Online reviews can be a business’ best friend or worst enemy, depending on if the reviews are positive or negative.
NB: This is an article from Zingle
It’s a difficult battle because customers often share negative reviews after an unfavorable experience more than they do a positive review after everything goes smoothly. Even worse is that, in the wake of an unfavorable experience, you may lose a customer permanently.
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Once a customer leaves a bad review, it could be too late. Customers might not offer the time of day to your brand again, which is why it’s important to be proactive and achieve a resolution in the moment rather than after a customer already feels frustrated or disappointed.
In the Customer Service Trends for 2022 Report published by Stella Connect, 67% of consumers said they would stop doing business with a brand after only two or three poor service interactions. More than ever, it’s clear that businesses need to provide a superior customer experience to stay competitive and retain customers for the long haul.
Business texting with SMS and MMS messages opens the lines of communication for your brand and its customers. It allows you to keep up with customers, never leaving them ignored or waiting for any reason. As everyone knows, losing a customer means losing loyalty — and that ultimately results in losing revenue.
Text Messages Could Have Prevented These Negative Reviews
In the spirit of proving how effective business texting can be, let’s take a look at a handful of examples of negative reviews — and then learn how a business text messaging service could’ve prevented each negative review in the first place.
Hotel Not Answering Guest Inquiries Pre-Arrival & Mid-Stay
Communication is, unfortunately, not this hotel’s strong suit. Both the guest and their wife tried to call the hotel, but they were put on hold and never called back. Needless to say, this is a poor guest experience that leaves the door to a negative review wide open.
When the guest arrived, the hotel still fell short of expectations to meet the most basic needs. And this review suggests that other guests found themselves with a similar experience.
How this negative review could’ve been prevented: If the hotel is limited in terms of productivity due to a labor shortage or just has other tasks that it prioritizes, software for business texting would’ve still tended to the guest’s needs. The guest just wanted to know if they could check-in early. It’s a simple question, and an AI-powered response could’ve answered this for the guest in a few seconds.
Mid-stay, the guest wanted housekeeping services to maintain a clean room each day. Business texting integrates with platforms such as HotSOS to efficiently alert the housekeepers their services are needed in a specific room, without the need for the front desk to play their own game of ‘telephone’ whether they’re busy or not at the front lobby.
Notice how the guest says they didn’t feel as though they received enough attention from the hotel and its staff. Yet, with a business text messaging service, all of this would’ve been handled with automation that left them with a delightful guest experience to raise satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Restaurant Messing Up a Food Order
Nothing is more annoying than a messed up or entirely missed food order. Just think of this customer when they placed the order. Maybe they hadn’t eaten a meal all day while working late, or perhaps they were hoping to impress a date with some tasty takeout.
No matter the reason, a food order gone wrong is a recipe for disaster.
How this negative review could’ve been prevented: Orders placed over the phone aren’t completely inconvenient, but they certainly increase the likelihood of a botched food order due to several factors. Either party may not be able to hear each other all that great over a phone line, or the restaurant worker couldn’t jot down every detail to perfection.
Business texting simplifies the entire experience. Customers can text in an order, which the restaurant receives directly to its kitchen to get started on. It’ll reduce errors and provide quick, accurate orders for pickup and delivery that makes every bite as good as the last.
Hotel Making It Challenging to Use a Premium Service
Guests sometimes stay at a hotel only for a place to sleep at night, but this guest — as many do — wanted to take advantage of the amenities available. Yet they couldn’t, and it was all because of poor guest experience. In every way they tried, they couldn’t book an appointment for a relaxing massage at the spa — not even the staff could figure it out.
How this negative review could’ve been prevented: Offer all premium services in the palm of a guest’s hands! If this guest could’ve sent a text message to book the appointment, they wouldn’t have faced any hassle to begin with. The guest would’ve had the massage at the spa scheduled in seconds.
