Reviews are a part of life, and it’s no surprise that they’ve evolved to become the cornerstone of today’s consumer journey, whether it’s related to our work or play. We read them (and trust them) before booking hotels or restaurants, buying electronics or pets, and even when choosing a plumber!
And yet, I feel hearing practices tend to ignore reviews even though the number one complaint people have about small businesses is a lack of online reviews.
The importance of online reviews
What are the benefits of customer reviews? Customer feedback is crucial because it sets you up for success. Reviews improve your revenue and conversion rates or the percentage of your website visitors who become leads or leads who become customers. Here are just a few of the primary advantages of reviews that demonstrate how important they are in helping you expand your hearing practice.
Reviews make your practice a dominant local force in hearing health
Do you want to learn how to become your local area’s go-to hearing provider? Through a process known as reputation marketing, reviews can assist with this. Reputation marketing is a strategy for gaining customer trust by leveraging your brand’s reputation.
It can harm your reputation if you don’t have any reviews on your website. People want to know that you’re a trustworthy brand. Customer reviews are crucial since they may increase sales on your website.
Reputation marketing is exemplified by sharing reviews on your website. You’re promoting–or, more accurately, “marketing”– your reputation on your website as a selling factor. It’s much worse if you don’t have any reviews when your competitors do. As a result, the more reviews your hearing practice has, the better your chances of acquiring leads are.
Collecting reviews is only the first step in developing your brand. Promoting your online reputation using your website, ads, social media, and review-listing sites will help you get forward! This is where reputation management enters the picture.
Reviews generate ‘Social Proof’
One of the primary techniques for growing your hearing practice should be to employ social proof. When someone else recommends your goods or service, people are more likely to pay for them.
Customers want “evidence” that your hearing services are of good quality. This is the essence of social proof. The positive feedback you receive can subsequently be used as testimonials on your website or shared on social media. This is referred to as social proof marketing, and it entails incorporating customer feedback into your marketing initiatives to highlight your reputation as a selling factor.
Customer reviews are crucial to share since they may be used as social proof to help your company develop. I mean, if many people agree that a product or service is excellent, it must be good, right?
Reviews drive traffic to your website and generate leads
Reviews improve SEO, even if it isn’t immediately apparent. This is how it works: search engines scour the internet for content that people find helpful. This means that Google finds high-quality content and places it on the first page of results. So, if your company is XYZ Audiology and you have excellent reviews, Google will give your website a boost when someone searches for an “audiologist near me.”
The more five-star customer evaluations your product or service receives, the more potential clients it will attract. When consumers keep coming back to your website, search engines start to recognize you as an authority on the subject. This improves your SEO, and good SEO leads to many high-quality visitors.
Reviews boost your Google rankings.
When you start to have a more extensive reach with the reviews you obtain on your website, it has a favorable impact on your business’s online profiles. Your Google My Business (GMB) account is included in this. This is your company’s Google profile. GMB is where you collect and display your reviews.
Unsurprisingly, more reviews aid in the optimization of Google My Business. More reviews boost your GMB profile’s visibility because reviews are a “ranking signal” used by Google to display your business on Google Search. The more reviews you have on your GMB page, the higher your profile will appear when potential customers search for your hearing services in your town.