If you are a home owner, at some point in time you are going to need a home service company. The question is who to trust? That's where HomeStars.com comes in. As a review gathering site for the home service industry, they can provide home owners the data they need to help make a decision.
Ever read a review to help you make a decision? I've written about the importance of reviews in the past, but today it is even more important that companies pay attention. In 2007 when I was posting about epinions.com, reviews were generally being written for products, hotel rooms, and books. In 2009 when I wrote about how important it was for a service company to look at collecting reviews online, it was a very small part of the review world. Today, reviews are being written about every business out there trying to make a go of it. Stats say 76% of consumers read reviews before making a buying decision.
Reviews have changed the way consumers make buying decisions. Advertising and marketing don't hold the weight they once did in the past. Reviews have taken over as the go to source for information on a product or service, prior to making a buying decision. What does that mean for your company? It means that you are no longer the only person telling your story to the market place. It also means that the story your telling, holds little weight when compared to what your customers are writing.
HomeStars.com enables home service companies to build a positive online reputation and respond to any negative posts. Since, our friend Google loves reviews content rich sites, like HomeStars, provide companies with high quality Search Engine Optimization - SEO. Remember how important that is? It's also a full time job to keep your own site on the top of organic searches. HomeStars does the work for home service companies ensuring they receive high SEO results and an online reputation. It's a lot cheaper than trying to do it yourself.
How do you mitigate the damage of bad reviews? We all know that unhappy customers will tell as many people as they can. Well today that's the world, thanks to the Internet. Make sure you have a large source of 'good' reviews and that you reply to those unhappy reviewers in a professional manner.
Hiding bad reviews won't help anyone's credibility and HomeStars.com doesn't even hide it's own. It's goal is to provide home owners with a full picture of a company's reputation to help them make a better hiring decision. Bad reviews can be an opportunity for you to highlight your customer service policy. Everyone knows that things go wrong. Everyone knows that there are some real nit picky people out there. Consumers want to know how a company will handle things, if something goes wrong. That's where responses come in. If they are written in a professional manner outlining the options the reviewer had, then it can make the company look like a million bucks. If a company responds by bullying or slamming the reviewer, it'll only make the reviewers point all that clearer.
What about fake reviews? I'm sure you've read about fake reviews or reviews written by ex's and competitors. The good news is HomeStars.com verifies reviews to ensure a transaction actually took place. If a company suspects a review as being 'faked,' the onus is on the home owner to prove that it isn't. If HomeStars suspects the company of 'faking' their own reviews they will investigate.
So if you're an owner of a home service company in Canada and you're not collecting reviews on HomeStars.com, why not? Leave a comment in the comments section.
When was the last time you made a significant purchase? How did you decide to buy what you did? Did you just read the ads, marketing and product website? Or did you read the reviews about the product?
Reviews are no longer just for products, books, and blogs. The internet has changed the way people make buying and hiring decisions. You can choose to ignore it and get left behind, or you can embrace the change and grow your business.
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