Online reputation management (ORM) allows businesses to take control of the online conversation surrounding their brand, products, and services.
ORM involves combating negative reviews all while promoting positive customer feedback on popular rating platforms such as Google and Yelp.
While the process of online reputation management is not a foreign concept to most marketers, it is often a difficult and tedious task to one, collect a steady stream of positive reviews, and two, constantly moderate what the public is saying.
Herein lies the power of including an element of ORM into an ongoing customer satisfaction survey program. Doing so makes a strong case for partnering with a market research firm to manage your reputation management.
Our market research firm pleads our case below 😉😉.
By incorporating an ORM element to the end of your customer satisfaction survey (CSAT), you are able to solve both of these common challenges. Even better,
Customer Surveys + ORM = Match Made in Heaven
Customer satisfaction research generally consists of businesses reaching out to their customer base through an email or online survey.
The survey includes a series of questions about a customer’s experience with a company.
If customers are already taking the time to rate their experience, why not push them to leave the same review on an online rating website?
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? The sad truth, however, is most organizations separate their ORM and customer satisfaction survey efforts.
It is important these two entities are used as a holistic approach.
Good online reputation management does not only consist of monitoring and responding to all online reviews.
When done right, ORM is added to customer satisfaction surveys to receive the added bonus of pushing happy customers to an online rating website of your choosing.
By doing so, businesses are more likely to see an increase in positive reviews, burying any past negative critiques to the bottom of the page.
With 49% of users thinking the quantity of reviews matters, it is just as important as quality.
Here’s why customer satisfaction surveys can actually cut down on negative reviews altogether.
Customer surveys aim to discover what your base likes and dislikes about your company. In doing so, these surveys reveal incredibly important information you can use to better your brand.
If there’s something about your company customers don’t like, you’ll find out about it in a customer survey. After that, you can make the necessary changes.
Not only will this feature be addressed, but you’ll also get less negative reviews when customers are directed to the review platform.
Why Hire a Market Research Firm for ORM?
Collecting customer feedback is at the heart of market research.
- Maybe it is an online survey regarding a customer’s recent clothing purchase.
- Or a focus group discussion around a company’s new logo.
- Or an intercept survey after a concert.
No matter the study, market research firms specialize in understanding the drivers of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
In this case, it is less valuable to work with marketing and public relations agencies in regards to implementing a good online reputation management strategy.
Why not partner with a PR agency for ORM?
These types of agencies do not understand best practices for obtaining customer feedback such as what questions should or should not be included in a CSS or the optimal survey length to ensure the most online rating conversions.
In contrast, a market research company has extensive knowledge in creating a custom ORM process fit for your specific needs and industry.
For example, our online reputation management company works hand in hand with our clients to create an automated customer exchange on a continuous basis, whether it is once a day or once a quarter.
While more positive ratings help your business, we view ORM as an opportunity to strategically improve your business with reliable data from your CSS program.
We craft an individualized customer satisfaction survey with your overall objectives in mind.
Our customer satisfaction surveys are designed to better understand levels of customer loyalty, with the added expertise of integrating an automated process for online reputation management.
Learn more about the importance of collecting ongoing customer feedback in the video below.
Added Bonus: Dive Deeper Into Negative Ratings
As a market research firm, we see online reputation management as more than just ratings.
Our approach to ORM is diving deeper into the feedback and data behind the score. While positive ratings are always a plus, there is a lot you can learn and take away from the negative feedback your company receives.
In fact, negative ratings will help your business much more than you would expect.
Advanced analytics of negative customer feedback can unveil hidden trends in your customer satisfaction survey through regression analysis, which describes how dependent variables affect an independent variable.
In other words, regression analysis helps filter through customer satisfaction survey data to determine hidden trends impacting dissatisfaction through statistical analysis.
For example, a restaurant conducts regular customer satisfaction surveys with their customers.
The restaurant market research company surveys customers on what factors are most/least important to them as well as what factors they are currently most/least satisfied with. F
actors include wait time to be seated, cleanliness of the restaurant, and friendliness of waiters.
A basic analysis of the survey shows customers rated wait time as the most important factor when eating at a restaurant.
Although, as the restaurant market research company takes a deeper look into the advanced regression analysis they see the cleanliness of the restaurant to be the most impactful driver to overall customer satisfaction.
Even though the cleanliness of a restaurant was not ranked as most important to customers, the negative feedback regarding its cleanliness dramatically drove down overall customer satisfaction.
Example of Adding ORM to Customer Surveys
A hotel sends a thank you email to guests who have checked out of their hotel within the past week.
Near the top of the email, customers are asked to provide their feedback through an online survey link.
The survey consists of 5 questions all surrounding the level of satisfaction a guest had during their stay.
Respondents will experience a different process based on their reviews.
Guests who had a positive experience...
Guests who had a good experience are redirected to Hotels.com to encourage the same type of positive commentary to be added to the online hotel rating site for others to see.
While the hotel wishes all of their guests had a wonderful experience, they understand this is hardly ever the case.
Guests who had a negative experience...
Instead of being redirected to Hotels.com or other hotel rating websites, those who provided negative feedback remain on the survey to answer additional questions about their stay.
This is a great opportunity for the hotel to understand why a guest may have had a negative experience and work to fix the situation.
Remember, taking a deeper look into negative feedback is the key to managing your online reputation.
The end results
With little to no work from the hotel’s marketing team, they are able to increase customer engagement by sending a regular customer satisfaction survey and encourage more happy guests to share their experience with other potential travelers.
Final Thoughts
As opposed to hiring a marketing or public relations agency for ORM, businesses should be looking to market research firms as they can offer an all-encompassing, unifying approach to both customer satisfaction surveys and online reputation management.
They are one and the same and ORM has long been treated as a marketing task. In reality, it is a Voice of Customer (VoC) task.
Companies should be acquiring a more global view of feedback and acting on negative comments or brand perceptions to improve operations.
They should not just simply reach out for feedback to drive positive ratings. ORM with a market research firm points to continual improvement.
Contact Drive Research for Online Reputation Management
Drive Research is a national market research company located in Upstate NY. Our team has the knowledge and tools to design and manage an ongoing customer survey program that incorporates an element of ORM.
As a result, your business increases positive customer reviews on a more regular basis.
Interested in learning more about our market research services? Reach out through any of the four ways below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Carroll
A SUNY Cortland graduate, Emily has taken her passion for social and content marketing to Drive Research as the Marketing Coordinator. She has earned certificates for both Google Analytics and Google AdWords.
Learn more about Emily, here.
