online reviews

Sustainable Business Practices – Online Reviews

Sustainable Business Practices – Online Reviews

RonBenjamin

By:Ron Benjamin

Sustainability in dry cleaning involves optimizing results for people, the planet and the long term survivability of the business providing the service. Much has been discussed about how GreenEarth provides a maximum solution for the planet overall and the people (employees, customers and neighbors) involved.

However, no business can continue to provide a maximized sustainable solution for the planet and people unless it is able to provide on-going growth and profitability for its business itself. Otherwise the business will not be around to provide the sustainable results we all agree are desirable.

There have been several recent reports that discuss how managing customer online reviews and feedback can help grow a business. Consider the following statistics:

• 67% of consumers are influenced by online reviews.
• 85% of consumers would be persuaded to shop elsewhere due to a good customer experience. Customer reviews show how great you are.
• 76% of customers say they see how a company treats them as a real test of their value.
• REVIEWS ARE TRUSTED 12 TIMES MORE THAN THE MARKETING THAT A BUSINESS PRESENTS.

Karen Fluharty, partner and chief strategist at Strategy + Style Marketing Group, states “Our clients have their Yelp and TripAdvisor pages checked daily. The worst thing you can do is not listen or not respond” to what your customer is saying in these on-line reviews.

And Fred Mather, general manager of the Americas for Trustpilot, an online review community that recently expanded into the U.S. from Europe, says “Don’t be scared of shopper reviews. A lot of businesses are afraid of feedback. But at the end of the day, if you’ve made a mistake and you’re smart, you’ll respect the issue that the review raises. And you’ll tell the commenter what you are doing to improve.”

Losing a customer or a potential customer because of a poor review is simply not acceptable. For such a loss is not just the loss of one sale, but rather it is the loss of the lifetime value of the lost customer. Like it or not, we in the dry cleaning industry must pay attention to what our customers are saying on-line and take any comment, positive or negative, as an opportunity to add to our credibility of wanting to be of help and service. Not growing is not an option and is certainly not sustainable!!

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