5 Tips to Enhance Your Reputation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Leap.

Your company’s digital reputation is of the utmost importance now more than ever.

The economy has slowly opened back up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and with it came several changes. Many businesses are operating partially online and it’s imperative that your online reputation is immaculate. Owner of Mr. Roofing, Carlos Rodriguez, commented on the impact of online reviews on business and customers as reviews heavily impact the way your customers make decisions. Your online reputation and credibility are huge factors when it comes to customers’ selection, so continue reading for tips on how you can enhance your online presence.  

Claim your free listings on sites with reviews

Take advantage of your free listings on review platforms.

• Customers choose platforms like Yelp because they want to see trusted sites for reviews. Taking advantage of free listings is key because you’re already getting in front of people by being on a highly-indexed website.

Creating clear and consistent COVID messaging

Hours of operation

• Have they changed at all? Are they still functioning normally?

Offerings

• Are they specific to COVID? Have safety features been installed?

Special safety measures

• If any, and are they related to COVID?

Best way to get the project moving

• Give consumers an immediate call to action.

Virtual offerings

• If a company is doing this, they’ll want to be elevated. If not, they’ll want to automatically be let out of that list so they’re not getting unnecessary lead calls that aren’t appropriate jobs.

Once you have this messaging, circulate it across all platforms as potential lead funnels:

• Your website.

• Your Yelp listing.

• Your social media platforms.

• Local community resources/websites.

Utilize the COVID-19 banner on business pages

Yelp displays a banner that allows businesses to effectively communicate specific updates in a prominent place about their response to COVID-19.

• COVID-19 business highlights: A frequently-used feature for Home Service providers, adding items like Virtual Estimates and Remote Services to your Yelp page will help make your business more searchable to the consumer.

• COVID-19 call to action options: CTA suggestions provide quick and easy options to communicate offers and services your customers need to know about right now.

Why are reviews beneficial?

There will certainly be negative reviews out there, but almost 80% of reviews on Yelp are neutral to positive.

Actively listen and join the conversation in order to gain consumer trust and stand out.

• As more reviews come in, use them as a management tool. With Carlos at Mr. Roofing, he gathered insight from reviews to train employees on things they need to improve on or celebrate things they are getting right. By receiving negative feedback, it allows for businesses to internalize their process and take the opportunity to retrain.

• Responding to reviews on a platform like Yelp gives future users more context about the work that a company does. It can also help a business correct any issues that may arise.

For negative reviews:

• Replying with feedback that is thoughtful is valuable – ask questions to gain context to what the problem may be so that you can help yourself.

• Even when a review has nothing to do with your business practices or services provided, there’s still an opportunity to display who you are as a business and your customer service practices in responding on sites, where possible.

• Negative reviews can turn into positive ones if you have an effective strategy for dealing with customer feedback.

Amplify the positivity

A great way to market your home services business is to share reviews on social media or on your website to spread positivity and let future customers know that you pay attention to your reviews.

Responding to positive reviews:

• Something to add: By mentioning in your public response on something a consumer raved about, you’re giving yourself more SEO value around searched keywords.

• Nothing to add: Provide a direct message instead so your responses don’t look canned.

Responding to critical reviews:

• Legitimate: Something happened where there may be a missed expectation.

• Inaccurate: Address changes you may do internally based on the feedback received via a public comment (Ex: a missed piece of information that may be mis-described by the consumer).

• Rant: If someone is negative or not reliable, take the time to think about sending them a direct message, or ignoring altogether. Yelp allows businesses to see the breakdown of reviews the consumer has written over time.

Inspire great reviews organically

• Don’t ask for them; let them happen naturally.

• In the case of Carlos, he wants what’s out there to be genuine for his business. Some reviews force businesses to make proper changes for better service.

• If you receive a great review ask your client what their favorite platform is and kindly share with others. The clients offering this information speaks to the work instead of the business doing it.

• Have prospective clients look at reviews during the sales process, then triangulate it.

• If one skews more than another, bury the bad, one-star reviews and don’t trust the five-star reviews either.

Download the Reputation Management eBook.

Learn more about Leap in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory.

Original article source: Leap