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Online reviews are a marketing tool to help showcase the value of your goods and services to potential customers of your marina. In general, online reviews provide a profile of your business from the consumer's point of view. Online reviews can help you grow your brand, attract new leads, increase conversion and provide key insight for improvement.

Why Do Online Reviews Matter?

Due to the increasingly digital nature of the modern marketplace, consumers now spend more time researching and shopping for goods online than in physical stores. In other to reduce the risk of making bad online booking choices, the modern consumer relies on online reviews, for the following reasons:

Social Proof and Credibility

Consumers are more willing to buy a product when they can get a sense of what other consumers' experiences have been. Reviews, much like word of mouth from family and friends, serve as proof that your service is reputable and allows potential customers to trust your business based on the experiences of others.

Boost Google presence and SEO rankings

Online reviews are a form of digital marketing, driven by satisfied customers. They give your business wider internet exposure by boosting your SEO and SEM efforts. Google factors in reviews from multiple sites when ranking search engine results for businesses. This implies that the more reviews you have, the more your marina is mentioned online and this would in turn boost your search engine rankings.

Facilitate Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Customer engagement is a two-way street and reviews are a great place to start in building a community of engaged and loyal customers. Reviews give the customer a feeling of being heard and most times customers who give reviews end up being repeat customers. Reviews create the opportunity to build trust and connect with your customers. Not only do customers look out for reviews, but they also watch out for your responses.

Insight for Business Improvement Reviews offer an excellent opportunity to gain insightful information to improve your products and services by resolving issues faced by consumers. Analyzing customer reviews can help your business understand overall customer needs, satisfaction, and areas to improve business practices, thereby creating a positive experience for the customer. Reviews can also help you identify opportunities that are unique to your brand so you can leverage them.

How to get reviews of your business

Since reviews are so important, how do you get reviews from your customers?

Do a good job

The best motivation for reviews from your customers is to serve them well. If a customer is satisfied with your product or service, they are more inclined to leave a review.

Create a process for getting reviews

To make it easier for you to see and respond to online reviews of your marina, you should take some steps. Identify sites where your business is mentioned regularly and set up a process for monitoring and responding to these mentions. Open accounts on various review sites to enable you to manage and get reviews easily. Also, you can verify your Google business Profile to give you more visibility on Google search, Maps, and other Google services, and allows you to respond to reviews

Simplify the process

The easier it is to leave a review the better your chances of getting more reviews. The average customer is not willing to go through a tedious process just to leave a review, so make use of pop-ups and call-to-action buttons to lead customers to a direct review page. You can include direct links in follow-up emails, your website, and newsletters to guide customers to your review profiles.

Ask for reviews

One of the best ways to increase your reviews is by asking. Ask customers to leave you reviews, regularly remind and assure them that the process is quick and easy. Customers know the importance of reviews and if your services are excellent, most times they would be more than willing to oblige you. When asking for reviews, your focus should be on getting good reviews and you can do this by targeting customers who have expressed satisfaction. Use your discretion to encourage reviews from happy customers.

Respond

Always make out time to respond to reviews, whether good or bad. This builds trust and gives an indication that you value customer input. Responses should be personalized and not sound robotic. A uniquely worded response of gratitude or a message addressing specific concerns can encourage customers to stick around. When customers see that you respond to every review, it provides an incentive for new customers to take the time to share their own valuable experiences.

How to Respond to Online Reviews

When responding to reviews, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Thank the customer: First and foremost, express gratitude to the customer for taking out time to leave a review. Avoid a robotic automated response. Instead, aim for a real human connection by personalizing the response.

2. Respond Promptly: A quick response is a simple action that goes along with a message of gratitude to indicate that you value a customer's time and opinion. They cared to leave a timely review, so reciprocate the energy

3. Be Brief: Keep your responses short, professional and impactful.

4. Encourage an action: To conclude your response, include a small call to action. If a customer is pleased with your services and leaves a good review, it provides a perfect opportunity to push for a specific action. It could be a prompt to share, sign up for other services, or a social media following. However, try not to come off as pushy or salesy.

5. Share your reviews: Put your good reviews out there. It helps drive your conversions and boost your SEO.

How To Handle Negative Online Reviews

Bad reviews are one of the reasons some businesses shy away from reviews, but they are very useful to a business and they make your business appear more authentic. Customers find a combination of positive and negative reviews to be more trustworthy as opposed to a perfect review sheet. There is no need to panic over a bad review. Instead, you just respond as you would with a good review. Here are some tips on responding to negative reviews:

-Respond as soon as possible

-Ensure you understand the customer's experience before responding

-Acknowledge your mistake and write a personalized apology

 -Where necessary, give explanations courteously and with a high level of professionalism

-Provide a means for quick resolution or compensation

-Move the conversation away from a public forum and handle it privately if the situation seems to be getting out of hand

-Fix the problem to avoid a repeat

-Encourage more reviews.

Why You Should Pay More Attention to Online Reviews of Your Business

Reviews are not going away anytime soon as most modern consumers rely on them for purchasing decisions. A positive review boosts confidence in purchasing decisions while a negative review may be a sign to look elsewhere. Either way, your aim as a marina business should be to help your customers enjoy their time on the water by providing excellent products, services and swift complaint resolution when needed. Paying attention to online reviews is a very effective way to do this.