Reviews have always been extremely important to business owners and consumers alike. For business owners, they are a reflection of their customer service, their passion and their product. In the eyes of the consumer, it is a tell tale of whether or not its worth spending money on. 

When it comes to reviews, sometimes they can make or break your business. The best way to prevent reviews from "breaking" your business is by responding to them properly. It is never ever a good idea to delete a review, no matter how bad it is. Always take the higher road and apologize for any inconvenience, ask for contact information, offer them something that will bring them back into your business and then personally take care of the problem. All of these review sites give you the option to respond to reviews. I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to interact with your travelers and reviewers. It could be the difference between a one time customer and a lifetime customer. 

Everyone experiences a variety of negative comments online, whether it is on a social media site, blog, review site etc. The effect of the comment depends on how you choose to respond to it. Ragan.com has a few articles that explain the importance of how to answer a comment or question made online and the proper way to do so. Here is an article from Ragan about 5 Ways to Handle Negative Facebook Comments. Now just because this article is about Facebook, does not mean that the points do not apply to any other medium that allows comments. The content is still very relevant to any forum online.

I recently was emailing with one of our first YMCA clients, Lake County YMCA.  We have formed a great bond with their entire marketing team and have been able to learn a lot about their needs and wants with their YMCA website over the past year.

Fortunately, we have experienced mild success and growth in this vertical market.  This growth has caused us to re-evaluate our current process; sales, implementation, follow-up and communication to our most valuable asset, our YMCA customer.  I prefer to use words like partner or teammate but for now we will use customer.

This next line is copied and pasted from my email referencing our current Customer Service:

It's currently good, but good isn't "good" enough for us!

This should be your motto with Customer Service and, quite frankly every aspect of your business.  Let’s face it, many people and companies are good at what they do.  But, how many are great?  Great can be hard to quantify but for me, it revolves around effort and interest.

Are you really concerned about your client?  Do you care whether the client received the product or service they were expecting?  Are you on to the next sale and not “servicing the customer” on your previous sale?  Gary Vaynerchuk, aka @garyvee,  mentioned at Hubspot’s Inbound 2012 conference that Client Retention is the name of the game.  And, in order to maintain your client, exceptional and unexpected Customer Service is mandatory!

Do you take an interest in their business but more importantly their life.  I like to form friendships with my business associates.  You don’t have to be intrusive, just let it happen naturally.  Do they like football, do they have kids, do you share interests?  Before you know it, you will have a much deeper bond with your client and may become Facebook friends!  

I believe the phrase “good is not good enough” should apply to many facets of your life.  For your business to succeed in this social, ever-changing environment, you and your business must stand out from the rest.  Your Customer Service is the heartbeat of your success and you should wake up every morning thinking “Good is Not Good Enough!" 

Any special tips for improving Yelp reviews? I have a client who has great reviews on other sites but not on Yelp. Any suggestions? We are working to improve our inbound marketing.