Online reviews are one of the many things that can be overlooked when ISPs are considering growing their online presence. Reviews can have an incredible impact on how individuals view a company, and it’s important to keep in mind where and how this impact can occur. In fact, 97% of people read reviews on local businesses, 93% of consumers say that online reviews impacted their buying decisions, and 89% of consumers read a businesses’ response to reviews.
In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the most prominent places your potential subscribers can find reviews, what the impact of these reviews can be, and what can be done to improve your online reputation.
Where To Find Reviews
There are two primary places that ISPs should try to grow and monitor their online reviews. Facebook and Google.
1) Facebook.
Facebook is by far the largest social media platform on the planet. It hosts 2.2 billion active users every month, and ranks as the third most visited website in the world; Facebook Messenger is rated as the most downloaded app in the world. 68% of Americans are actively using Facebook on a monthly basis and 66% of those monthly users are using Facebook on a daily basis.
Currently, Facebook hosts 80 million small to medium business pages. With this abundance of product information readily available, consumers have gotten used to looking up product information on Facebook to such a degree that up to 78% of American consumers have discovered a product to buy on Facebook.
When these consumers discover a product on Facebook, they often jump into comments sections or the company’s page to get a perceptive understanding of the product or service itself. On the company’s page audiences can see the average rating that consumers rated the company, the reviews themselves, and whether the company took the time to respond to any of these reviews directly.
2) Google.
Google is the most visited website on the entire planet. The search engine is an incredibly abundant source of information, including businesses via “Google My Business” accounts. These accounts show the businesses relevant information including operating hours, phone numbers and website listings.
In fact, if you take a look at the number of searches that have included the words “near me” you’ll find that there is a dramatic increase in searches with this term in recent years. This is now providing businesses the direct opportunity to target local audiences.
If your reviews are high enough, you’ll rank up in Google’s “Map Pack” which increases the chance that someone will find your business when they search for particular businesses near them. This can increase overall exposure and make sure that you’re able to get in front of consumers when they’re looking for a service to fit their needs.
What’s The Impact of These Reviews?
We’ve covered that Google and Facebook are two of the biggest, most influential websites on the planet. We’ve also covered some preliminary stats on the effects that reviews can have when it comes to consumers making purchasing decisions. But let’s take a closer look at the numbers and really look at the impact these online reviews can have.
To start, 94% of all consumers read online reviews, 85% of all buyers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations, 72% of consumers won’t take action until they have read a review, and only 3% of all consumers say that reviews never factor into their buying decisions. These are some pretty large numbers. In effect, we’re seeing that essentially everyone is looking at online reviews and is making purchasing decisions based off of what they’re reading. Why should an ISP be any different in that regard? If your online reviews suck, chances are it’s going to be much, much harder to sell services to new customers.
In fact, when looking at online reviews, research shows that a one-star increase in reviews can lead to a 5-9% increase in revenue, but consumers only want to purchase services from a company with a rating of 3.3 stars or higher. 94% of consumers will avoid a business with negative reviews, and only 13% of consumers are willing to try using a business that has a 1 or 2-star rating.
Now that being said, what consumers are really looking for is the content of those reviews. 82% of consumers say that the content of the review has ultimately convinced them to purchase a product or service from a company. So star ratings aren’t everything, but they can definitely help. What really is going to drive the needle is the ability to gather reviews with substance. With 89% of consumers reading a business’s response to reviews, responding can provide you with the opportunity to supply in-depth content that will convert the consumer over to your service.
Overall, improving your online reviews and actively engaging with your customers is going to make a large difference in the amount of revenue you’re going to be able to bring in. In this day and age, reviews are treated as powerfully as personal recommendations. If you’re able to court your customers and begin generating a positive online reputation, your business is going to benefit.
How Can You Improve Your Online Reviews?
To start improving your online reviews all you need to do is begin asking your customers to leave a review!
68% of customers will leave a review if you ask them. A majority of consumers won’t leave a positive online review unless they’ve been prompted. Most individuals write reviews after they feel they’ve been slighted or that they are not getting what they’ve paid for. This can result in a business accumulating a disproportionate amount of negative online reviews overall, which can mean lost business. To combat this, we at Ping Marketing, always encourage ISPs to ask customers to leave a Google or Facebook review after they’ve had a positive interaction with a customer service representative. This is minimal extra work for the CSR and can be tremendously beneficial for your business.
The other way to improve your online reviews is to work with Ping! We will solicit your customers for reviews on Google and Facebook and encourage positive (4-5 star) reviews while directing potential negative reviews straight to your support teams so they will have a chance to turn that into a positive 5-star rating. We’ll send the lower star reviews to your support team to handle directly and see if we can fix the issues that have prompted consumers to leave a lower star review.
With this method, we can make sure that we’re generating a positive online reputation while making sure that those with negative experiences are getting the attention they deserve and encouraging them to change their opinion of your company.
We put together a short case study on how we were able to improve the online reputation of two of our clients with this method. We worked with Natel Broadband to increase their total review count from 14 to 77 reviews over the course of three months. Those 63 new reviews averaged 5.0 stars. During that time, we increased their overall rating across both Google and Facebook from 3.5 stars to 4.7 stars.
The other client we worked with was e-vergent. Over a three-month period, we generated 110 new reviews for them from existing customers, averaging 4.9 stars each. Even with 120 reviews already under their belt when we started, we were able to increase their overall average rating from 4.0 stars to 4.4 stars.
What does this show us? The system works! Natel Broadband and e-vergent have seen the benefits that we discussed above and their online reputations continue to grow and prosper. If you’re interested in improving your online reputation and learning more about our online campaigns, please fill out the form below!
Online reviews are one of the many things that can be overlooked when ISPs are considering growing their online presence. Reviews can have an incredible impact on how individuals view a company, and it’s important to keep in mind where and how this impact can occur. In fact, 97% of people read reviews on local businesses, 93% of consumers say that online reviews impacted their buying decisions, and 89% of consumers read a businesses’ response to reviews.
In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the most prominent places your potential subscribers can find reviews, what the impact of these reviews can be, and what can be done to improve your online reputation.
Where To Find Reviews
There are two primary places that ISPs should try to grow and monitor their online reviews: Facebook and Google.
1) Facebook.
Facebook is by far the largest social media platform on the planet. It hosts 2.2 billion active users every month and ranks as the third most visited website in the world; Facebook Messenger is rated as the most downloaded app in the world. 68% of Americans are actively using Facebook on a monthly basis and 66% of those monthly users are using Facebook every day.
Currently, Facebook hosts over 80 million small business pages. With this amount of information readily available, consumers have gotten so used to looking up product information on Facebook that up to 78% of American consumers say they have discovered a product to buy on Facebook.
When these consumers discover a product on Facebook, they often jump onto the company’s page to get an overall impression on the quality of the product or service. The first place they look is the reviews - the average rating, the details in the reviews themselves, and whether the company took the time to respond to any of these reviews directly.
2) Google.
Google is the most visited website on the entire planet. The search engine is an incredibly abundant source of information, including businesses via “Google My Business” accounts. These accounts show the business's relevant information, including reviews, operating hours, phone numbers, and website.
In fact, if you take a look at the number of searches that have included the words “near me” you’ll find that there is a dramatic increase in searches with this term in recent years. This is now providing businesses the direct opportunity to target local audiences with minimal effort.
If your reviews are high enough, you’ll rank up in Google’s “Map Pack” which increases the chance that someone will find your business when they search for particular businesses near them. This can increase overall exposure and make sure that you’re able to get in front of consumers when they’re looking for a service to fit their needs.
What’s The Impact of These Reviews?
We’ve established that Google and Facebook are two of the biggest and most influential websites on the planet. We’ve also covered some preliminary stats on the effects that reviews can have when it comes to consumers making purchasing decisions. But let’s take a closer look at the numbers and really look at the impact these online reviews can have.
According to scientific studies, 94% of all consumers read online reviews, 85% of all buyers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations, 72% of consumers won’t take action until they have read a review, and only 3% of all consumers say that reviews never factor into their buying decisions. These are some pretty large numbers. In effect, we’re seeing that essentially everyone is looking at online reviews and is making purchasing decisions based off of what they’re reading.
Why should an ISP be any different? If your online reviews suck, chances are it’s going to be much, much harder to sell services to new customers.
In fact, when looking at online reviews, research shows that a one-star increase in reviews can lead to a 5-9% increase in revenue, because consumers only want to purchase services from a company with a rating of 3.3 stars or higher on average. 94% of consumers will avoid a business with negative reviews, and only 13% of consumers are willing to try using a business that has a 1 or 2-star rating.
More than anything else, consumers are really looking at the content of those reviews. 82% of consumers say that the content of the review has ultimately convinced them to purchase a product or service from a company. What really moves the needle is reviews with substance. With 89% of consumers reading a business’s response to reviews, responding can provide you with the opportunity to supply in-depth content that will convert the consumer over to your service.
Overall, improving your online reviews and actively engaging with your customers is going to make a large difference in the amount of revenue you’re going to be able to bring in. In this day and age, reviews are treated as powerfully as personal recommendations. If you’re able to court your customers and begin generating a positive online reputation, your business is going to benefit.
How Can You Improve Your Online Reviews?
68% of customers will leave a review if you ask them. A majority of consumers won’t leave a positive online review unless they’ve been prompted. Most individuals write reviews after they feel they’ve been slighted or when they are not getting what they’ve paid for. This can result in a business accumulating a disproportionate amount of negative online reviews, which can mean lost business. To combat this, we at Ping Marketing always encourage ISPs to ask customers to leave a Google or Facebook review after they’ve had a positive interaction with a customer service representative. This is minimal extra work for your employees and can be tremendously beneficial for your business.
Not to drop a shameless plug or anything... but the best way to improve your ISP's online reviews is to work with us! Ping Marketing takes care of everything for you. We will solicit your customers for reviews on Google and Facebook and encourage positive (4-5 star) reviews while directing potential negative reviews straight to your support teams so they will have a chance to turn that into a positive 5-star rating.
With this method, we make sure that we’re generating a positive online reputation for you while making sure that those with negative experiences are getting the attention they deserve and encouraging them to change their opinion of your company.
We performed a case study on how our marketing campaign affected the online reputation of two of our clients.
We worked with Natel Broadband to increase their total review count from 14 to 77 reviews over the course of three months. Those 63 new reviews averaged 5.0 stars. During that time, we increased their overall rating across both Google and Facebook from 3.5 stars to 4.7 stars.
The other client we worked with was e-vergent. Over a three-month period, we generated 110 new reviews for them from existing customers, averaging 4.9 stars each. Even with 120 reviews already under their belt when we started, we were able to increase their overall average rating from 4.0 stars to 4.4 stars.
What does this show us? The system works! Natel Broadband and e-vergent have seen the benefits that we discussed above and their online reputations continue to grow and prosper. If you’re interested in improving your online reputation and learning more about our online campaigns, please fill out the form below!
Learn How To Get More 5-Star Reviews For Your ISP Today
Check Out What Other ISPs Have To Say About Our Review Campaign
“The review campaign has been fantastic. I was afraid that we were going to get an onslaught of negative customers, but overall it’s been a huge positive experience.”
- Celeste
Check Out What Other ISPs Have To Say About Our Review Campaign
“The review campaign has been fantastic. I was afraid that we were going to get an onslaught of negative customers, but overall it’s been a huge positive experience.”
- Celeste
“Ping Marketing helped us by initiating a campaign to increase the amount of reviews we get on Facebook… in a very short time, we got quite a few positive reviews, which does contribute… to the success of our marketing.”
- Mike
“Ping Marketing helped us by initiating a campaign to increase the amount of reviews we get on Facebook… in a very short time, we got quite a few positive reviews, which does contribute… to the success of our marketing.”
- Mike
