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Bad online reviews can hurt a business quickly. According to a 2016 BrightLocal study, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as much as a personal recommendation. Fewer negative reviews and more positive reviews result in more customers and more revenue.
You can prevent negative reviews and encourage positive reviews by using marketing automation.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is way to automate repetitive marketing tasks, often involving emails and social media.
Here is how you can use marketing automation to avoid negative reviews and encourage positive reviews:
After you finish a client project, use your marketing automation system to send an email to the customer. In this email you ask them to take a one-question survey.
In the survey you ask the customer how happy they are with your product or service.
A five point scale works well. The five options are:
- 5 - Extremely happy
- 4 - Very happy
- 3 - Happy
- 2 - Not really happy
- 1 - Not happy at all
Once the customer fills out the survey you should immediately follow up with another email. The content of the email depends on how the customer answered the above question.
Encourage Positive Reviews
If the customer chooses 5 - Extremely happy, then you should follow up with an email that asks them to give you a review on popular review sites. Make it easy for the customer by providing links directly to the page where they can leave a review.
The aforementioned 2016 survey indicates that 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review if they are asked.
Only Request Reviews From Your Happiest Clients
If the customer chooses 4 - Very Happy or 3 - Happy then you should follow up with an email message thanking the customer for their business. While these customers may be happy, we don’t necessarily want to ask them to leave a review, saving that for only the happiest customers.
Avoid Negative Reviews
If the customer chooses 2 - Not really happy or 1 - Not happy at all, then this is where you can avoid a costly negative review. When a customer leaves a 2 or 1 it is critical that you call them as soon as possible to address their concerns.
A good marketing automation system, like HubSpot, can alert you via text message and/or email when you get a critical customer survey response. The first step to winning back a disgruntled customer is quick and responsive action to their complaints.
Using marketing automation in this way is a small part of how we integrate marketing and customer success for improved revenue operations.
Jake Fisher
Jake Fisher, is President and Co-Founder of BridgeRev. He helps our clients with their revenue and growth goals by providing better strategies, better processes, and better technology. He also makes videos and written content to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers achieve their own revenue goals. And, he talks to business and industry leaders at conferences and association events.