelming them with information. By instilling a positive association with your brand through good customer support, you spread awareness of your brand. You also encourage customers to spread the word about your business on their own.
Building a Great Customer Support Team
If there is one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that your customer support team is your business’s lifeline. Sales associates are the face of a box store. Online customer service teams are the primary contact between your customers and your business. Because these team members are valuable to your business, you should treat them as such. Some companies need to pay more attention to their support team. But a well-cared-for support team is crucial to growing your business and client reviews.
One way to increase the quality of your customer support team is to make sure their office space is as comfortable as possible. Interfacing with customers all day can be taxing, so providing your team members with comfortable, supportive furniture and seating is essential. An excellent example would be providing your team with ergonomic office chairs to help keep them comfortable while they do their job. An investment into the comfort of your customer service team is critical. They are the heart and soul of your company. This increase in productivity, in turn, builds client engagement and generates online reviews.
Another effective approach to building a strong customer support team is by leveraging BPO companies. This strategy offers businesses access to specialized expertise, scalable resources, and advanced technology solutions tailored to their needs. By partnering with BPO firms, businesses streamline operations, ensure round-the-clock support, and enhance customer satisfaction, driving growth and success in today’s competitive market.
You can organically skyrocket your online reviews by combining the client-based benefits of a customer support team with quality review programs. More online reviews generate brand recognition and trust and help solidify your business in your niche of choice. In addition, you can ensure satisfaction and customer transparency while still growing your business by prioritizing customer interactions. As far as we’re concerned, that’s a win-win.
