When you buy a product or a service, what you want is that it reaches you. And today that happens very fast. But, after a few days, the company contacts you to leave comments on those products.
You may think that that is not so important, or that it is useless for a company. But the truth is that your customers' comments are an essential part of your reputation and they help to make it better known, to improve sales and much more. Do you want to find out?
What are customer reviews
A comment, according to the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy), is defined as: «Explanation of a text for your better understanding. Judgment, opinion, mention or consideration that is made, orally or in writing, about someone or something ». In other words, We are talking about a text, which can be spoken or written, where a person makes an assessment about a product or a person.
Normally, for a comment to be valid, it should be objective to be considered good, and reliable. However, this is often not possible, and you can find many types of comments, from those critical (constructive) to others that only seek to destroy the reputation, either of the product or the brand.
Places where customers can leave comments
As you have seen before, comments do not have to be just written, although in reality many times we think so. They can also be spoken, and that implies that they are not mere opinions, but comments made about products, companies, people, etc.
So, really, for a brand, company or business, comments can come from many different places. In the beginning, when the Internet was not so widespread, these only came from the people who communicated with the company. For example, a customer who called the company on the phone; one who went to the local store to buy, etc.
But with the Internet, and especially with social networks, comments can now come from many different sources: website, social networks, physical, forums ...
This has the advantage that the company can further expand its reputation, but it also implies greater control, especially to manage the types of comments that exist since they are not always going to be positive. We will comment on you below.
Types of customer feedback
Customer feedback can vary widely. From one who loves the product, the service, the brand, etc. to those who try to discredit you and make no one else want to buy in the store. And both are important to manage. But, what more types of comments can we find:
Positive comments
Without a doubt, these are the ones that every company and brand would like. But the truth is that it is not easy for them to have them. In fact, customers often post negative, critical, or destructive comments, but positive ones are highly unlikely to drop.
So encouraging them can help get people to write.
Critical comments
These comments cannot be classified as either positive or negative. They help you know the good and the bad of the service, something that is often much more effective. And they are objective and highlight the benefits but also the shortcomings of it. And believe it or not, that gives credibility to the product and the brand.
Negative feedback
Negative comments are perhaps the ones that more are read by users as they look for the "drawbacks" that may have a product. But even if they are negative, they are helpful, because, especially if they coincide with others, they can help improve the product or service.
Therefore, as long as they are correct, we should not think that they are bad, although that does not mean that you should leave them unanswered. If the problem comes from misuse, ordering, etc. you should try to fix it to the best of your ability.
Destructive comments
They are negative comments raised to a level that is not adequate. You have to know that you cannot like everyone, and your products and / or services may have deficiencies, or make them not what customers are looking for.
However, that does not mean that they can tell you anything, or undermine the reputation of your company, brand, business ...
In those cases, these comments, which They are also the ones that go viral the most and where people pay attention the mostThey can be very harmful and you have to manage them, always with education, to achieve, not so much that you change your mind, but that others see that you have tried to solve the problem and make yourself available to that dissatisfied customer.
And, if things get worse, unfortunately, it is best to delete or block the user (as long as everything has already been tried to solve the problem).
Why are they so important
If you still don't understand why feedback is so important to a business, let's try to explain it to you below. And it is that these can be used to:
Encourage people to buy that product
When they see comments, and especially if these are positive and explanatory, They may be indirectly solving the doubts that potential customers have about the article, whether or not it is what they are looking for, if there are faults, etc.
For example, imagine you want to buy a keyboard. You can find many on the Internet, but are they Spanish? Do they have the letter ñ? Maybe in the product it comes, but what if it isn't? Well, the comments can raise doubts, and thus see if it makes noise, if it is complete, if it does not give errors, etc.
It gives you greater credibility
Especially if you have positive and negative comments (non-destructive). In this case, it is about giving diversity, since it may be that the person who has left a negative comment is because the product does not serve them, and therefore, another person who is in the same situation may not either. But this saves time.
Measure customer satisfaction
This is essential, since your business really depends on customers, and if they are not satisfied, they will not buy from you. So what do the comments have to do with it? With them you will know if the products you offer (or services) are really suitable, if they like them or not.
In this way, you will know if you are on the right track or if you have to vary a bit what you do, and in this case think about changing services or products for ones more in line with what customers are looking for.
Improve products and services
This is something that we already told you before. And the fact is that the opinions of the customers, who are the ones who really test the products, allow you to know if they are adequate, if they lack something and, in general, if they could be improved so that they were more efficient.