Our customers are happy. Why don’t our star ratings show it?

By Alexi Venneri – Contributing WriterSep 6, 2018, 3:23pmEvery day you have positive interactions with customers. Maybe you know they had a positive experience because they told you right then and there. But your reviews on websites like Yelp and Google aren’t showing it. A positive reputation online is imperative ─ it can help your company sell more than any salesperson and is insurance for every dollar you spend on advertising. Online reviews are the permanent digital billboards that don’t go away.According to Digital Air Strike’s Sixth Annual Social Media Trends study, 79 percent of consumers use Google to search for businesses, and with Google showcasing star ratings from online review sites, that means a lot of people are going to see how others rate you.Unmanaged review sites: the land of extremesCustomer experiences are generally on a bell curve. You’ll have the few people on each end of the spectrum that either had a fabulous experience or a very negative one, but most are going to fall somewhere in between. We find the vast majority of consumers are happy with their experiences with businesses, but most won’t take the time or make an effort to go online to tell others unless you make it really, really easy for them to do so. That’s why you see more extreme reviews or hardly any at all.So how do you boost your star ratings or at least get a more accurate online representation of how more of your customers feel about your business?Read the full article here