Everything you need to generate, monitor, and share your home care agency’s reviews

You’re probably already aware of online reviews. If you have a home care business, your online reviews are a form of social proof that customers (and caregivers) use to validate the trustworthiness of your business.

Online review management is reputation maintenance.

It’s a way for home care companies to ensure clients have an accurate assessment of their business.

Online review management ensures clients:

• Have access to positive and negative reviews from real customers
• Aren’t deceived by spammers, predators or vengeful customers
• Are able to gauge the overall sentiment surrounding your company

Online review management ensures caregivers:

• Have access to positive and negative reviews from real employees
• Aren’t deceived by dishonest or difficult employers
• Are able to gauge the overall sentiment regarding working for your agency.

Online review management is a way to ask for and receive customer feedback. It’s a way to ensure that the reviews you receive are accurate and your organization is treated fairly online.

Research shows 9 in 10 consumers say they read online reviews about local businesses. According to a TripAdvisor survey, 97 percent of business owners say their online reputation is important for their business. Online reviews are the signals customers use to identify trustworthy brands.

Research from Moz found businesses risk losing as many as…

• 21.9 percent of customers if you have just one negative review listed on page one of Google
• 44.1 percent of customers if you have two negative results
• 59.2 percent of customers with 3 negative results
• 69.9 percent of customers with 4 negative results

Using Moz’s research, we can calculate the ROI. Here’s the formula you can use.

Y = X / (100 – X)

Y = How many more customers you could have had (as a percentage)

X = Average percent of lost customers for businesses like yours

Where are we going to get X? From the data provided by Moz! If you have one negative result, X would be 21.9 percent. If it’s two, 44.1 percent and so on.

Let’s also say there are four negative results listed in Google. Our formula would look like this:

Y = 69.9 / (100 – 69.9)

Which means Y = 2.32 or 232% more business!

This of course also translates to less money spent on advertising and recruiting. A company with a good reputation has a better word of mouth traction, and therefore a lower per customer or caregiver acquisition cost.

The terms review and reputation are often used synonymously, but they’re not the same thing.

What is review management?

Review management is a process of tracking incoming customer reviews from various review sites and responding to them when necessary. Businesses often choose to manage reviews using software that lets them see all their reviews from all sites in one place.

What is reputation management?

Reputation management, in the context of home care, refers to consistently monitoring, optimizing, and responding to company-related information across all channels in order to build a positive home care brand online.

In short, review management is just one layer of a comprehensive reputation management strategy.

You absolutely can!

With the right tools, a clear strategy to follow, and a bit of know-how, you should be able to do most of the work yourself.

That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, though.

What do I mean by that? An agency that specializes in home care reputation management is better at doing the work. A good agency does this regularly for a variety of clients in varying circumstances. They have lots of practice dealing with very unpleasant scenarios. They’re also removed from the situation. It’s easier for them to stay calm when a disagreeable client insults your business. It’s much harder for you to do that. And as with any outsource partner, they can focus on this while you tend to other critical aspects of your business that demand your attention.

A digital marketing agency has complementary skill sets

They’re able to create content on a variety of platforms in a variety of formats. They can create ads, blog posts, landing pages, and social media posts with ease – something even large home care companies struggle to do.

If you prefer to do the work yourself, go all in. Fully commit to the process and do the work that’s required. Either way, make sure this is part of your overall home care marketing strategy.

Review management follows these simple steps.

1. Delight your clients and your caregivers
2. Audit your review site listings and local search profiles
3. Optimize your review site listings and local search profiles
4. Ask for feedback from your clients (or share your review profile with them)
5. Happy clients write positive reviews
6. Unhappy clients share private feedback
7. Promote customer reviews (to prospects and their families) to attract more reviews, leads, customers, caregivers and sales!

There’s no quick answer for this one. Every home care agency is different.

It depends on your review portfolio.

Do you have a strong review portfolio – lots of five-star reviews spread across several major and niche review platforms? If so, you can expect to see results quickly.

What if you have no reviews? Less quickly. Negative reviews? Improvements will take time.

The results you achieve will depend on your circumstances.

Are you willing to make drastic changes in your company? You’ll see results faster. Do you have the budget to advertise or promote your reviews? You’ll see results faster as well.

It all depends on you and your commitment to the process.

Once posted, your reviews are available online indefinitely. If they’re marketed well, you’ll continue to receive value from your reviews, long after they’re posted online.

Does this mean you can rest on your laurels?

Absolutely not.

In fact, research shows consumers think local reviews older than three months are largely irrelevant. When you think about it, this makes sense. Customers want to verify that you’re still trustworthy, that things haven’t changed.

This means you’ll need to continue to attract new reviews from your customers.

While negative reviews typically aren’t removed by review platforms, they can be buried.

Should you bury your negative reviews?

Not at all! It’s actually a better idea to embrace your negative reviews.

Here are three reasons why:

1. You can show customers that you’re willing to make amends for any mistakes you’ve made. This shows customers you can be trusted to make things right when things go wrong.
2. Customers don’t trust brands as much if their profile is filled with nothing but positive reviews
3. Customers ignore unreasonable reviews. If they’re toxic or their review is full of vitriol, customers know it and they’re more than willing to cut you some slack, especially if your responses show that you care about them.

Accumulating a large number of negative reviews is clearly bad for business. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We are discussing reviews from customers who just weren’t a fit for your business.