What is Review Management? A Definitive Guide for 2024

Did you know that more than 70% of consumers look at product reviews before deciding to purchase a particular product, and over 60% are inclined to buy from a brand with product ratings? 

Reviews are one of the strongest factors that influence customers, and if you want to strive as a business, you need to learn how to make reviews your greatest sales tool. However, it can be very challenging to manage thousands of reviews across multiple sites. So, how can a business strengthen its online reputation management process and tackle reviews in the best way? 

If you are wondering how to stay on top of the review game, keep reading this detailed guide to learn essential tips and tricks for managing and improving customer reviews. 

What are Customer Service Reviews? 

Customer service reviews are assessments and ratings given by consumers about service quality, speed, efficiency, and other important factors. These reviews depend on many elements, and they can have a huge impact on your brand's overall image. 

Customer service reviews are a part of online reputation management services and include online review sites, social media, and direct feedback. Customer reviews focus on a specific product, whereas customer service reviews focus on overall customer satisfaction. 

Importance of Customer Review Management

Customer review management is all about analyzing customer reviews and regulating them across all platforms. A brand needs to resolve customer concerns, eliminate false reviews, and actively act upon the reviewed data for successful customer review management. 

Although quite similar, customer review management differs from online reputation management as it involves more active listening and prompt acting and less customer-related inputs. 

Effective review management is key to providing an exceptional customer experience, and as per statistics, 4 out of 5 customers reverse their purchasing decisions based on negative reviews online. Not only this, but a proper review management process can create credibility and social proof that can drive customers' purchase decisions. 

Effective Ways to Manage Customer Reviews

There are various online reputation management services that involve managing customer reviews as one of the core elements. Here are some effective ways in which you can manage customer reviews and create a great review management process for your brand -

1. Collect Existing Reviews  As we know, online reputation management in digital marketing revolves around the brand's online presence and consists of reviews across different sites, platforms, and apps. Hence, the first step to improve your review management process is to collect the existing reviews to get a clear picture of where you stand.  This can be done by using online reputation management tools, like Birdeye or Podium, which can help you manage your reputation at large. Your review input source should be bigger, and you need to ensure that you do not miss out on any major review input to reduce the chances of misrepresentation. 
   

2. Actionable Insights and Analytics Once the review data is properly gathered, you can apply analysis techniques to get an accurate reading of your customer's satisfaction levels, current difficulties, and needs. This is where using the right online reputation management tools, like review management software, can create a noticeable difference.  These software apps can help you analyze reviews as soon as they appear and deal with negative ones by reviewing prompt notifications. Not only this but focusing on actionable insights can also help your brand stay more connected to the current customers, which can lead to a better reputation. 
   

3. Encourage New Reviews You can employ review tactics, like showcasing, which ensures that positive and more accurate reviews are shown first. You can feature the reviews that better showcase your brand and product on the landing page so that your audience sees them first.  Prompting is another active review approach wherein you encourage the customers to leave a review by understanding their sentiments and needs. Adding an incentive for customers can also boost the response rate while rewarding them for their loyalty.
   

4. Identify and Deal with Fake Reviews Fake reviews exist everywhere, and they impact the genuineness of other user reviews; this is why it is essential to identify and remove them from time to time. You can spot them by looking for some basic factors, like vagueness, one-star rating, too many verbs in the review, and different tones and languages. Once the reviews are identified, you can remove them or report them on the specific platform to maintain the authenticity of your brand. 
   

5. Monitor and Repeat Online reputation in digital marketing is a continuous process; thus, you need to monitor customer reviews regularly to manage crises more quickly and to stay on top of review trends. Review trend analysis is another approach that can help customer experience management teams shape their future strategies.  Thus, collecting and analyzing the current customer reviews while prompting new ones is the ultimate process to manage reviews more efficiently. 
   

What are the Best Practices for Managing and Generating Customer Reviews?

Customer reviews are a great way to create meaningful social proofs, and here are some best practices for customer review management -

1. Place reviews on the home page Placing a couple of reviews on the home page and creating a proper page dedicated to reviews and testimonials can make sure that the best reviews are placed in the front and centre. You can place reviews for specific items on different product pages and use them in a way that works for the products.
   

2. Make your sites easily accessible Your brand needs to be active on different platforms and be social and accessible on these sites. These can help with honest feedback and can help customers reach out through comments and questions, which can create a better customer service experience. Common social sites, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, are your best bet to make review management more effective.
   

3. Follow up regularly Customer review management services are incomplete without regularly following up with the consumers. You can send emails to customers immediately after they have purchased from your brand, as it increases the chances of getting a review from them while your product is fresh on their minds. You can also use customer review management software to automate this process and eliminate any gaps between your request and their ability to post a review.
   

4. Ask the right questions You need to create a roadmap of what you want the customer reviews to be about. For this, it is important to understand your target audience, what they expect, their biggest concerns, and their pain points. Then, you need to align these questions with meaningful testimonials to create the ultimate customer review management strategy. 
   

5. Socialize the positive reviews Appreciating genuine reviews can lead the way to better customer relations. Positive reviews help with product marketing through the customers, which is the most genuine and authentic way. It is like micro-marketing that goes on long after the review is posted; hence, socializing with positive reviews is crucial.  When customers leave glowing reviews for your products, you can show your gratitude and socialize with them. Another way is to share their positive reviews or mention them on your brand's platform. This also increases trust and brand loyalty and is a great way to follow up with the clients after purchase. 
   

6. Run regular contests Promoting your brand through social media with contests and giveaways can boost engagement and lead to better customer reviews. Ask customers to add a hashtag related to your brand and give a chance to earn goodies to a few selected customers. This can be an effective way to market your business and show off your customer reshares. 
   

7. Respond to negative reviews As important as positive reviews are, negative reviews cannot be left unaddressed. Try responding to criticism and negative comments with an open mind, and if the reviews seem genuine, you need to empathize with the customers and assure them that the issues will not be repeated. This makes customers feel included, and you can also share any modifications made on the basis of such reviews to create a better brand image. 
   

8. Collect visual content Did you know that over 70% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that has reviews with visual content? Many websites have customer reviews with the product picture attached, which brings more authenticity and trust. You can ask your customers to share screenshots of the products received along with the testimonials. This can have a big impact on your review management process and attract potential buyers.
   

9. Give customers a reason to review you The trick is to make the customers feel welcome and included, which can be done by using simple steps, like leaving a thank you note. You can also include the customer's name or provide coupon codes for their good reviews. This can help create better loyalty and customer relationships, which can ultimately lead to better customer review management. 
   

5 Best Customer Review Management Software of 2024

Online reputation management tools include software and applications that can help make the task easy and foster ongoing customer engagement. If you want to nail the customer review game, you need these top customer review management software - 

1. Reputation This cloud-based customer reviews management software is the only application that manages customer feedback right from acquisition to loyalty. It helps multi-location organizations enhance their online ratings and monitor reviews, customer service, and other essential features. The software program provides a 360* view of both online and offline reputation and delivers a reputation score to help businesses calculate their overall success. Features like social interactions, sentiment analysis, and natural language processes make Reputation one of the best review management tools for a better online reputation. 
   

2. Birdeye The best software for local vendors, bird-eye, helps turn reviews into a competitive advantage. This software platform can be used to send customers to top review sites and help with a better feedback process. Not only this, the application can access reviews for every location and source and create a detailed dashboard. It generates, manages, and improves online customer reviews across more than 200 websites and offers direct integration with Google API.
   

3. Grade.us Grade.us is one of the most renowned software packages used by agencies that offer online reputation management services. This cloud-based app helps to automate review management and offers a multi-channel medium. The software can help the marketing team create campaigns and acquire more reviews over time. Users can also customize the campaign and monitor metrics to create performance reports. The review and reputation management tool can also integrate with major business tools like Google Sheets.
   

4. Podium Another top software for local businesses, Podium, is a SaaS software that helps with local SEO and enhances customer experience. This software program can help businesses manage their online presence and image through its core feature of online review generation. The tool also offers SMS marketing, along with webchat and other payment processing features.  If you are looking for software that customizes review management campaigns while providing text conversations, then Podium is the right choice for your brand. 
   

5. Reviews.io With a broad range of review collection features, Review.io helps e-commerce businesses build their online presence and improve overall customer relationships. This software program can be integrated with a majority of tech stacks, including custom sites, which make it easier for companies to generate better content. It helps build trust with customers, which helps improve satisfaction and conversion rates.  This Google-licensed review management tool directs reviews into Google Search, Google Ads, and Google Shopping. The software helps to increase positive experiences through genuine feedback collection and has many easy-to-use advanced features. 
   

Thus, customer reviews are a core part of a brand's online reputation, and proper management strategies can help you improve your brand image authentically. Online customer reviews are going to be more relevant with time, and the longer you wait to improve them, the more you stand to lose. Unless the customers are positive about a particular product and trust the genuineness of the reviews, they are not likely to make a purchase. Hence, improving the reviews and leveraging them as a sales tool is the best technique to create a better reputation over time. 

You can employ these practices to strengthen your review management strategies, and if you are still lagging in some areas, you can consult our team to understand and use customized strategies.