New Contact Survey Summary View

Putting a Contact's Feedback in your Spotlight

Graphic by Gemini

Here’s a great new feature. When a customer gives feedback on multiple occasions, you can now easily view all of their responses on one view.

It is like putting your customer in the spotlight to see all of their responses with your business on one easy to read page.

This is very handy to view the changes in the customer’s attitudes toward your company.

To access this new feature, view the response of any given customer. If the customer has given more than one response, their name as displayed in the right detail panel is now a link.

Click their name (the new link), and you’ll land on a new page showing all of their responses.

When viewing all of their responses, click to highlight any response in the table, and that response will display in the right panel."

You can also use the left/right arrow keys in the right detail panel to step through all the contact's responses.

You can also print or download the table view, or each detailed response.

Measuring the correct Touchpoints

If you’re reading this post, you probably care about gathering feedback from your customers, or you’re already doing so via a service like LoyaltyLoop. When deploying a feedback service, it’s important to recognize that every business is different. Even if your business is a franchise in a brand network, no two businesses are the same. Take the time to identify your touchpoints when running a feedback service.

A touchpoint is defined as “a point of contact or interaction, especially between a business and its customers or consumers.” Essentially, every interaction with your business or brand is a touchpoint, spanning pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase activities.

Touchpoints occur when a person visits your website, views your billboard on the side of the highway, reads your Facebook posts, shops your store, calls your phone, emails you, requests a quote, meets your service technician, speaks with your call center, views your online ad, requests a quote, receives a sample, makes a purchase, contacts your support team, pays an invoice, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The way to discover your touchpoints is to build a journey map of your business. On that map, you would identify the critical touchpoints that should be measured to ensure you are delivering great customer experiences to help you drive customer loyalty. But when it comes to measuring customer experiences, not all touchpoints are created equal.

For most product-based small businesses, a key touchpoint is soon after the point of purchase. This touchpoint measures the customer purchase experience and their experience with what they purchased. Take the example of a commercial print business. A customer orders promotional mugs, and the printer produces and delivers the items. To measure the purchase touchpoint, the printer engages their customer for feedback soon after the transaction is complete. They gather feedback on the overall purchase process, how the customer was cared for in that process, and how they feel about the promotional mugs they received. That may be the only touchpoint to be measured for a small printer. But what if the printer also has a critical touchpoint for the process of issuing quotes to prospects? Or, they have a critical touchpoint in the process of installing of items purchased such as signs, window graphics, and related? In these cases, they may wish to measure the pre-sales quote touchpoint, and the post-sale installation touchpoint.

Pure service business may need to measure the purchase touchpoint, but may also need to measure the actual point of service delivery. Take the example of a commercial cleaning company. The company would measure the purchase touchpoint, but also measure the service touchpoint, meaning when their service is performed for their customer. In the case of a company that both sells and supports products, they may need to measure the purchase touchpoint, but also measure the post-purchase support touchpoint when customers engage their helpdesk team.

Again, it is important to map your customer journeys to identify the critical touchpoints for your business. Once you do, then you can deploy the correct feedback mechanisms to measure the customer experience at each key touchpoint.

When using a service like LoyaltyLoop, it can be tailored to meet any business needs, and measure all key touchpoints. The trick for any business in measuring key touchpoints is having the correct data in your systems that identify when a customer completes a specific process mapped to your key touchpoints. Assuming your data systems record events like quote issuance, purchase transactions, and support ticket generation, LoyaltyLoop can be configured to engage customers at each touchpoint helping you gather that critical feedback.

Have questions about your touchpoints? Give us a call or drop us an email, and we’ll be happy to help you out.

Addressing Negative Reviews: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Negative reviews, while challenging, present opportunities for growth and demonstrating excellent customer service. Correctly managing negative online reviews is crucial. Here's how to handle them effectively:

1. Respond Promptly: Address negative reviews as quickly as possible to show that you take customer concerns seriously.
2. Stay Professional: Always maintain a calm, professional tone in your responses, even if the review seems unfair.
3. Acknowledge the Issue: Validate the customer's feelings and apologize for their negative experience.
4. Offer a Solution: Provide a concrete way to resolve the issue, whether it's a refund, a re-do of the service, or a personal call to discuss their concerns.
5. Take the Conversation Offline: For complex issues, provide contact information to continue the discussion privately.
6. Follow Up: After resolving the issue, politely ask if the customer would consider updating their review.
7. Learn and Improve: Use negative feedback as a learning opportunity to improve your services and prevent similar issues in the future.

The Impact of Reviews on Local SEO for Home Services

Reviews play a crucial role in local SEO for home services businesses. Here's how they influence your search engine rankings:

• Keyword-Rich Content: Reviews often naturally include relevant keywords, boosting your SEO efforts. Try to get online reviews that include comments, not just star ratings.
• Fresh Content: Regular new reviews signal to search engines that your business is active and relevant. You don’t want to be that company where the “more recent” review is from 3 years ago!
• Click-Through Rates: Businesses with higher star ratings tend to get more clicks in search results, a factor Google considers in rankings.
• Google Business Profile Optimization: Reviews directly impact your Google Business Profile, a key factor in local search rankings.
• NAP Consistency: Reviews often mention your business name, address, and phone number (aka “NAP”), reinforcing your NAP consistency for local SEO.

To maximize these benefits, encourage customers to be specific in their reviews, mentioning the services they received and their location.

Home Services Review Tools for Multi-Unit Operators and Franchises

If your home services business operates multiple locations, whether corporate-owned or a franchise network, look for home services review tools with the following characteristics:

• Flexible Configuration: Avoid fixed, “one-size fits all” solutions. Ensure the home services review tool can be shaped to your specific business needs.
• Data Integration: Look for providers who integrate (or will integrate) with your back-office system where transaction data resides. If your units (locations) use various back-office systems, ensure your chosen provider offers solutions that make it easy for recent transaction contacts to flow into the home services review tool. If your back-office software has automated reporting, ensure you chosen provider can accept emailed reports. Integrations and automations eliminate the manual step of uploading/adding contacts into the home services review tool.
• Unit (location)-level Customization: Each location will have elements in common but also may have unique needs. For example, requests for feedback and reviews should be sent from the location manager or owner. Ensure your selected review software for home services affords you this flexibility.
• Unit (location) Dashboard: Ensure multi-location support allowing each location to have the ability to view their specific results, monitor their activity, and respond to their reviews. A good home services review tool will allow each location to have multiple users, for them to each receive alerts, so customer feedback and reviews can be understood and addressed quickly.
• Brand (company/franchise) Dashboard: For multi-unit operators, it is critical that your home services review tool provides a “roll-up” view of your company, brand or enterprise performance. Data should be organized by your company groupings (e.g. regions), allowing management and local coaches to identify poor performing locations so help can be provided quickly. Ensuring all locations are delivering great customer experiences will drive great reviews. By driving a strong local brand, the overall (national) brand grows strong too.

Finding the right provider of review software for home services is critical for multi-unit operators and brands. The right provider will flex to your business, and help you and all locations leverage the transformative power of effective review management for home services businesses.

Future Trends in Review Management for Home Services

As technology evolves, so does the landscape of review management. Staying ahead of these trends will help your home services business maintain a competitive edge in the evolving digital landscape. Here are some trends to watch:

1. Multi-Media Reviews: Today, customers may be willing to share images and videos with their reviews, so ensure your provider supports multi-media content.
2. Integration with CRM Systems: Deeper integration between review tools and CRM systems will allow for more personalized follow-ups and improved customer relationships.
3. AI-Powered Sentiment Analysis: Advanced algorithms will provide deeper insights into customer feedback, helping businesses understand the nuances of reviews.
4. Voice-Activated Reviews: With the rise of smart home devices, leaving voice reviews may become more common, requiring businesses to adapt their review collection strategies.
5. Augmented Reality Reviews: AR technology could allow potential customers to visualize reviews in real-time as they view a property or consider a service.

Conclusion: Elevating Your Business with Review Software for Home Services

In the competitive world of home services, your online reputation can make or break your business. A robust review management strategy, powered by an effective home services review tool, can significantly elevate your business's standing in the market.

By actively engaging with customer feedback, you not only improve your services but also demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction. This, in turn, builds trust, attracts new customers, and fosters loyalty among existing ones.

Implementing a review software for home services does not require a lot of effort on your part but does require some. A home services review tool should make it easy for you to monitor and respond to customer feedback. With this small effort, you will benefit from increased visibility, improved reputation, and business growth – are well worth the small effort and investment.

If you’re ready to transform your home services business, consider using LoyaltyLoop to gather customer feedback and Google reviews. Our comprehensive home services review tool can help you streamline your review management process, boost your online reputation, and drive business growth.