Reputation House: How Customer Reviews Affect the Reputation of Your Business

According to the latest data, more than 5 billion people have access to the Internet, and the number of social media users has exceeded 4.76 billion, which is 60% of the world’s total population. And 97% of consumers search for information about local businesses online, with 12% doing so on a daily basis.

So it comes as no surprise that a huge number of goods and services are being purchased online every minute. According to the Reputation House agency, customer reviews have a huge impact on sales: 1 or 2 star reviews cause 86% of consumers to lose conversion. Therefore, if a business wants to survive in today’s environment and earn a stable income, it is necessary to constantly monitor and control what is written about it online.

Reputation House: How Customer Reviews Influence the Decision

Why is the same product or service purchased in different quantities? One of the main tools that influences decision-making is brand reputation. It consists of two components: information that is found about the company on the Internet and user reviews. Lack of response to the opinions of customers, unfair competition, and ignoring the overall information field around the brand lead to the fact that more and more negative reviews start to appear and worsen the reputation.

How does this affect sales? The path to a purchase usually looks like this:

1. A person has a problem; for example, the refrigerator broke down.
2. They start looking for a solution: buy a new one or repair the one he has.
3. They ask for advice from acquaintances who have recently bought a refrigerator.
4. They check the opinions of their acquaintances online and look up reviews about the reputation of brands and the peculiarities of particular models.
5. They make a decision to purchase the product or refuse to do so.

And if they encounter negativity at the third or fourth step, the likelihood of purchasing a refrigerator from a particular company drops dramatically.

Reputation House emphasizes that customer reviews with a negative tone are more likely to be seen. According to research results, 15 Americans are willing to leave a negative comment, and only 11 are open to sharing a positive impression. The reason lies in people’s psychology: most people take positivity for granted, so it seems to them that it is much more important to inform people about the negatives.

And then this situation arises: on the first page of the results, potential customers mainly see the shortcomings of the product and service, which leads to a refusal to cooperate. What do you do in this situation? SERM technologies from Reputation House are designed to solve this problem.

How Does Search Engine Reputation Management Work?

Its job is to put content that will showcase the company, its products and services in a positive and neutral tone on the first page of the search engine. Why is this all about exclusively the first page? Because only 5% of people go to the second page of a search!

Reputation House specialists raise customer reviews and other relevant information in the top 10 search results. Various tools are used for this purpose, including:

• Publication of articles in online media.
• Creation of satellite websites and filling them with content.
• Publication of content on social media, encyclopedias, and other resources.
• Bringing positive and neutral reviews for improving the reputation in the top 10 search results.
• Optimization of the customer’s website.
• Displacing negativity by writing and publishing information in the right tone based on facts verified and agreed upon with the client.

Dealing with unreliable and ordered reviews that affect the customer’s reputation. Correspondence with the owners of websites, the purpose of which is to remove unmotivated negativity. In extreme cases, it is possible to resolve the issue in court.

Thanks to SERM technologies, Reputation House makes sure that the voice of clients and customers speaks in favor of the company, forms a positive image of it, and helps to make a choice in its favor. The agency’s team develops an individual strategy for each client based on the peculiarities of their business, existing reputation reviews, and their goals.

At the end of each cycle, the current strategy is analyzed. Specialists identify the channels that worked most effectively and study which SERM methods used by Reputation House were less effective. Based on the data obtained, the strategy for the new cycle is adjusted and improved.

Three Pieces of Evidence of How Important It Is to Work with Customer Reviews

There are actually many more reasons to seek SERM services from Reputation House. But the list includes only the main alterations that will become a point of growth for the client’s business:

1. Good reviews work more effectively than standard marketing tools. Statistics also confirm this: 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. They are willing to pay money when they are sure that they will not be deceived. Positivity about a company online is social proof of its reliability, trust in it. It works continuously, improving a brand’s reputation and setting it apart from its competitors.
2. Promotion through SERM from Reputation House helps to bring the client’s website and other necessary information resources to the top 10 of the search results. Many people know that search engines bring high-quality, verified content to the first positions. And the more reviews and other information there is about the company, the more often it will be seen by them. This is how trust in a brand is gradually built up, which is the key to successful promotion.
3. Understanding customer preferences and the strengths and weaknesses of a product or service. Then the real reasons why customers choose competitors become apparent. Using customer reviews, it becomes possible to improve service quality, employee performance, and other factors that influence brand loyalty.

Quality work with customer reviews from Reputation House is what makes the reputation of a business sustainable, allowing it to survive any crisis and outperform competitors.