Sitelink and Reputation.com recently concluded their first joint webinar that revealed how self-storage companies can boost their online reviews to grow their businesses.

The webinar — which featured Reputation.com’s Chief Product Officer, Pascal Bensoussan, as its speaker — explored how review volume and search rankings are vital to the success of a self-storage business. 

Without high search rankings, prospective customers can’t find you online. And if they do find your business, the reviews and star ratings have to be on par, if not better than, your competitor’s — if they’re not, then you’ve lost a customer.

Here are three more insights that can help your self-storage company improve its online reviews and reputation.

1. Your Reputation is Front and Center, Whether You Like It Or Not

When a prospective customer searches online for your storage facility or on their mobile device, your reviews and star ratings show in search results — putting your reputation front and center.

This quick glance at your online reputation also helps expedite a customer’s decision to visit your location or one that has better star ratings.

In order to help customers choose you, you should monitor, manage, and track your online reviews. You need to know if negative reviews have been posted about your business on review sites or social networks, and address them in a timely manner.

You can do this by using an Online Reputation Management platform.  A platform can send you notifications that alert you to changes in your star ratings or when a new review has been posted.

This ensures that a strong online reputation shows in search results and helps drive customers to your business.

2. Your Reviews and Star Ratings Stand Between Your Marketing Efforts and New Customers

Before your self-storage company launches a marketing campaign, you should take stock of your online reputation.

The reason: Unaddressed negative reviews or worse, no reviews at all, will quickly deter new customers from visiting your location.

If you haven’t responded to negative reviews or if you haven’t taken the time to build your review volume, then it won’t matter how targeted or strategic your marketing campaign is, you’ve already lost potential customers.

In order to avoid wasting your marketing spend and efforts, you should launch a process for requesting reviews from all of your customers and ensure that they show on the review sites that are relevant to your business.

Additionally, you should have your locations respond to negative reviews with care to show that they’re engaged with the local community and responsive to feedback.

Then, you can launch a marketing campaign that will drive potential customers back to your business online and show that you value your customers’ opinions.

3. Online Reputation Management Requires Organizational Buy In

Some businesses may find that their employees or managers push back on monitoring their online reputation.

Surfacing negative reviews can seem as if you’re pointing out the locations that have weaker reputations. However, that’s not the goal of Online Reputation Management.

The feedback gained from monitoring reviews can be used to make strategic, effective operational improvements that will enhance the customer experience.  

Position using Online Reputation Management as an opportunity to address concerns that are impacting the business, and empower your locations to use information from both positive and negative reviews to make changes that will drive customer satisfaction and ultimately revenue.

Watch the recording to get more invaluable insights from the Sitelink/Reputation.com webinar.