Review Management in 2014 - all your options examined

Although online reviews, in their many guises, have been around for over a decade now, many businesses still struggle to find the right solution. That's mainly because their are so many 'solutions': here we summarise and comment on these...

Old school

Testimonials

Since time immemorial businesses have used testimonial marketing...

'The following ... is a sample of thousands of testimonials'

Pros: Relatively easy to harvest and display

Cons: Lacking the credibility of independence - there is a better way.


New wave

Reputation Management

Sounds good, but consistently fails to deliver.

Pros: There are dozens of reputation management agencies who will sign you up today.

Cons: If someone tells you that they'll fill your Google search with positive results, look very hard for the downside: it will ultimately mean paying hundreds (if not thousands) a month for little of significant value and when Google change their search algorithm (which they do all the time) all the negative results will resurface. You can't beat Google.

In House

An interim solution adopted by some businesses, many advantages.

Pros: Displays customer opinions, gains customer feedback, enables management to adjust strategy.

Cons: Lacking the credibility of independence - there is a better way.

 
Unmoderated

Fine for products*, dangerous for services 

Pros: efficient and simple to operate, has the essential independence that gives credibility.

Cons: A single negative review of a pair of shoes or a camera may not be crucial*, but one of a service indicating that it was less than fantastic has the potential to do deep and long-lasting harm.

*some online retailers actually find published negative reviews helpful, simply because they are at liberty to change their suppliers; when it is your business supplying the product or service negative reviews are extremely harmful


External Feed

At first glance - an easy and obvious solution 

Pros: Welcomed by consumers, credible

Cons: No control for the business: the example above was taken - today - from Best Western US's own website. It is essential to have some mechanism whereby you can address negative comments pre-publication. Not anything sinister (or just plain 'editorial control, which lacks any credibility at all) but a channel that is more attractive for dissatisfied customers than posting on a public site


HelpHound's Dialogue

  






We have been in the business of review management since 2006; over that time we have listened and we hope we have learned. Dialogue form HelpHound is the result of all that listening and learning: we have addressed all the 'cons' and incorporated all the 'pros' in order to perfect a review management system which we are proud to set against anything available worldwide today.

Expressly designed to drive new business by maximising all the opportunities that reviews present whilst minimising all their threats: Dialogue™ for businesses in 2014.