Overcoming the Objection of a Bad Online Review

Word of mouth used to be the way that consumers evaluated the products and services they were interested in purchasing. The rapid adoption of the Internet - along with mobile devices giving easy access to online review sites - has exponentially escalated the power of the consumer in 2017.

So what can a business do, and what can a salesperson do when confronted with a negative online review?

First, let's consider what would prompt someone to leave a review for Electronic Merchant Systems.  Our business is not a trendy restaurant or coffee shop so leaving a review is not something our tens of thousands of satisfied customers are compelled to do. Very few people take the time to go online to praise their cell phone or gas company ... or for that matter, their merchant services company.

This means that if we turned a blind eye to our listings on review sites, we would end up with primarily negative reviews. EMS follows a best practice of responding in a non-confrontational, helpful manner to negative reviews. The problem is that there are numerous sites out there and new ones popping up with regularity. Many of these review sites are shady and nonsense websites out there that exist to discredit companies.  Legitimate review sites do not add their own commentary, require a reviewer to login and authenticate, and always allow for a business owner response. Unfortunately, the payments industry has several sites that are missing all of the aforementioned trust elements.

 What EMS is Doing About Reputation Management

In December 2016 EMS' customer service department started asking clients that they had just assisted for recommendations on Google My Business, and implemented a reputation management automation solution to facilitate the requests. Asking for reviews is allowed within the guidelines of most online review sites as long as no incentives are offered in exchange. This has resulted in 111 new reviews in the last 3 months and an extremely respectable 4.3-star rating that is continuing to improve.

IMHO, Google My Business is the most important (and mainstream) of all the review sites, and every business has a listing. They dominate the search market, and a company's Google My Business listing appears on a company name search at the top of the right side column.  Google My Business is also the simplest site to get reviews on since most people have a Google login. Check out our Google listing and view real EMS clients giving their honest feedback - https://g.co/kgs/6ud3EG .

EMS is also investing in improving our Glassdoor.com presence by enhancing our listing and asking for employee reviews.  Though primarily a review site for job searchers, it regularly appears "above the fold" on page 1 of Google searches and serves as an important trust element.  Plans are in the works to also address other legitimate, mainstream review sites that start to gain consumer traction.

How Can a Salesperson Overcome the Objections of a Negative Review?

Make sure the prospect understands that any big company is going to have some complaints online. Inform them of credible third party reviews Electronic Merchant Systems has received. This lets the third-party sources do the talking. These could be EMS' Google My Business link or our Better Business Bureau A+ rating. Always be prepared to show your prospects how to locate these trust elements.

Try to illustrate the fact that you can find negative reviews about everything under the sun – even products that 99% of people love. Try this technique and see if it works for you:

 1. "I respect that you were doing some research. That's important, and I recommend it. Do you mind if I ask you where you came across this review?"

 2. "And do you mind my asking, "Who is your cellular carrier?"

 3. "Will you do me a favor? Go to the website where you saw the negative review, and search the site for reviews of Verizon or Sprint (or any other company whose products they might use daily).

If you get completely hung up on trying to convince them their "findings" on the Internet are completely ridiculous and that they need to see it your way, then you're going to lose them. Don't be pushy. Be professional!  Possibly time for, "This opportunity may not be for YOU."

Democratization of Technology Benefits Local Retailers

The Democratization of Technology refers to the process by which access to technology rapidly continues to become more accessible to more people.  Thanks to the mobile revolution, never has this democratization happened at a faster pace and is resulting is a huge boon to the local retailer.

In the U.S., comScore reports that 94 percent of those 18-24 years of age own a smartphone, 93 percent of those 25 to 34, 84 percent of those 35 to 54 and even 58 percent of those over the age of 55 do as well. These numbers are huge and result in both the consumer and the local retailer having technology in their in their pockets and on the counter that can intercommunicate.

At an increasing scale, Retailers now have greater access to use and purchase technologically sophisticated solutions that in the past were only available to the big box retailers. That's because the new breed of mobile solutions are powerful yet user-friendly for the small retailer. No longer do these retailer solutions require extensive networking expertise or costly service contracts.

I have had a lot of experience lately with a local retailer mobile loyalty app called Flok that is a great example of how the democratization of technology is benefiting local retailers. Flok enables small retailers the ability to have their own branded loyalty app that motivates and engages customers.

Flok requires no in-store hardware ... not even WIFI since merchant interactions take place on the customer's smartphone.  In addition to contextual rewards, Flok allows merchants to leverage beacon technology, push messaging, geo-location, and social media integration to accomplish results that were previously unattainable for the small business retailer.

Flok is a fantastic example of a product that gives local retailers digital technology that allows them to execute a merchant engagement solution far more effectively than a big box retailer could ever possibly achieve.  Local retailers are part of the community and can more effectively engage their customers in ways that are impossible from a big box retailer's marketing department.

So local retailers, what are you waiting for? User-friendly, powerful mobile tools are out there that will help you grow your business. Most are available at a cost that is a fraction of what you pay for your home cable bill ... and they work. No better time to start than now!

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #5: Loyalty Programs

The way your customers earn rewards is changing. . .

We’ve all been stuck behind that customer in line at the grocery store. You know, the one rifling through her purse, then her coat, and finally her keychain to produce her rewards card. We all have them. We all go through the same stages of panic as we realize— often too late — that we will need to present them at the register in order to reap the rewards. Well, those days are over. Just as the way we swipe credit cards has changed, the way businesses offer rewards has changed, and mobile loyalty programs are the new king.


I will confess that I have turned down loyalty programs in the past because I didn’t want to do two things:
1) sign up at the register and 2) add a fun-sized credit card to my keychain. Now, thanks to the mobile phone, I don’t have to do either. All of my reward cards are in one place: on my mobile device. This newfound convenience goes both ways. Not only do customers benefit from ease of use, but businesses benefit from easier access to customers. The process of getting a physical reward card involves a lot of effort from both parties. But with mobile loyalty programs, offering exclusive deals to your customers has never been easier, just as it has never been easier for customers to redeem them.

By producing repeat customers, an easy-to-use loyalty program will help your business maintain its reach in a local market. Because of the rise of applications such FourSquare and Yelp, repeat customers can also become content creators for your business. Customers are rewarded for becoming repeat customers through your program, and you are rewarded with more exposure from their check-ins and reviews. Like most of the pieces of hyperlocal marketing, it’s a win-win. Customers and businesses alike reap the benefits. Hopefully you are starting to see how all of the pieces of a hyperlocal marketing interact with one another. Alone they are strong, but together, your business becomes a digital powerhouse. Your customers have constant access to your business. This includes industry news, exclusive deals, customer news, special events, and much more. Hyperlocal marketing is a surefire way to connect with local customers, retain their business and expand yours.

Read the rest of our Hyperlocal Series:
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #4: Social Media

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #4: Social Media

Attracting local customers through social media

In recent years, social media has entered the zeitgeist of marketing. It has become imperative to have an online presence as a means of exposing customers to valuable information about businesses. Social media can be a way to inform, comment, advertise and promote. The best part? It’s free to start. A social media presence can fit into any marketing budget, and with steady monitoring, can become a personality-rich extension of your business online.

As stated early, both Facebook and Twitter are free to start. You can get an account up and running in seconds. That’s the easy part. From there you will need to develop a social media strategy. Who do you follow? What are you posting? What are you saying? Connecting with a company that offers marketing consulting will help you optimize the best plan for your business, and will open up the opportunity to engage in paid search programs to increase your reach at a cost. Both Facebook and Twitter offer paid search packages as well as the tools to analyze and optimize your strategy.

As an added bonus Twitter made a deal with Google to allow tweets to show up in Google search results. This news is huge for social media strategies, as they now double as SEO strategies. So when you expand your social media presence, you expand how well your business indexes in online search. It’s a win-win.

With a strong social media presence comes the responsibility of monitoring feedback. It is important to respond to positive comments and even more important to resolve negative comments. Both positive feedback and positive complaint resolutions can go a long way online, often times becoming the subject of subsequent content. Allowing your customers to create content is part of interacting with them, and embracing their content will help your reputation and reach grow.

Another advantage of social media is grooming accounts to be industry news aggregators. Think of your Facebook feed. We know what every member of the family and our high school class is up to. However, if we build a social media profile around a solid strategy of following industry-savvy accounts, our pages will begin to aggregate valuable news for viewers. And don’t forget, this can also be a way to monitor competitors in your industry.

Clearly, there are more advantages than disadvantages to a strong social media presence. Social media offers exposure, personality and a near-direct line to customers. While customer feedback can be negative, a good social media strategy can turn it into positive content. With the help a consulting team, a social media strategy for your small business will give you the extra reach you need to connect to customers, all while keeping you updated on industry happenings.

Read our latest hyperlocal marketing posts:
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website

What the rise of mobile search means for your business

Very quickly, let’s recap the two statistics presented in the overview of hyperlocal marketing in the first article of this series, because they provide a foundation for understanding what emphasis on the marketing strategy can do:

In 2014 (for the first time ever) there were more mobile searches than desktop searches. Furthermore, according to the Global Web Index, 80% of adults online have a smartphone, and nearly 50% have a tablet.

It doesn’t take a seasoned marketing strategist to figure this one out, but I’ll just come right out and say it: you’re going to need a responsive website. Failure to adopt a website that can scale to a mobile device is going to cut off a huge portion of potential customers. So what exactly are you giving up by not having a responsive website?

Brace yourself, here comes the numbers.
According to a Google/Nielsen study, 45% of mobile searches have goals. What kind of goals? Well, when people mobile search, they are:

30% more likely to visit a retailer’s website
57% more likely to visit a store
51% more likely to make a purchase
39% more likely to call a business

As discussed in the local directories article of this series, setting up your business online involves listing it among as many relevant business directories as possible. But it doesn’t end there. The data above tells us that those searches are going to land customers on your website. The following statistics (a store visit, a purchase or a call) are the results of optimizing your marketing strategy for mobile search.

Lastly, another (often overlooked) advantage of a responsive website is the value of the data it collects. In addition to landing goal-oriented local customers, your responsive website will yield more detailed search analytics—the perfect ammunition for getting the greatest return on investment for your marketing budget. The collection of data such as how often the website is visited, how long it’s visited, how much new traffic versus repeat traffic and from which devices it is being accessed (mobile, tablet, desktop, etc.) is going to be very valuable in the hands of marketing consultants who can help you test and optimize the best hyperlocal marketing strategy for your business.

At the end of the day, failing to embrace mobile search will result in your business missing out on a large percentage of prospective customers. A hyperlocal strategy that fully optimizes the power of a responsive website is going to yield much more customers than the local competition. And this isn’t just hearsay on a company blog, this is marketing strategy based on easy-to-understand data. You don’t need to be a statistician or an analytics specialist to crack this code. The writing is on the wall: A responsive website is a necessary tool for attracting local customers.

Check out the other stories in our Hyperlocal Series:

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories

The importance of online business listings

Let’s face it, in your quest to find some nearby Chinese takeout you’re not reaching for the yellow pages. You’re going to search online. In today’s world, coming up in online search results grounds your business in the reality of your customers. It’s how your company can be right in front of your customers at any given time. And without overwhelming name recognition, a strong presence on local directories is your ticket to the local market.


The first step toward encompassing this type of hyperlocal marketing is making sure your business is listed on Yelp, Google My Business and Bing Places. It might sound like common sense, but it’s important to add the right details to your business profiles. Keep in mind these listings will provide a way for customers to become acquainted with your business, and because they might be their first impression, you’re going to want more than a picture of your storefront and a sentence. Be sure to include the necessary information for search optimization, such as location and phone number. Consider these profiles like the windows to your storefront. Your customers aren’t going to come inside an empty building, and they certainly aren’t going to entertain a hollow business listing.

Another bonus to listing and monitoring your listings—one that couples perfectly with a strong hyperlocal marketing strategy—is that your business will index better in local-based searches. It’s an ideal way to capitalize on your locale and become a household name in your community without a large marketing budget. To maximize this local advantage you must monitor your listings on directories, especially customer reviews. Online reviews weigh heavily toward how your business ranks in search results. They are an often overlooked piece of hyperlocal strategy.

All in all, taking advantage of local directories can drastically improve your customer base in a specific location. If you don’t, other businesses will—surely outperforming your local reach. If you want to connect with the customers closest and most likely to revisit you, look into adopting a marketing strategy that includes a strong hyperlocal approach.

Read our latest hyperlocal marketing posts:
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers

What is Hyperlocal Marketing?

Simply put, hyperlocal marketing is marketing oriented to a defined geographic area—usually a local region, town, community, etc. The idea is to attract local customers and turn them into repeat customers. Hyperlocal marketing has been a part of business since the inception of business itself. While it initially existed as yellow pages, newspapers and direct mail, the term has taken on new meaning in the digital era. Basically, the popularity of search engines coupled with the ubiquity of mobile phones has shifted the marketing landscape to give the power of hyperlocal marketing back to small businesses. Understanding how this digital landscape works will help you connect with and retain your customers.

Search Drives Hyperlocal Marketing

At one time, if you wanted to find a business you checked the yellow pages. Thanks to the internet, that norm has shifted to search. People rely on online search for everything. Directions, dating advice, a wedding photographer, medical diagnoses, an easy hollandaise recipe and much, much more. This is why it’s imperative to have an online presence regardless of your industry. Indexing online is going to help you connect with customers both far and—more importantly—near.

So how does search—the driving force of hyperlocal marketing—interact with the rise of mobile phones?

Well, in 2014 (for the first time ever) there were more mobile searches than desktop searches. Furthermore, according to the Global Web Index, 80% of adults online have a smartphone, and nearly 50% have a tablet. The shift to mobile search has ushered in a new era of online presence. An era that not only requires a website, but a responsive one that can be accessed on a smartphone or tablet. Accounting for your customers finding your business on a mobile device is now a crucial piece of any successful marketing strategy, and one that can be harnessed by small businesses.

So how can a small business implement hyperlocal marketing in today’s marketing landscape?

This series will cover the four best ways to utilize hyperlocal marketing for your business: local directories, social media, responsive websites and loyalty programs.

Read the next article in our Hyperlocal Series: Local Directories