Choosing the Right Reputation Management Software for Your Small Business
What customers think and how they rate your business has never been more important to small business success. In fact, 90% of consumers say positive reviews influence their purchasing decisions, and 82% of shoppers visit review sites before they purchase a product or service.
If you don’t have a healthy online presence and are not using reputation management software, you could lose business to competitors who’ve put effort into building a positive online presence.
With good reputation management software, you can weather the competition in today’s market that relies heavily on online reviews and ratings. Moreover, with the right software, you don’t need to be a marketing specialist or webmaster to build and maintain a winning reputation.
There are numerous reputation management software solutions out there, but the best one should automate most of your online reputation management (ORM) tasks and make building a healthy reputation easy.
Here are three ways to find the best ORM software for your needs.
- Identify your business needs and objectives
Before you go shopping for ORM software, be sure you have a clear understanding of what your small business wants to achieve specifically from it. These questions should help you to choose the most appropriate software:
- Do you want to improve your ranking?
- Do you want to stand out by promoting positive reviews?
- Are you looking to mitigate the negative reviews you’ve been getting?
- Research comprehensively
You want an ORM system that offers you the best return on your investment and has great customer support. The software solution that appears at the top of the results when you do a Google search is not necessarily the best one for you, so you need to research deeply.
You also want a solution that falls within your budget. It’s worth noting that the most expensive software may not be the best, and the cheapest may not be the worst.
- Consider the Services Being Offered
Good software should be able to do much more than just help you monitor reviews online. Positive reviews are not all that matters when it comes to building a healthy business reputation.
You want software that can also help you to improve ranking on SERPs, generate more positive reviews, and put strict protocols in place to avert negative reviews before they happen. There’s no easier way to not get a negative review than preventing it before it happens.
Find the right reputation management software that has at least the following features:
- Ability to monitor online review sites
- Process and tools to request reviews
- Alerts or notifications of new reviews
- Ability to create and monitor business citations
- Ability to export review data
- Comprehensive reports
- Affordable cost
- Customer support
Particularly if you’re new to such software, you’ll also want a product that’s easy to set up and user-friendly.
Conclusion
Proactive online reputation management is essential for small business success in today’s heavily review-reliant market. With the right reputation management software and an effective ORM strategy, you can handle any detrimental customer interactions and misleading business information before they impact prospective customers’ perception of your business.
When choosing the best reputation management tool for your small business, you should go for something that offers a range of valuable features, including ease of use and impressive customer support, at the best price.