Benefits of Customer Review Website Tracking

There are numerous websites on the Internet today that focus on customer reviews. Sites like TripAdvisor, Citysearch and Google+ Local provide information on certain establishments through the use of reviews by customers. Many people use these sites when it comes time to deciding where to eat, shop or play.
As a business, it's important for you to pay attention to these sites. Just like monitoring social media, monitoring customer review websites can offer a number of benefits to your business.

1. Know what's being said about you.
If you want your business to succeed, you need to listen to what is being said about your brand, whether positive or negative. Customer review sites provide a central hub for people to meet and discuss your company, and if you're not paying attention, you could end up doing severe damage to your brand.

2. It allows you to improve.
Customer review sites allow you to learn what makes your customers happy and what causes unpleasant experiences. You can then use this information to make sure that your company is constantly providing your customers with the things that will make them happy.
If you find a negative review, use the customer review site to make it right. Apologize sincerely to the customer and offer them something for their troubles, such as a discount on their next stay. If you apologize and make an effort to show customers you care, you could end up earning their trust again.

3. Alleviate damaging information.
If you're not monitoring these sites, you will not know about the really negative comment that was left. If this comment sits idly without any acknowledgement from you, it can cause the customer to remain angry and allow the situation to escalate. Now, instead of keeping their disappointment on the one customer review site, they have now turned to all customer review sites as well as their own social networking accounts. They've made it a point to hurt your brand, and your lack of attention allowed it to happen.
If you had been monitoring the situation to begin with, you could have stepped in during the initial review and offered to make it right. This would have shown the customer that you cared and would have calmed down their temperament. By monitoring these sites, you can easily alleviate a viral mishap.

4. Learn more about your marketing.
When you track these sites, you can also learn who is visiting your page on these sites, how long they're staying on your page, and which actions are being taken while there. This can show you if the content on these sites is helping your company earn business, and it can also show you where people are accessing the sites from. You can then tailor your marketing to be sure that your company is visible.

5. Learn more about your demographic. 
You may think that your base customers are young adults, but you could be wrong. When you track customer review sites, you gain information on the users' demographics, which can help you determine if there has recently been a shift in the type of people who are shopping for your products or services. If there has been, knowing this information can ensure that you continue to market to the right people.
If you have yet to start reviewing these sites, make sure that you start. Tools like Google Alerts can help you monitor the sites yourself, or you can opt to use a dedicated team, such as Review Trackers. Both options will greatly benefit your company more than not monitoring, so it's important to decide which method is the right choice for your company.



Author Bio:
Julie Myers writes valuable articles for review trackers about tracking customer reviews.