Depending on which report you read, anywhere from 90% to 95% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase decision. So let’s just say everyone reads online reviews (because no one should be chasing the 5% who don’t).
They also invest some time in reading reviews as this chart from eMarketer demonstrates:
The top three factors consumers take into consideration when judging a company based on its reviews are (1) star ratings; (2) number of total reviews; and (3) how recent the reviews are:
Clearly online reviews have a huge impact on a company’s reputation and it’s not just the positive reviews that consumers are looking for. They also search for negative reviews to judge the authenticity of the reviews for your business. And they want to see how you respond to a negative experience.
Managing online reviews has become increasingly important for law firms that want to proactively protect their online reputation. You need to implement an online review strategy that covers how to respond to and solicit reviews as well as what to do with the insights you may gain about your firm from reviews.
Online review response strategy for law firms
Would you be surprised to learn that people expect a response from you for any review, positive or negative? You shouldn’t be. The latest research shows that even though a response is expected by 53% of posters, 63% of those say that a business never responded to their negative review. And since the same research shows that 94% said an online review convinced them to avoid a business, it’s imperative to respond to EVERY review posted about your law firm. Even negative reviews can work in your favor if you respond appropriately:
Creating a review strategy is similar to developing a crisis communication plan:
- Create a framework for what can and cannot be said in an online review response, both positive and negative, for your internal team.
- Develop an escalation plan that outlines when an issue needs to be escalated, who to include, and how to respond.
- Be consistent in your messaging but do NOT cut and paste responses. Respond to ALL reviews. Thank everyone for his or her feedback, not just the positive reviewers.
- Turn a negative review into a positive by finding resolutions to the problems a reviewer highlights. This shows readers that you care about both current and potential clients.
Online review solicitation strategy for law firms
Google and Facebook are the two most popular sites for consumers to check online reviews. All review sites have rules about soliciting reviews. Google says it’s fine for you to ask clients to submit reviews but you must do it one at a time — no mass solicitations and you also cannot solicit positive reviews only. You cannot pay or otherwise compensate anyone for a review. You cannot have employees post reviews.
To obtain those all-important reviews, law firms need a process for soliciting them. (Check out Stephen Fairley’s post about the steps you need to take to obtain 5-star reviews.)
Beyond soliciting reviews from current clients at a point in your engagement process where it makes the most sense, you can also tap the following:
- Email newsletters. Provide a link to your profile pages on Google and Facebook in the footer of your monthly e-newsletter.
- Email signatures. Provide a link to your online profile pages as part of your email signature.
- Social media. Include links to your review sites so your followers can leave a review.
Gaining important business insights from consumer reviews
We have all read reviews for a business and noticed that the negative ones generally point up the same issues. A rude staff. Long wait times. Expensive. These are all fixable problems that a company’s management must pay attention to by taking action and then communicating the fix to the reviewer.
As you monitor your reviews, keep a spreadsheet of problems identified by the reviewers. You are likely to see a trend of areas that need improvement. Once you make those improvements, you are then likely to see not only an improvement in your online reviews but also in the number of leads you get from people visiting these sites and reading your reviews.
If you’d like to learn more about reputation management for law firms as well as how to run your law firm like a business, consider attending a Rainmaker Retreat in 2020. Click on the link below to access our free webinar that spells out exactly what you will learn there.
