Online Reviews Management Guide: Tools, Strategies and Best Practices

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  • Centralized Platform for Monitoring Reviews

    Omni24’s CX platform aggregates reviews from multiple sources into a single dashboard. Thus, enabling efficient tracking and management of reviews across all channels.

  • Streamlined Response Management

    Omni24’s customizable response templates and approval workflows help maintain brand voice while allowing for personalized engagement, improving response times as well as quality.

  • Integration with Customer Service Workflows

    Integrate Omni24’s review management with broader customer service processes such as helpdesk tools or feedback surveys, allowing for seamless escalation of issues raised in reviews.

  • Comprehensive Analytics and Reporting

    Get a 360 degree view on review trends and the impact of reviews on customer satisfaction. Omni24’s strong analytics help to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance customer experience.

As consumers become increasingly vocal about their experiences, building a robust Voice of Customer (VoC) strategy has become essential for brands looking to stay competitive. A well-executed VoC strategy allows brands to tap into the wealth of customer insights, helping them understand pain points, preferences and expectations.

Central to this strategy is effective online reviews management, which plays a crucial role in shaping brand perception and elevating customer experiences. Leveraging a sophisticated Customer Experience (CX) platform for reviews management enables brands to monitor and respond to feedback across multiple channels. It also helps to derive actionable insights that drive continuous innovation.

What is Online Reviews Management?

Online Reviews Management is the systematic process of monitoring, responding to and influencing customer reviews across various digital platforms. It involves actively soliciting feedback, addressing concerns and leveraging positive experiences to shape a brand’s online reputation as well as visibility.

A proactive reviews management approach creates opportunities for turning negative experiences into positive outcomes and for showcasing excellent service. Effective management of online reviews can significantly enhance brand credibility, improve customer satisfaction and drive business growth by influencing potential customers’ perceptions as well as their choices.

Online reviews management helps with,

  • Enhance brand reputation: Actively respond to reviews to build a positive online image, demonstrating responsiveness and customer care.
  • Increase customer trust and loyalty: Use reviews as a tool for engagement, addressing concerns and acknowledging positive feedback to strengthen customer relationships.
  • Improve search engine visibility: Leverage positive reviews and high ratings to boost local SEO performance while increasing online visibility to potential customers.

Online Reviews Management Use Cases

Online review management isn’t just about gathering feedback from the customers. It adds value to the overall development of the business. Let’s delve into some of its use cases.

Online Reviews Management Use Cases

1. Reputation Management

When a business faces a public relations crisis or a surge of negative reviews, online review management becomes crucial. By promptly addressing concerns, offering solutions and demonstrating accountability, companies can mitigate damage as well as rebuild trust. The proactive approach shows commitment to customer satisfaction and can turn detractors into advocates.

2. Product Development

Reviews often contain insightful feedback about product features, usability and customer expectations. Analyze the feedback systematically to identify trends and pain points, informing product development decisions. The data-driven approach ensures that product improvements align with actual customer needs, potentially leading to increased satisfaction and sales.

3. Customer Service Enhancement

Online reviews serve as a public customer service channel. Businesses get to resolve issues quickly and prevent escalation to customer service channels when they respond to reviews actively. Thus, demonstrating the company’s commitment to customer care while potentially influencing other customers who read the interactions.

4. Local SEO Optimization

For businesses with physical locations, managing online reviews is crucial for local SEO. Search engines consider the quantity, quality and recency of reviews when determining local search rankings. By encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews and managing the overall review profile, businesses can improve their visibility in local search results, attracting more foot traffic.

5. Competitive Analysis

Review management tools can be used to monitor not just a company’s own reviews, but also those of competitors. It provides insights into competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, helping businesses identify opportunities for differentiation. It also allows companies to benchmark their performance against industry standards.

6. Marketing and Social Proof

Positive reviews serve as powerful marketing tools. By showcasing authentic customer testimonials on websites, social media and marketing materials, businesses leverage social proof to influence potential customers. Some review management systems allow for easy integration of reviews into marketing campaigns, amplifying the impact of positive customer experiences.

Benefits of Online Reviews Management

An effective review management enables businesses to have detailed insights into the customer’s perspectives for better decision making. Here’s the list of other benefits to consider:

Benefits of Online Reviews Management

1. Enhanced Brand Reputation
Actively managing online reviews allows businesses to shape their digital presence positively. By responding promptly and professionally to both positive as well as negative feedback, companies demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction. This proactive approach helps build a strong, trustworthy image that resonates with both existing and new customers.

2. Increased Customer Trust and Loyalty
When businesses engage with customer reviews, it shows they value customer opinions. The engagement creates trust and can turn one-time buyers into loyal customers. Addressing concerns publicly also demonstrates transparency, further strengthening customer relationships.
3. Increased Sales and Conversion Rates
Positive reviews act as social proof, influencing potential customers’ purchasing decisions. Brands can significantly boost their conversion rates and overall sales performance by actively showcasing positive feedback.
4. Valuable Customer Insights
Online reviews provide a wealth of information about customer experiences, preferences and pain points. Analyzing this feedback helps businesses identify areas for improvement in their products, services or processes. Hence, leading to continuous enhancement of the customer experience.

5. Improved Search Engine Rankings
Search engines consider online reviews when determining local search rankings. A higher volume of positive reviews and regular engagement with customers can boost a business’s visibility in search results, driving more organic traffic to their website or physical location.

6. Influence on Purchase Decisions
Consumers often rely on online reviews when making purchase decisions. Positive reviews act as social proof, influencing potential customers and increasing conversion rates. Effective management of reviews can help sway undecided customers towards choosing your business.

9 Proven Strategies to Build Your Online Reviews Management

A Customer Experience (CX) platform can be a powerful tool in streamlining your online reviews management process. Here are key strategies to effectively build one!

9 Proven Strategies to Build Your Online Reviews Management

1. Centralize Review Monitoring

Centralizing review monitoring allows businesses to efficiently track and manage reviews across multiple platforms from a single dashboard. This comprehensive view prevents missed reviews and enables a more consistent response strategy, crucial for maintaining a strong online presence.

Use your CX platform to aggregate reviews from various sources like Google, Yelp and industry-specific sites. Set up customizable dashboards to categorize reviews by rating, source or urgency, allowing for quick prioritization and response.

Best practices:

  • Integrate all relevant review platforms with your CX system to ensure no feedback slips through the cracks.
  • Establish a regular review monitoring schedule, assigning team members specific times to check and respond to new reviews.

2. Implement Automated Review Solicitation

Automated review solicitation helps businesses consistently gather feedback from customers, increasing the volume and frequency of reviews. A steady stream of fresh reviews boosts SEO, provides social proof and offers ongoing insights into customer experiences.

Configure your CX platform to automatically send review requests via email or SMS after specific customer interactions/purchases. Personalize these requests based on the customer’s experience to encourage higher response rates.

Best practices:

  • Time your review requests strategically, such as a few days after product delivery or service completion, to capture the most relevant feedback.
  • A/B test different message formats and timings to optimize your review solicitation process for maximum engagement.

3. Develop Personalized Response Templates

Personalized response templates enable businesses to respond quickly and consistently to reviews while maintaining a human touch. It ensures that all reviews receive attention promptly, enhancing customer satisfaction and demonstrating attentiveness to potential customers.

Create a library of response templates within your CX platform for different review scenarios (positive, negative, neutral). Use these as starting points, customizing each response with specific details from the review for a personal touch.

Best practices:

  • Regularly update your template library based on common themes in reviews and evolving brand voice guidelines.
  • Train your team to effectively customize templates, striking a balance between efficiency and personalization.

4. Set Up Real-Time Alerts and Notifications

Real-time alerts ensure that businesses can respond swiftly to urgent reviews, particularly negative ones. Quick responses mitigate potential damage to your reputation and demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

Configure your CX platform to send immediate notifications for reviews meeting specific criteria, such as low ratings or mentions of key issues. Route these alerts to the appropriate team members for prompt action.

Best practices:

  • Establish a clear escalation process for different types of reviews to ensure the right people are notified at the right time.
  • Regularly refine your alert criteria to maintain a balance between responsiveness and avoiding alert fatigue.

5. Integrate Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis helps businesses understand the emotional tone behind reviews, providing deeper insights into customer experiences. This understanding allows for more nuanced responses and helps identify trends in customer satisfaction over time.

Utilize your CX platform’s AI-powered sentiment analysis tools to automatically categorize reviews based on their emotional tone. Use this data to prioritize responses and identify areas of your business that may need improvement.

Best practices:

  • Combine sentiment analysis with other metrics like star ratings for a more comprehensive understanding of customer feedback.
  • Regularly validate the accuracy of your sentiment analysis tool and adjust its parameters as needed to ensure reliable insights.

6. Establish a Review-to-Action Workflow

A review-to-action workflow ensures that valuable feedback from reviews is systematically addressed and incorporated into business improvements. The process helps close the feedback loop, driving continuous enhancement of products, services and customer experiences.

Design workflows that automatically route reviews containing actionable feedback to relevant departments. Set up task creation and tracking to ensure feedback is addressed as well as implemented.

Best practices:

  • Create a cross-functional team responsible for reviewing and actioning on feedback to ensure a holistic approach to improvements.
  • Implement a system for tracking the impact of changes made based on review feedback to demonstrate the value of the process.

7. Leverage Multi-Channel Review Management

Multi-channel review management allows businesses to maintain a consistent brand voice and response strategy across various platforms. It makes sure that no matter where customers leave feedback, they receive the same high-quality engagement.

Utilize your CX platform to manage reviews across different channels (e.g., social media, review sites, app stores) from a single interface. Implement channel-specific response strategies while maintaining overall brand consistency.

Best practices:

  • Tailor your response style slightly for each platform to match its unique culture and user expectations.
  • Regularly audit your multi-channel presence to ensure you’re actively managing all relevant platforms where customers leave reviews.

8. Implement Review Analytics and Reporting

Review analytics and reporting provide businesses with data-driven insights into their online reputation as well as customer satisfaction trends. The given information is crucial for making informed decisions about product development, customer service improvements and marketing strategies.

Leverage your CX platform’s analytics tools to generate regular reports on review volume, sentiment trends, response times and common themes. Use these insights to set goals, track performance and identify areas for improvement.

Best practices:

  • Create custom dashboards that highlight the most relevant metrics for different stakeholders in your organization.
  • Schedule regular review of analytics reports with key team members to ensure insights are actioned upon in a timely manner.

How Omni24’s CX Platform Helps to Manage Online Reviews

Omni24 is a one-stop solution to enhance customer experience for your business. It centralizes many advanced features in one platform to help you get a holistic view. Let’s delve more into it!

How Omni24’s CX Platform Helps to Manage Online Reviews

1. Centralized Review Aggregation

Omni24 offers seamless integration with multiple review sites, social media platforms and industry-specific review platforms to manage all their online reviews from a single dashboard. Thus, ensuring no feedback goes unnoticed. The ability to view reviews across various platforms in real-time provides a comprehensive overview of your online reputation.

2. Automated Review Solicitation

An effective CX platform like Omni24 enables businesses to set up triggered emails or SMS that prompt customers to leave reviews after specific interactions or purchases. Customizable templates and the ability to personalize messages based on customer data can significantly increase review response rates.

3. Sentiment Analysis and NLP

Advanced AI-powered sentiment analysis tools are crucial for understanding the emotional tone and context of reviews at scale. This feature should go beyond simple positive/negative categorization, offering nuanced insights into customer feelings while identifying specific aspects of products/services mentioned in reviews. Natural language processing capabilities help in extracting actionable insights from unstructured review text.

4. Response Management Tools

The platform should offer sophisticated response management features, including customizable response templates, approval workflows for sensitive responses and the ability to track response times. This makes sure of the consistency in brand voice while allowing for personalization in each response.

5. Integrated Analytics and Reporting

Comprehensive analytics tools are essential for deriving actionable insights from review data. The platform should offer customizable dashboards, trend analysis, competitive benchmarking and the ability to generate detailed reports. These analytics should cover metrics such as review volume, sentiment trends, response rates and their impact on overall customer satisfaction along with business performance.

6. Multi-User Collaboration Features

For larger organizations, the ability to manage access levels, assign tasks, and facilitate collaboration among team members is crucial. The platform should allow for role-based access control, task assignment & tracking and internal communication tools. It makes sure that the right people are involved in the review management process and that no reviews fall through the cracks.

Build Online Reputation with Omni24’s Customer Experience Platform

A CX platform like Omni24 empowers brands to enhance their online reputation by leveraging advanced analytics, automated review solicitation and comprehensive feedback management.

The given features enable brands to create a holistic view of customer sentiment, drive meaningful improvements in their products & services. Ultimately, it is all about cultivating a strong, positive online presence that drives growth as well as customer loyalty.

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FAQs about Online Reviews Management

CX platforms typically offer comprehensive analytics including review volume trends, sentiment analysis over time, response rate metrics and impact on overall ratings. Many platforms also provide competitive benchmarking, custom report generation and integration with other business metrics to show the ROI of review management efforts.

CX platforms enable quick identification as well as prioritization of negative reviews through alerts and sentiment analysis. They provide tools for crafting thoughtful responses and tracking issue resolution. By facilitating prompt, empathetic responses and issue tracking, these platforms help businesses address concerns, potentially turning dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates.

Yes, most CX platforms offer automated review solicitation features. These tools can trigger review requests via email or SMS based on specific customer interactions or purchase events. You can customize templates, timing and frequency of requests to optimize response rates while maintaining compliance with review site policies.

Implement a systematic approach to request reviews after positive interactions. Use automated email or SMS follow-ups after purchases or service completions. Make the review process easy by providing direct links. Offer incentives carefully, ensuring compliance with platform policies. Train staff to verbally request reviews during customer interactions.

Share positive reviews on your website and social media channels. Use them in marketing materials and advertisements. Create case studies from particularly detailed positive reviews. Respond to positive reviews, thanking customers and reinforcing the positive aspects they mentioned. The engagement can encourage more positive reviews and boost customer loyalty.

Track metrics like overall rating, review volume, sentiment trends and response rates. Monitor changes in these metrics over time. Analyze the correlation between review improvements and business outcomes like website traffic, conversion rates, sales etc. Use customer surveys to measure the impact of reviews on purchase decisions.