If you run or manage a business and want to get the best possible results, building and maintaining your reputation is a vital part of the process that you can’t afford to ignore. The way that your prospects view you and the products that you sell will impact your bottom line, so you won’t want to take any chances.

If you would like to frame yourself in a positive light, earning 5-star reviews will do the trick and inspire other people to buy from you. Although getting good reviews can seem like a daunting task if you don’t know what steps to follow, you can do so without trouble when you craft and implement a proven plan.

Seek Feedback

Some business leaders make the mistake of paying too much attention to their companies and don’t focus enough on the needs of their prospects. You will want to understand your potential customers and what they expect from you if you would like to achieve lasting success. After someone buys one of your products or services, encourage that person to provide you with honest feedback.

People value their time and won’t always want to give their opinion to you, but you can incentivize them by offering discounts and coupons. A few shoppers will always give negative feedback and others will always say that they are happy with your service, but you can monitor their feedback over time to get a clear picture of where you stand.

Use Feedback to Improve Your Business

Getting feedback won’t do you much good if you don’t take it into consideration. If a lot of your customers mention something that they don’t like about your business, changing it can improve their experience and show that you value them. For example, you can speak with your staff about being friendly and welcoming if your customers feel as though your staff is too dismissive.

The ability to look at your business objectively is critical if you are interested in making improvements. You will probably get feedback on products or services that your customers would like to buy from you, and adding those items to your inventory can work wonders when it comes to earning 5-star reviews.

Deal With Customer Complaints

No matter the quality of your products or level of dedication, you are not perfect and will encounter unhappy customers on occasion. The way that you respond to them will play a role in the type of reviews that they will write, so knowing how to resolve disputes is essential when you care about your reputation. When people first come to you with a complaint about your products or services, the first step is to show them that you understand and care about the way they feel.

You can then work with your customers to find a viable solution to their problem, and you will want to follow up at a later date to ensure that they are pleased with the outcome. Since most businesses don’t take the time to follow up on customer issues, doing so will make you stand out from the herd.

Show Your Customers That You Care About Them

If you would like to get tons of 5-star reviews, showing people that you care about and appreciate them is one of the top ways to reach your goal. Some business owners wait until their customers are upset to show them that they are concerned about their well-being, but you don’t want to fall into that trap. You can use loyalty programs to reward those who keep buying from you.

Free items, discounts and special offers are just a few of the things that you can use to show your customers how much you care. You will also want your employees to treat each customer with respect at all times, and they will notice the difference. Some business owners offer exclusive discount cards to their long-term customers, and you can do the same when you want to make them feel important.

Encourage Happy Customers to Post Reviews

When you are striving to earn 5-star reviews from people, happy customers are your most valuable resource. By default, a lot of people only go online to write a review when they are unhappy with something about your business, but you can combat that problem by speaking with customers who are pleased with your products or services.

Begin by letting them know you are happy that you were able to meet their needs, and you can then ask them to write an online review highlighting their experience. If you go out of your way to meet the needs of your customers and to ensure that they are thrilled, many of them will be glad to return the favor.

Be Active Online

Since more and more people are using the internet every day, having a strong online presence is a great way to show people that you care about your reputation. You can use social media to stay in touch with your past customers and to reach out to new ones, and you will create a positive impression if you follow the correct path. Post content to see the type of material that gets the best reaction, but you can also use social media to respond to questions and concerns.

If you maintain a positive and upbeat tone online, people will like and trust you, enhancing their odds of writing 5-star reviews. Facebook is also a useful tool for getting feedback and helping people with support issues. Since your answers are online, other users can benefit from them.

Final Thoughts

Since people trust the opinions of other consumers, earning positive feedback is a powerful way to enhance your profitability and attract new customers. Encouraging your customers to come to you with their concerns is a good place from which to start, but you can also improve your results by showing people that you care. When you combine those methods with the other advice in this guide, you will achieve impressive results in no time.

In today’s increasingly digital environment, everyone has literally become a critic. Taking to websites such as Yelp, Amazon and Google to air grievances, modern consumers are pulling no punches when it comes to their concerns. If your business delivers less-than-stellar service on any particular day, you can expect to hear about it. Back in the old days of even the 1990s, this wasn’t the case. You could afford to make little mistakes without having the entire universe hear about them. However, this is no longer the world in which we live, and every business owner needs to develop a strategy for dealing with their online reviews.

Don’t Take It Personally—The First Rule of Dealing with a Negative Review

Businesses have bad days, but so do customers. Unless you know the client personally, you cannot assume that they weren’t also having a bad day. When you’re both having a bad day, then sometimes this negative energy can amplify, resulting in a negative review. Seeing a one-star review is enough to make any business owner’s blood pressure rise. Keep in mind that the first negative review hurts the most; it will become easier. However, if your business is going to be successful by any measure, it is imperative that you create a strategy for dealing with negative reviews.

A Silver Lining to Every Bad Review

Anytime a customer reviews your product or service, you have an opportunity to take in feedback that you wouldn’t have received otherwise. Maybe you own a boutique and one of your employees could be doing a better job. Obviously, he’s not going to tell you that he’s behaving in an unprofessional manner when consumers walk through the door. While it can be easy to write off reviewers as crazy or irrational, take time to digest whatever was troubling them. Is it possible that there could be some truth in it? How can your business absorb this feedback in a productive way and move on?

While some reviewers will do a “drive-by” one star and not really tell you what was bothering them, others will offer nuanced feedback that can help you to improve your business. Some review sites will allow you to click on the customer’s profile and see the other reviews they’ve written. This helpful tool will allow you to see if they are just a disgruntled person in general. If you see that they reviewer has lambasted other companies without much to back them up, then this is a review you probably shouldn’t take as seriously. However, if yours is the only one-star review amid a selection of glowing reviews that the consumer left for other businesses, then perhaps you should take a closer look.

Investigate

Your default position should always be to assume that customers are leaving legitimate reviews and telling the truth. If, however, you suddenly notice a spate of targeted reviews that seem engineered to take you down, then it’s time to report them to the website. Although sites such as Yelp have put up safeguards to protect business owners from this type of online harassment, not every method is foolproof. If you believe that something may be awry, then reach out to the review site with your specific concerns.

Keep in mind that they receive complaints like this all day, and state your case succinctly. Most websites will investigate the issue and then get back to you within 24-48 hours. Although they may be able to rule in your favor from time to time, you should always assume that the review is going to remain. To protect free speech, many sites tend to lean on the liberal side when analyzing reviews. Also, remember that reviews are their business. Unless something is patently offensive, it’s usually not advantageous for them to remove reviews.

Decide What Your Reply Policy Is

Some people, such as self-published authors on Amazon, generally make it a rule not to reply to bad reviews. In this case, writing back can often be seen as antagonistic—and just may win you even more online critics in the long run. But if you’re running a restaurant that just received a complaint about unsanitary conditions, then it will look extremely unprofessional for you not to reply.

Some business owners will choose to reply with their email address, reaching out to the customer in an attempt to resolve the situation. If they make the appropriate kind of apology—and perhaps offer something in return—many customers will change their reviews and praise the company for addressing the problem. There is a fine line with this kind of customer service, though. You’ll want to make sure that you’re not giving away products because of extortion-type reviews. Carefully examine each particular situation, and see if there’s any way that you can make it better. When future customers see that the business pays attention to reviews—and goes out of its way to address challenges—they are often very impressed.

Your Product or Service Isn’t for Everyone

One thing to keep in mind is that your business can’t possibly please everyone on the planet; it’s impossible. Even the best companies in the world have some awful reviews, as do some of the best novels ever written. If you’ve ever wondered about this, then look up your favorite novel on Amazon. You will realize that you are in excellent company when you see that even Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway have some awful online reviews critiquing their famous books.

The fact of the matter is that negative reviews are going to happen. Try not to react emotionally, and move forward with the information that has been provided to you. Eventually, if you know that seeing such reviews can be a trigger, you may decide that you only want to read your reviews every few months or so. Develop a plan for addressing this part of your business, and then execute it. Since some negative reviews are practically a certainty, realize that it is how you respond to them that will determine your company’s ultimate success.

Now, you may remember my first blog post here at TurnKey. Remember–the one about Twitter’s video app, “Vine”?

Back in February?

Hello?

Well, regardless of if you read it or not, let me give you a little run-down on what it was all about!

Twitter acquired the company “Vine” back in October of 2012, and released it to the public this January as an iOS app. Vine gives users a “stop-and-go” way to record whatever they want, and to compose it into a six-second video.

For example, this one, of a cute dog.

Or, similarly, this one, of Busta Rhymes and crew.

Vine has quickly caught the attention of Twitter users all around the world, and just last month it was the most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store. Judges at the Tribeca Film Festival even asked people for Vine entries this year, and said they were “impressed with the creativity at play when it came to the submissions.”

In a response to Twitter’s acquisition of Vine, YouTube has created an app called “YouTube Capture”. Now, while Twitter focuses on the brevity of a six second Vine, YouTube is sticking to its “post what you want” approach. This app makes it easy and hassle-free for users to record videos on their mobile phones, and upload them straight to YouTube.

With YouTube Capture, you simply press a button and the video begins to record. It continues to record until the button is pressed again, then the video is over. Next, you are asked to enter a title, then given options to color correct, stabilize, or trim the video, and even to add a “soundtrack” to it. The soundtracks are pre-made, ringtone-type music clips, which I thought was an interesting idea. Lastly, you press “done”, and the video is uploaded directly to your YouTube account.

So, who do I think wins the Video-App-Super-Bowl-World-Series-Stanley-Cup-Green-Jacket-Gold-Medal-Championship Award?!

I give it to Vine, simply because of its originality and the fact that it’s so easily shared among friends on Twitter. Vine has limited functions, but with a six-second video you’re just trying to get to the point. Vine videos can also leave a lot of room for creativity, like in this one, for example.

YouTube’s app is incredibly easy to use, and very handy if you want to make simple videos of day-to-day things, like a visit to the zoo, or your cat in water. The features that YouTube Capture provide are pretty nifty, but it lacks any major editing tools and the app itself is a lot less interactive, in my opinion. While it depends on the purpose of your video, both apps are great in their own way, but Vine just has that easy-to-use, interactive element. Sorry YouTube, but you are about 100 years old in technology years, and while you are a classic, my friends need to see my life played out in 6 seconds at a time!

Overheard at TurnKey Internet, straight from the CEO: “Attaining the SSAE 16 Type 2 certification was a significant goal and milestone for us. We pride ourselves on our unparalleled reliability, quality of service, and—most importantly—customer satisfaction. This certification not only proves that we are excelling in those areas, but also assures our new and existing clients that they are receiving the best possible service.”

You heard right, ladies and gentlemen! We are proud to add SSAE 16 Type 2 to the list of certifications that our green data center in Upstate NY has attained. “What’s that,” you ask? SSAE (or The Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements) No. 16 (SSAE 16) Type 2 certification is an internationally recognized compliance certification, that was created by the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in April of last year (2012). It replaced the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) to better supplement international auditing standard ISAE 3402.

After a thorough examination, conducted by SOC audit specialists The Moore Group CPA, LLC., our facility was deemed compliant with the regulations required to attain SSAE 16 Type 2 certification. This audit investigates several core areas: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. It verifies that TurnKey Internet is of the utmost security, integrity, and reliability. It confirms that we have procedures and safety precautions of the utmost efficiency in place to ensure the security of our facility and our clients’ data within.

Needless to say, we’re pretty excited. We couldn’t wait to share the good news! You can read the full press release here >

There has been a lot of controversy lately about how best to use blog comments to boost SEO. While it might seem awfully counter-intuitive, several popular bloggers have demonstrated that turning off comments can do wonders for traffic. That is, if you happen to be popular to begin with.

They theory is that, by turning off comments, you force readers to respond to your articles on their own blogs and social networking sites, linking back to your post in the process. This not only encourages linking-in but it also prevents spammers from hitting your blog with their own links. If you happen to be a blogger with a loyal readership, I can see how this method might improve your traffic. However, I can also see how it could kill your blog—and fast.

Not only are you counting on your readers to stay loyal after you ban them from discussing your post on your site (which, frankly, is kinda rude), you are also counting on them to care enough about your post to write their own. Maybe it’s naïve of me, but I think people tend to be a touch lazier than that in real life. The beauty of comments is how easy it is to leave one. You read a post, you have an opinion, you share that opinion, you go on with your life. In a perfect world, comments demonstrate to new readers how fascinating your post has been to past readers, and encourage discourse among your budding fan-base.

When you turn off comments, you turn off the discussion. Unless your readers are super bloggers with unlimited time, and your content is, like, the most compelling thing ever, you’re taking a big risk. Not only are you shutting down a pipeline of traffic, your sending an elitist message to your readers. My advice: let people comment, heavily moderate for spam, and encourage readers to blog about your blog by writing good content. It’s the best of all possible worlds.

TurnKey Internet is famous for top-notch customer service and heroic support.

Welcome to part four of my SEO-fu experiment series. If you haven’t read the earlier installments, find them here: part 1, part 2, and part 3. In this last installment, I’ll outline some techniques that can help you quickly evaluate the authenticity and reputation of a web host. You don’t have to make uninformed decisions, even with limited time. With just a few clicks in the right places, you can learn a lot, and it’s worth the extra little effort. Choosing a web hosting company is like choosing an employee. You have to be able to trust this company with your business information. If their network goes down, your business suffers. It is an important time to make sure you’re going to get excellent service from people you can trust.

Third Party Reviews

As I mentioned in a previous post (HERE) third-party reviews are a great sign that a business is on the up-and-up. When a company posts customer reviews on their website without any kind of vetting process there isn’t any way to know if they’re authentic. Look for third-party company logos or links to leave a review of your own. If you’re really feeling sporty, go ahead and leave a review and see what happens. It may not appear immediately, but it should appear within an hour or two. If it doesn’t, you might want to look elsewhere for hosting.

Test Customer Support

Many web hosting companies offer live chat support, or so they say on their websites. Frankly, it’s shocking how many companies don’t man their live chat. Click on the support link and see how long it takes for a real person to come online. If it’s under five minutes, you know your real support questions will be answered in a timely fashion.

Contact Information

Real, legitimate companies should offer you several ways to get in touch with them. Look for a phone number and a physical address. If you have the time, throw that physical address into Google streetview and see what shakes loose. Is it an office building or a sketchy-looking house? Sure, if they thought about it, scammy web hosts could give you a fake address to an office park, but chances are good they’re betting you won’t check.

Guarantees

We offer our customers a 30-day money-back guarantee. We can offer this because the vast majority of our customers won’t ever need to use it. We know our products and customer support are excellent, and we are happy to refund customers who don’t agree. If a company doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee, you’re taking an awfully big risk giving them your money.

Affiliations

At TurnKey Internet, we have registered with several third-party companies to help potential customers easily recognize our legitimacy. Visit our website and you will see the following logos:

We proudly display our affiliations and so do other companies that have them. If you don’t see these logos, there’s no affiliation. Beware!

TurnKey Internet is no rip off. The web hosting company gets consistently high marks for service, reliability and up-time.

How did you find this blog post? Did you run a search for TurnKey Internet Scam? If so, welcome! You’re my target demographic. This is part three of my SEO-fu experiment. If you haven’t read the first two posts, you can find them here (1) and here (2). Today, the focus is you, the customer, and how you browse, search and read. Understanding how you do these things will help us figure out: how to help you find us; how to appeal to you when you do; and how, as a business, to navigate this weirdo short attention-span information culture we all find ourselves living in.

Many people (myself included) don’t always take enough time to evaluate the sources of their information. We may read a review somewhere that effects our opinion of a company without ever wondering about who wrote it. Our decisions are snap, our time is valuable, and once we pick a company, we will tend to stick with it. It’s easier to stay where you are once you’re there—I think that’s a law of inertia or something. But really, market studies show, consumers demonstrate brand-loyalty online the same way they do in a supermarket or clothing store. So get those customers in the door, and you’re likelier than not to keep them.

Information is power. The trouble is: there’s too much of it out there (information AND power, but in this context I’m referring to information). Often, the first line of text that appears under the Google search result link is all a customer will read before making a decision. As a marketer, it is my job to make that text count—to curate my information into bite-sized pieces without sacrificing quality. This is extremely challenging when, say, you have like eight things to communicate and only room for four. Surely in this equation there is an inevitable sacrifice of information quality—you just can’t always cram everything you need to say into tiny spaces. In this case, language can’t keep up with progress. But there is hope! One positive thing about Google’s indexing of every word of text on the internet, is that every word counts. So you may not be searching specifically for “TurnKey Internet Quality” or “Marketing Philosophy” or “Web Hosting Masters” but goll durnit, you’ll find us! Of course, you may never know WHY you found us (unless you actually read this post) but, point is, my SEO-fu got you here, despite your 2010 attention-span.

It’s true. With an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and a 5-star rating from customers, TurnKey Internet is the hosting provider with the best value and customer service.

Welcome to blog post #2 in the SEO-fu experiment. The truth is TurnKey Internet does have a good reputation. In fact, our reputation is excellent, thank you very much. We work extremely hard, day in and day out, to provide a top-notch service, great customer care and 100% uptime. But that doesn’t make us immune from the SEO powers that be when good customers turn bad. Like it or not, we are all at the mercy of Google. As I discussed in the last article, 2010 is the year for all of us to learn to use the Internet to our advantage—to protect ourselves and our businesses from unscrupulous bad eggs and, for that matter, unscrupulous rival businesses that don’t hesitate to seed negative reviews for their own evil benefit. Yes, I’m being dramatic, but no, I’m not kidding.

It’s an ugly practice, but many companies have taken to posting bad reviews of competitors to influence potential customers. The hope is that Google searches will return those seeded negative reviews, and customers will steer clear of the implicated companies (and steer towards the companies posting the reviews). If you don’t have a superstar PR team at your disposal, ready to re-seed with positive reviews (also an ugly practice) you’re sunk. So what do you do when cheaters game the system to make your business look bad? How do you fight back without stooping to their level?

SEO-fu. Rather than seeding reviews (which is totally cheating), you can improve your reputation by regularly updating your site content to reflect the truth about your business. It doesn’t matter how many nasty reviews your competitors throw to the winds if your well-written, informative content shows up first. Also, as I always recommend, solicit real reviews from real customers. The more real reviews you have, the better, even if those reviews include some negatives.

This isn’t about having a 100% A+ reputation, 100% of the time. A page of perfect reviews can work against you too. Think about it: if you visit a company’s website for the first time and every review you see is five stars, are you going to believe it? This is about a real life business. Every business makes mistakes, the salt is how you deal with them.

In order to protect your credibility, and to provide a quick reference-check for your potential customers, it’s a good idea to employ a third party to manage your company reviews. We use RatePoint: