Feedback First vs Reviews First Configuration
Photo by Cody Moore on Unsplash
If your goal is to primarily generate more Google Reviews, you might want to consider a Reviews First configuration in your LoyaltyLoop account. This is an advance configuration, and has some pros and cons, depending on your perspective.
Like any online marketing, it helps to reduce the number of steps or clicks when engaging someone to do something. In other words, creating a low-friction marketing approach can increase the number of people who respond to your online marketing.
Feedback First
When it comes to soliciting feedback and reviews, there is always a balancing act between creating low-friction, and gathering the correct insights for you and your business. LoyaltyLoop has tuned our "balance" over the years, which produces great results in all aspects of our customer experience service. The default LoyaltyLoop configuration is a Feedback First approach, followed by a review ask.
This Feedback First approach allows you to gather customer input privately, so you can build continuous improvement "loops" and processes in private. The feedback is provided for your eyes only - the good, the bad and the ugly - so you are in position to understand your customers, and take the appropriate action to improve. Negative feedback is in intercepted, and placed directly in your hands for action. The nature of the private feedback loop affords you the opportunity to make improvements at your pace and in private.
The goal is always to make improvements that can increase all of your customer's experiences, improving your brand, reputation and profits. The Feedback First approach also allows you to capture other key insights in a deliberate way, such as capturing customer testimonials (with images and videos) which are similar but different from reviews, and identify other services of interest from your customer (aka Leads) and solicit referrals to new prospects, helping you drive more business.
Reviews First
But let's suppose you want try to generate even higher numbers of Google Reviews than the balanced approach of Feedback First. What does a Reviews First configuration look like, and how would it behave?
A Reviews First approach solicits all customers to first post a review on a site like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and others. There are 2 key differences between the Feedback First approach and a Reviews First approach:
- All customers are requested to post a review, regardless of their disposition.
- All reviews, and the feedback extracted from those reviews, are public.
In a Reviews First configuration, you need to manage negative online reviews. This is perfectly normal, as most businesses will get negative reviews from time to time. But if you delegate the process of replying to your online reviews, it will be extremely important that those individuals are trained in the methods of managing negative reviews in the eyes of the public, as anyone can see how your company responds to an unhappy customer situation. The flip side of this is actually powerful. If you can effectively manage negative online reviews, anyone reading your replies will see that your company addressed the bad situation responsibly and professionally. Ignoring negative online reviews, or worse, arguing with unhappy customers in public, will send the wrong message to prospects and others reading your reviews.
Reviews First Configuration
So how do you configure LoyaltyLoop in a Reviews First mode? The best way is to engage our support team to do this for you, but here's the basic configuration. With each wave of contacts you upload or LoyaltyLoop receives, your Survey Invitation email starts the process. Instead of requesting feedback and presenting your survey link, the Survey Invitation email would be rewritten to simply ask the customer to post a review, presenting your Google Profile link. All customers would simply have the option to click the link, and be directed to your Profile to post a review. Back to the concept of 'friction', this is a low-friction approach to requesting reviews.
Next, the Survey Reminder email, which is sent 7 days after the Survey Invitation, will be worded to request the customer's feedback and present your survey. The Survey Reminder would look just like your Survey Invitation in the default "Feedback First" configuration. The Survey Reminder would start your survey process after the review request has been made. The customer would exit the survey to the appropriate 'Thank You' page, simply thanking the customer, or thanking them and requesting they post a review if they haven't already. Lastly, you would likely want to disable the Review Reminder email, which is sent automatically 48 hours after a survey respondent lands on your Reviews Thank You page. Since all customers in this survey launch were asked to post their review first, sending the Review Reminder email might feel redundant to your customer.
If a Reviews First approach is something you'd like to consider, please reach out to our support team to discuss.