Are Online Reviews Helping Or Hurting Your Outdoor Services Company?

If you’re not keeping up with the latest trends and staying on top of your online marketing, your online reputation as a credible outdoor services company will suffer and could even cause you to lose business. Click to learn the steps for creating and managing a positive reputation online.

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Thanks to the ever-growing use of the internet by consumers, there are several different ways to promote your outdoor services company online today. Through channels such as social media, SEO, paid online ads, and more, businesses of all sizes can carve out their own space in the digital world. With so many different pieces necessary to create a cohesive online presence, it can be all too easy to overlook components that don’t seem to have a major impact.

One element that’s often overlooked can be your business’s online reputation. Many owners of outdoor services companies assume all they can do is wait for reviews to trickle in, and keep their fingers crossed that they are positive. With so many other aspects of business to focus on, managing online reviews may not even seem worthwhile. However, your company’s online reputation is an incredibly important factor of your digital presence and there are options for taking control of your reputation and using it to promote your business.

1 WHY DO ONLINE REVIEWS MATTER?

It can be tempting to think that a great website or an active social media presence are enough to create a positive impression of your business. Sadly, that’s not the case. Even if the content on your site and social posts explains all of the reasons why you’re the best company to hire when it comes to providing outdoor services, not every potential customer is going to simply take your word for it. In fact, the number of customers who use online reviews to make decisions may surprise you. Online reviews have been shown to impact over 68% of all buying decisions. If your outdoor services company doesn’t have a positive presence on key review platforms, you could be missing out on prospects who instead choose a company with visible and recent reviews.

Besides making a favorable impression on potential customers, a strong online reputation can also have a positive impact on your website’s SEO. Ultimately, search engines are designed to provide users with valid and helpful results, and reviews are seen as very helpful for users. When your business has a good number of positive reviews, this also signals to search engines that your company is legit and provides a trustworthy product and customer experience. With a robust collection of positive reviews, your outdoor service company is much more likely to appear when a potential customer performs a relevant search such as “best outdoor service company near me.”

2 CUSTOMERS WANT BOTH QUALITY AND QUANTITY

Collecting a small handful of 5-star reviews might seem like “enough.” After all, that leaves your business with a perfect overall rating and nothing but incredible statements about your outdoor products and services. Unfortunately, customers today are incredibly savvy and may grow suspicious if they don’t see a higher number of recent and realistic-sounding reviews. Studies show that potential customers want to see an average of 40 online reviews before they trust that a your business’s star-rating is accurate.

To meet the expectations of your potential leads, we recommend making sure your business is collecting as many authentic and recent customer reviews as possible. And while it may be tempting to recruit friends and family to give you a solid foundation with 5-star reviews, we would advise against that. If a lead spots an inauthentic review it could cause them to instead distrust your outdoor services company and offer their business to one of your competitors instead.

3 STEPS TO BUILDING YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION

If you are just beginning to establish your company’s online reputation -- or you’re attempting to repair the damage caused by past negative reviews -- figuring out where to get started may seem overwhelming. Fortunately, the best way to improve your online reputation also happens to be the simplest: take time to ask your current customers to leave a review for your outdoor services company. Automated emails are one of the easiest and quickest options to ask for online reviews; after a transaction is complete, your customers can automatically receive an email prompting them to leave a review at their convenience.

As you start to collect more reviews for your business, it’s important to remember that you’re bound to face some negative reviews. For tips on dealing with negative reviews, check out our blog “How To Collect More Customer Reviews (And Use Them To Your Advantage).”

If you prefer to resolve negative feedback privately, versus on public-facing review platforms, we can help! Our online review software not only makes it incredibly easy to automatically remind your customers to leave a review, it also channels negative feedback directly to you so you can address the issue quickly before it’s published online.

To learn more about how our team can build a stronger digital presence for your business, contact us for a free Digital Marketing Blueprint! Your Blueprint will include an in-depth analysis of your current digital presence and online reputation, as well as our recommendations to help you reach more customers online.