As the owner/operator of Milex Complete Auto Care / Mr. Transmission in Cary, North Carolina, I understand the importance of Customer service and building a reputation on trust and honesty. The triangle area is a highly tech savvy area where people are very comfortable with using the internet and social media to gather information to assist in their buying decisions.
With smart phone technology, information is always at your fingertips, literally. You can see what business you are around and connect to their website in a couple of clicks or even just by speaking your request into your device. With all this information available to you practically instantly, business reviews have become a very important part of a business’s identity.
Reviews help to build a business’s credibility, since visitors are more likely to trust the opinions of others, especially when they have experience with the business. Building trust is hugely critical to the ongoing success of a business. If you have bought something online then you have likely seen and read customer reviews. Most people use reviews to assist them in making purchase decisions.
This “Social Proof” makes customer reviews critical to the growth of a small business, here’s why. Humans have evolved to automatically trust the opinions of those people around them. Statistics show that 70% of us will trust the recommendation of a complete stranger and 92% of us will trust the opinion of a peer. Compare this to the standard reception of brand marketing where 36% of shoppers say they can trust that large companies always tell the truth. This is why customer reviews may do the best job of painting an accurate picture of a business’s identity/reputation.
Why a bad or negative review can also be valuable.
As hard as businesses try to please every Customer they encounter, sometimes the customer experience falls short. The Customer holds a tremendous amount of power to influence the reputation and credibility of a business experience. Of course, nobody wants a bad review. We all have the same first reaction, we just want it to go away. But how a business handles a bad review will tell you a lot about who they are and what they stand for. A credible business will show all their reviews including the ones where they didn’t meet expectations. If the business doesn’t have page after page of one-star reviews, you can expect even the best business to have an occasional poor review. So, look for businesses with realistic average review ratings. (i.e.. 4.6 of 5 stars). Statistically, businesses that show a 5 of 5 average rating are actually deemed less reputable by consumers.
When evaluating the reviews of a business, look at the total number of reviews, the average review rating and how recent or current are the reviews. Then read several of the highest and lowest reviews. Look for timely responses from the business to both. If a customer experiences an issue, look for the response from the business to calmly address the issue and offer to remedy the issue with a mutually beneficial solution. A negative review will show you how the business handles adversity and even shows how the business adapts to feedback from their Customers. To round out your research, check the business reviews on different social sites, like Google and Yelp. Understand that not all the reviews are shown on some of these sites as the site has standards or parameters for review acceptance. With Yelp, you can see the non-approved reviews by clicking through to them on the review page.
At Milex Complete Auto Care / Mr. Transmission of Cary we understand the importance of reviews and are actively looking for feedback from our Customers after every visit to our shop. Businesses are always asking and looking for your feedback so they understand when they are meeting customer expectations and also when they don’t. This helps the business to align to the Customer’s needs. So, expect to receive an invitation to review their performance. Overall, the review process should be quick and easy. If reviews aren’t your thing, you will always have the option to opt out of the review process.