When potential customers are looking for a new company for a product or service, they may reference the business’s customer service reviews. Positive customer service reviews give consumers confidence that they’d enjoy interacting with a business. Understanding what a customer service review is can help you improve a company’s reputation and implement actionable feedback regarding the customer service that customers provide.
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In this article, we define customer service reviews and list 11 types that are valuable to businesses.
What are customer service reviews?
Customer services reviews are verbal or written comments from people who have interacted with a company and who have had experiences worth sharing. Rather than reviewing a specific product or service, a customer service review emphasizes how the employees and policies of a company work together to meet the needs of the consumer. Businesses can show their commitment to exceptional service by monitoring and responding to these reviews and using feedback from them to identify areas of improvement within their operations.
Why are customer service reviews important?
Customer service reviews are important because consumers place great value on how companies might treat them and interact with them. Potential customers may study customer service reviews to determine whether they want to do business with a company. A company can experience the following benefits from positive customer service reviews:
Greater customer loyalty and retention
Customer service reviews are strong indicators of how customers perceive a business. Positive experiences foster customer loyalty and generate repeat customers, as individuals can observe the benefits of choosing one company over its competitors.
Better online reputation
Customer service reviews, especially on public platforms, contribute to a company’s overall online reputation. The content of these reviews can impact its search engine rankings, online visibility and overall credibility.
Improved employee morale and performance
Positive customer service reviews can boost employee morale. When employees view positive comments from satisfied customers, they may experience higher levels of motivation to maintain satisfactory levels of customer service.
Greater innovation
Analyzing customer service reviews can reveal gaps or unfulfilled needs in the market. These insights can help companies develop new products and services or improve existing offerings.
11 types of customer service reviews
Review 11 types of customer service reviews that are valuable to companies trying to improve the customer service they provide:
1. Quotes
Customer service review quotes are brief comments that a customer makes about an experience with a company. You can use them in promotional materials and the company’s website, as they show the core reason a customer enjoyed an experience with the business in a few words. To collect quotes from customers, you can ask them for feedback in person, during phone calls or via email. If you acquire permission from the customer, you may attach their name or picture to the quote to make the provided statement more personable.
2. Crowd-sourced reviews
Many business listing websites compile reviews from the public that other consumers value when deciding where to spend their money. Search engines also allow users to share their experiences with businesses. Because these sites typically rank businesses by their average rating, these online reviews have a significant influence on whether people give a company’s product or service an opportunity. If your employer isn’t receiving many reviews, you could ask satisfied customers to post about their customer service experiences.
3. Social media reviews
Social media users can share their positive and frustrating customer service experiences with their social networks. A company can create and maintain active profiles on major social platforms to address customers’ feedback directly. A company’s marketing team may monitor mentions on social media or engage with audiences to earn more customer service reviews.
4. Internal case studies
Internal case studies are reviews a company writes of its own customer service performance, and these reviews involve the perspective of the customer. Businesses often publish these case studies to highlight their commitment to quality customer service. Other times, a company conducts internal case studies privately to review customer service employees’ performance. By reviewing exceptional successes or shortcomings in customer service, a company can identify areas for improvement on an ongoing basis.
5. External case studies
External case studies review how competitors provide customer service. A business might look at positive and negative customer service reviews of other companies and determine which practices to learn from or omit from its operations. Case studies analyzing trends in customer service are readily available online, or you could conduct your own by studying public comments about some of your employer’s closest competitors.
6. Customer stories
Customer stories can be exceptionally honest and convincing types of reviews. For example, a company that sells weight loss products often shares the stories of its customers who’ve had exceptional success to inspire others to try its products. Discovering stories worth sharing requires a customer service team to follow up with loyal customers and encourage conversations about why its offerings are so impactful.
7. Blog reviews
A blogger can write in-depth reviews of products to generate content for their website. Blog reviews provide consumers with extensive information about a company and can feature its commitment to customer service. You might receive some blog reviews organically, but you can earn more by identifying bloggers who share a company’s niche and offering them products in exchange for blog posts. You can ask a blogger directly to discuss customer service, or you can collaborate with them thoughtfully and hope they notice a company’s attention to detail.
8. Video reviews
Customers might post video reviews independently on social media or video-sharing platforms, or a company might plan and produce one. Customers enjoy video reviews because they feel conversational but still provide useful information. To earn more video customer service reviews, you might prompt customers to post on social media, or you might target content creators and attempt to collaborate with them as you would bloggers.
9. Customer-generated content
Customer-generated content uses the posts of customers, either on social media or elsewhere online, to show how many people enjoy a business’s products or services. Rather than customers sharing their thoughts on your employer’s customer service directly, the content itself conveys a positive tone and suggests that people who buy the company’s goods and services have rewarding experiences. You can encourage customers to tag the brand when they’re posting about a company’s products and compile the content into engaging promotional material.
10. Brand ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are customers who have positive feelings about a company’s offerings and overall experience. Brand ambassadors genuinely believe that by promoting a company, they’re helping other people like them. For example, people shopping for cars may assume they might experience pushy customer service that emphasizes selling features over listening to their needs.
If you work for a car dealership and your sales team helps someone find the perfect car by respecting their input, the customer might become a brand ambassador for the dealership. You can earn organic brand ambassadors by providing consistently better customer service than competitors. Consumers notice when businesses make exceptional efforts to help them and enjoy sharing their experiences with their peers.
11. Influencer reviews
Influencers are social media personas who have large followings. They typically review companies in exchange for products or payment. Influencer customer service reviews are therefore usually not organic reviews, and consumers may perceive them as less genuine.
Influencers can protect their brand by only working with companies they can honestly support, which can help them establish trust among followers. To work with an influencer, contact them directly and communicate your proposal.
How to reply to a positive customer service review
Review the steps for replying to a positive customer service review:
1. Respond quickly
Schedule a regular time to look at a business’s online reviews so that you can respond to customers promptly. Attempt to reply to positive reviews within an established timeframe, like one to two business days. By doing so, customers and the public may perceive a business as engaged and proactive.
2. Personalize your appreciation
Personalize each of your replies by mentioning the customers’ names and responding directly to the content of their comments. Consider who within the organization has strong interpersonal skills that enable them to be engaging and personable over social media and elsewhere online. You might have guidelines for the company’s responses, but attempt to keep replies genuine by personalizing them where possible.
Related: Customer retention tips
3. Capitalize on positive feelings
Positive customer service reviews offer a company several opportunities. You can direct reviewers to content that enhances the enjoyment of their purchase or highlight another product that might interest them, increasing their engagement with the company. You also might ask if the reviewer would be okay with the company using their review for promotional purposes. For example, if a customer leaves a review thanking a pet store for help with purchasing a puppy, the business might reply with its appreciation and direct them to a blog post listing the best brands of foods for their new pet.
You can also capitalize on positive feelings by asking customers to refer their peers. Express appreciation in advance for any referrals they may provide.
How to reply to a negative customer service review
Consider these steps for replying to a negative customer service review:
1. Address the issue quickly
Instead of neglecting negative reviews, you can reply to them quickly. Answering negative customer service reviews promptly can help you show that an employer is responsive and wants to address any issues that may be present.
2. Listen carefully
Sometimes negative customer service reviews accurately reflect a mistake a business has made, and sometimes the customer may have misinterpreted an interaction. Regardless, you can try to emphasize with customers rather than become defensive. Listen carefully to how they describe their issues and try to understand how you could prevent similar situations in the future.
3. Respond publicly and privately
In your public response, you can express concern and, if appropriate, offer an apology on behalf of the company. You may benefit from continuing any further conversation privately. Provide the unhappy customer a way to reach you directly so the negative review doesn’t become a public discussion where more negativity may arise.
4. Provide a solution
Once you’ve acknowledged the customer’s feelings, try to provide a solution to their problem. A customer may become frustrated when an initial customer service interaction disappoints them. A creative and thoughtful solution to compensate for any earlier shortcomings can convince customers that their first experience was unusual for the company and that they can trust your employer in the future.
5. Monitor review trends
Keep track of common themes or issues that appear in multiple negative reviews. Identifying patterns can help you pinpoint underlying problems in your customer service processes.
Tips for implementing feedback from customer service reviews
Review some tips for implementing feedback from customer service reviews into a business:
Share the feedback with other employees
Ensure that other employees can read the feedback that customers provide. This way, they can understand what improvements they can make on their own.
Offer employee training
If you notice trends in any negative customer service reviews that your employer receives, you may organize training to improve employees’ customer service. Focus the training on certain aspects that require improvement, like phone etiquette or response time.
Prioritize issues
Read through all the customer service reviews that are available for your employer. Determine which issues could have the biggest impact on the company and address those first.
Establish a feedback loop
Create a system for collecting, analyzing and implementing feedback from customer service reviews regularly. This could include assigning a dedicated team or individual to manage reviews, track progress and ensure that team members incorporate feedback into the company’s customer service strategies continuously.
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