Reading reviews is a no-brainer practice!

This is substantiated further by recent research that found 93% of customers as review-dependent for their buying decisions.

As such, asking for reviews in the post-pandemic world is much more crucial for developing your brand’s credibility and online Reputation. We’ll discuss more that later, but up first, let’s start with the ‘how to ask for a review in 2022’ question.

Ready with your cuppa, then? ‘Cause, there’s no fun without one!

In this blog, we’ll cover:

1. Setting a Goal for Review Campaign
2. Select a Template (Free Template Attached)
3. Finding/Targeting your Audience
4. Choose a platform

How To Ask For A Review In 2022?

You’ll find the answer to this question in a single paragraph on most sites and blogs. But will it really help? Because chances are, you already know what there would be in there. So, the ‘how to ask customers for reviews’ question still remains. Well, after going through our 4-step process of collecting quality reviews, you’ll have an answer that will work not just now, but going forward, too.

So, with no further ado, let’s begin with it;

Set your Goal

Why do you want to collect reviews?

• Before collecting even a single review, you and your team need to have clarity over this question. Because the goal you set for your review campaigns will determine the end result.
• So, if you wish to collect reviews for one of your products, the audience, platform, and review template will go out accordingly.
• If it regards your overall brand, everything will change again. You get the gist here. Setting a specific goal for all reviews is an absolute necessity.

Select a Template

The last step is to select a proper review template like this one.

Sign up here for Free to use the above template!

• On getting the reviews, you can use SurveySparrow’s Reputation Management feature to manage google reviews or other online surveys.

Sign up here to use Reputation Management for Free!

• The above template works for all sorts of review campaigns and on every platform. But you won’t find many templates like this.
• That is why choosing the review platform is crucial. So, once you’ve followed the first three steps, calmly select the review template that fits best for your requirement, and voila! The question of how to ask customers for reviews is now duly answered.

Find the Audience

The next step is to find the audience that relates to the goal of your review campaign.

• To explain clearly, not all target audiences would like smartwatches, right?
• Some are in totally love with the gadget and are willing to explore the ones from new brands, and some are content with the gadget they have.
• Your audience, in this case, are the former ones, those looking to explore new smartwatches.

Getting them onboard as customers will be easy, and getting them to leave a review about your product or brand will be easier.

Choose The Platform

• Once you’ve selected the audience for reviews, it’s time to choose where you want them — Social media, on your website, Google reviews, or other related platforms.
• The platform you choose for reviews determines the template your team would use for it.
• This is because the way reviews are requested on different platforms are different in content and style. So, this is the third step of the ‘how to ask for a review’ question.

If you’re following this 4-step process, collecting online reviews and enhancing your brand’s online reputation will soon feel like a walk in the park. Yes, it’ll be that easy!

The Massive Importance Of Reviews And Online Reputation

You now know how to ask for a review from the target audience and customers, but why ask for it? What good will it do for your business?

These are valid questions, as the process is only so important as the reasons behind it. Well, the reason behind collecting reviews is to maintain and grow online reputation. In today’s world, if a business is ignoring its online standing and reputation, it’s clearly losing out on sustained growth. We have 6 reasons to substantiate this further, starting with;

Soaring Credibility

The Broken Window theory.

Have you heard about it? Well, it’s a theory explaining how people think negatively about a brand having negative reviews or feedback. So even before talking to someone from a company, you’d have painted a negative picture about them in your head. That is pretty prevalent in this post-pandemic world. And that is where positive media comes in.

To explain better, let’s say a prominent media house wishes to cover your company and offerings. Where will they go first? Google. Yes, they’ll google and read all the information present about your company, in the form of reviews, listing info., and site-wide consistent details.

Only when they’re satisfied with the credibility of your brand they’ll contact you for a story. And a great story can unlock unimaginable business opportunities and growth! Managing good reviews and online reputation is pivotal to doing that and avoiding a negative perception of your brand.

SEO Boost

If your brand moves up by only a single position in Google results, the Click Through Rate (CTR) can increase by nearly 31%! Unbelievable, but true. People are searching online to know more, from the smallest of things to the grand ones.

SEO plays a huge role in ranking your website higher for relevant categories. And that starts from having consistent information throughout the web on listing portals, social media, and your website. This improves your brand’s overall reputation and SEO, the upsides for which are many!

The Right Identity!

As a decision-maker, you always have a vision for your brand’s identity, right? You always talk about it with your teams and consistently work towards achieving the right brand identity.

Managing online reputation is the best way to do that in 2022 and beyond. Sure, it takes longer to show results, but with a far better ROI than paid marketing efforts in most cases. Using customer-driver marketing, you’re slowly instilling the perfect narrative about your brand in the target audience’s minds, ultimately bringing sustained growth. How powerful that is!

Larger Market Share

Through reputation management, the brand generates trust when you’re smartly collecting positive reviews (using SurveySparrow) and promptly resolving all customer issues. This trust is the market authority that brings a larger market share, a.k.a; more sales and revenue for your brand.

You also get an edge over the competitors. Customers want to stick to your company and offerings just because they trust your vision, ethics, team, and way of doing business. In the post-pandemic world, getting such loyalty so quickly is only possible through continuous online reputation management.

Outside Interest

Do you wish to hire the best talents?

And do you want the most high-profile investors?

We’re sure the answers are yes because positive reviews, proper listings, and consistent information throughout the web are the ways to do that. See, all these activities paint a shining light about your business that makes candidates and investors curious. They both want to know more and if possible, associate with you and your team.

So when you’re focusing well on your online reputation, the best talents and investors will come to you, and not the other way around!

Lowered Costs

The best thing about managing an online reputation is how less you’d spend on promotional ads and campaigns, thereby lowering the overall costs.

Think about it; brands spend a fortune to make themselves visible and generate trust among the target audience. But that trust comes automatically when you’re garnering positive reviews, giving prompt replies to social media callouts, and staying consistent with all online information. Of course, it doesn’t happen overnight, but once done, you don’t spend even a dime more on it. And that is a huge cost saver for any organization, big or small.

Tips To Quickly Improve Your Brand’s Online Reputation!

The BIA Kelsey Group predicted that online reputation management (ORM) would be a $5 billion industry by the end of 2016. Since then, it has indeed come a long way. Organizations now understand its importance and are readily partnering with ORM softwares.

We at SurveySparrow, are ready to take our omnichannel customer experience platform to the next level by rolling out the reputation management solution. Our team is getting queries left, right, and center about the solution. But until it’s life, use these tips to improve your brand’s online reputation right away;

• The first tip is to find the platform where your target audience is for building an online reputation, especially on social media. Don’t just start targeting Facebook or Instagram.
• Never let your teams post freely or randomly on social media. Every post should be a part of a strategy aimed at growing the brand’s reputation.
• Until you and your teams have a defined strategy or process to build reputation, don’t post anything for the sake of visibility.
• Keep consistent information about your company on all listing and review sites, big or small.
• Promote user-generated content as much as possible for greater credibility.
• Let employees have a brand value for themselves. That way, customers respecting and admiring these employees will admire your brand.
• In case of a negative review, contact and apologize to the relevant customer immediately. And offer them your services until they’re satisfied, or at least not disappointed anymore.
• Never let your social media team get into online arguments with competitors or dissatisfied customers.
• Update blogs regularly to support local SEO and improve web ranking and reputation.
• Finally, invest in a quality online reputation management tool, like SurveySparrow, Vendasta, and more, to get on top of all reviews, listing info, mentions, and SEO rankings.

Need More Help?

So, you know how to quickly and effectively ask for a review. And we’re sure you’ll agree that managing online reputation is right up there with improving sales and marketing ROI, in terms of business functionalities. Now, many high-profile tools manage online reputation, like Podium. But we don’t think it’s the best tool for the job!

We’ve recently written about 10 Podium alternatives in 2022 and beyond. Here, you’ll also get a great idea about how spectacularly good SurveySparrow’s reputation management solution is. No, we aren’t tooting our own horn. It’s just that our features in the online reputation management (ORM) solution are so much better and more affordable than what others are offering.

Plus, if you need more help with the subject and want to discuss your ORM requirements, our team is here for you 24/7. Leave us a message, and let’s get started!

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