I’ve always felt that being as honest and transparent as possible with our clients was the best way to deal with things. If we have issues, which like every company we do, then we need to “own” them and address them.
Hosting isn’t a terribly “sexy” business, but for a lot of our clients the services we offer are crucial to their business. Stuff will go wrong from time to time and anyone pretending that it won’t is in denial. However it’s how we, or any other company, deal with customer service issues that will make the difference between being a “good” company to deal with and being a nightmare.
People buy products and services based on recommendations. A recommendation from a friend, relative or colleague will usually hold more weight than one from a stranger. And if you’re a business reviews can have a tangible impact on your bottom line.
What have we been doing?
For the last 10+ years we’ve published some reviews and testimonials from clients on our site. We’ve always asked people to be honest and have never expected anyone to give glowing positive testimonials. But when we control whose views are published the level of transparency and honesty will naturally drop. We aren’t misleading anyone, but we are filtering the reviews, either consciously or subconsciously. Browse any business websites where there are testimonials and you’ll see what I mean. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would voluntarily publish a negative review on their testimonials page.
We are changing that.
We’ve engaged with TrustPilot and are now encouraging clients to post honest reviews about our services and their experiences with us.
Will all the reviews be positive?
Of course not. It would be unrealistic to expect everyone to be 100% happy with any company’s services 100% of the time. Speaking from personal experience I am a loyal client of a particular airline. Am I always happy with them? Of course not, but I remain loyal to them because they know how to resolve my issues properly when they arise.
Why are we doing this?
As I’ve outlined above there are several strong business reasons for displaying reviews on our site and elsewhere. The key thing is that the reviews need to be trustworthy and genuine. Using a trusted 3rd party like TrustPilot means that people will know that what they’re seeing is “real” and not fabricated.
It’ll be interesting to see how this impacts our bottom line.