Review Management 101 for HVAC companies.

Your HVAC business is second to none. You’ve put your time into the HVAC industry, and your service speaks for itself. However, your presence online may not reflect that. In fact, it may be making it even worse.

No matter what kind of business you run, reputation management strategies are important for reinforcing credibility within your company. If your reputation steers into a negative direction online (by no fault of your own), then you will experience a sharp decline in sales long-term.

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The simple tactic of keeping your online reputation polished and accurate is by online Review Management . When you think of online reviews, you may think they only have to do with restaurants, hotels, and other product or service-based industries. However, these services are just a small part of the review management web. Yes, even HVAC businesses have opinions on your service floating around online.

Reviews have a massive impact on each respected business as they impact 93% of consumers with their purchasing decisions. When you want to garner more success with online sales and keep your reputation as the best HVAC services in your area takes some effort but will pay off as far as a polished reputation online.

A polished online reputation requires consistent management of

online presence, responding to both good and bad reviews, and executing a digital marketing strategy. Yes, your focus should be on actually providing top-notch service to your current clients. However, your virtual reputation will keep you in the houses of current and future customers alike.

If you want to increase positive reviews, generate more online sales, and improve your HVAC company’s reputation online, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to review management 101!

What is Review Management?

To get a better understanding of review management, let’s take a look at the impact online reviews have on businesses that show a small online presence or don’t even have a website at all.

Even if your HVAC business doesn’t have a strong online presence, there are still probably online reviews on third-party platforms such as Google My Business, Facebooks, Yelp, Nextdoor, and plenty of other sites in which to voice an opinion. Even if you never created a Google My Business account, one is most likely up and running for your business. You can get access by verifying that it’s your business – just so you know!

Here are the three main ways online reviews impact your HVAC business:

Trustworthiness: Getting a new furnace or AC unit installed is no cheap task. When someone needs a new HVAC installation, they will want to do plenty of research. If your online presence is small, potential customers are less likely to trust what your service has to offer.
Credibility: When your HVAC business has a high average rate of reviews, the more credible your service will seem.
Awareness: Positive online reviews of your business help you generate more visibility, especially with local search engine results.

Another great way to raise awareness of your brand online is through search engine optimization (SEO.) One of the main aspects of great SEO for your website is online reviews. In the eyes of Google’s algorithm, reviews are seen as content, which will aid in your search rank relevance to your HVAC website.

How Does Review Management Work?

When your HVAC business does a perfect job on a new furnace or AC install, you hope the customers will deliver a positive and delightful word-of-mouth piece singing the praises of your service on your website or other social media platforms.

However, it is not that simple as every customer won’t be willing to leave a review.

Generating Online Reviews

Effective online review management is simply generating, responding, and monitoring all of your online reviews.

Here are a few elements of a digital marketing strategy to help with your online reviews:

Make your review page easily accessible.
Show of your previous positive reviews on your website.
Encourage your previous customers to leave a review via email, social media, or inbound links directing them to your review page.
Encourage your customers to leave a review on platforms other than your website, such as Facebook, Google My Business, and Yelp.
Providing incentives for customers, such as coupons or other discounts, will help encourage them to leave glowing reviews!

Utilizing these tactics of review management will help you generate more online reviews, which will help you increase your sales.

Monitoring Online Reviews

As you know by now, the first step of online review management is to make leaving a review as easy as possible. The second step to online review management is to monitor the reviews being left on your website and other third-party sites.

Whether a review is positive or negative, it should be looked at as soon as possible after it is posted. The use of professional Review Management Software will monitor your review sites and alert you when a new one is posted.

Responding to Reviews

Now that you have a way to monitor your reviews pages, it’s time to take a look at what kind of reviews people have left. Whether it’s a negative or positive review, a proper response to both will help reinforce and protect your brand identity. Showing appreciation for positive reviews while having compassion for negative reviews is the right way to go.

While you want to avoid negative reviews at all costs, with so many Karens in the world, it’s impossible to escape. When responding to negative reviews, keep in mind all your responses are public, so caution should be used.

Here’s the right way to respond to a negative review:

Apologize for their negative experience.
Thank them for sharing their opinion.
Ask what you can do to fix the situation.
Suggest a more private forum where grievances can be hashed out without the public eye.
End every response with a desire to fix the situation as well as offering a second chance to really impress the unsatisfied customer.

There will be unhappy customers no matter how great your HVAC service is. The difference between turning those negative reviews into positive reviews is just a proper response!