Customers tend to be very careful when searching for financial advisory services. They do what it takes to find the best financial advisor out there, from performing extensive online research to reading through threads of service or product reviews. After all, it’s their hard-earned money at stake.
As online financial advisors, it pays to remember that your entire business relies on your reputation – and reputations today are primarily built and maintained online. If you’re not actively monitoring what people are saying about you, you’re putting your reputation and customer trust at risk.
Learning how to ask a customer for a review and how to respond to a customer review are some of the fundamentals of solid financial advisor reputation management. You’re off to a great start if you’ve been doing this already, but you should know that there are ways to do it better and obtain even greater results.
Ready to ramp up your online review management? Let’s take a look at the basics of reputation management for financial advisors along with tips on monitoring reviews for online financial advisors.
What Is Review Management?
Review management is one of the strategies in online marketing financial advisors can benefit from the most. It is the process of overseeing reviews left by customers about your business on online review sites like Google, Yelp and Facebook. This is done to resolve customer issues promptly, address fake reviews early on and, ultimately, build credibility.
Reviews greatly impact the way your business is perceived, so managing them is a crucial task in financial advisor online reputation management.
Given this definition, what is review management for financial advisors? This overwhelming yet worthwhile endeavor is your chance to paint your financial advisory services in the best light and make it easy for prospects to trust you.
Tips for Successful Financial Advisor Online Reputation Management
There’s no single correct strategy in online marketing financial advisors need to follow. Feel free to explore which strategies work best for you, but you can get inspiration from the following tips if you aren’t sure how to get started:
How To Track Reviews and Comments
Check Existing Reviews About Your Services
Smart financial advisor reputation management starts with understanding how much work needs to be done. To do this, you need to know the following:
- What your reviews look like
- What clients say they like and dislike about your practice
- How much positive, relevant and updated content comes up when searching for your name
You can get this information by searching for your financial advising business online. Read through the first two pages of your Google search results and take note of all the content that appears about your practice.
Monitor Your Mentions Across Online Platforms
When doing online marketing, financial advisors must stay on top of conversations about their services. However, it’s understandable that you won’t always have the time to run Google searches of your name to do this.
An efficient way to handle this task is to set up Google Alerts. This is a notification service you can customize to receive email alerts when someone mentions you online. Utilizing this simple financial advisor reputation management tool makes it easier to track mentions across various online platforms, engage with your customers and remain in control of your reputation.
How To Ask a Customer for a Review
Whether you’re recovering from the damages of a negative financial advisor review or maintaining a healthy online reputation, you should do more than monitor existing feedback; you also need to ask your customers for reviews.
Many online financial planners and advisors hesitate to ask for reviews as the task can seem self-serving. But remember: Giving your customers a platform to voice out their opinions makes them feel important and helps you enhance your brand’s image in the process.
If you’re ready to seize this win-win situation, here are smart tips on how to ask a customer for a review:
- Ask for a financial advisor review right after you’ve performed the service. In this way, their experience with your business is still fresh.
- Provide clear yet short instructions in your email request or survey. Lengthy requests or questionnaires discourage customers from leaving reviews.
- If you don’t have the resources to handle this task, consider enlisting review generation services. Experts in online reputation management (ORM) use the right financial advisor reputation management tool to help you generate reviews.
How To Respond to a Customer Review
What is review management without a solid review response strategy? Now that you know where to find existing mentions and how to ask a customer for a review, it’s time to up your game when it comes to engaging your service reviewers with the following tips.
Learn How To Thank a Customer for a Review Genuinely
Whenever you encounter a positive financial advisor review, remember that a customer took the time to say something nice about you. Never leave them hanging; make sure they know you appreciate their feedback.
Keep these pointers in mind when replying to good reviews:
- You may be the best financial advisor out there, but don’t take these praises for granted. Respond to each one.
- Thank the reviewer as soon as you can to express that you value their effort and time.
- Nobody likes to read lengthy responses, so keep your message short and sweet.
Lastly, when you’re learning how to thank a customer for a review, remember your messages should always have a human touch. Avoid sending automated responses. Always strive to send personalized and authentic responses.
Never Argue Online
Learning how to thank a customer for a review should be the least of your worries. Dealing with negative comments is the real challenge.
It’s tempting to argue or answer back to clients who have shared less-than-stellar comments about you. But remember that what’s posted on the internet can be immortalized, and engaging in online arguments can further stain your name.
Smart online financial advisors take the time to step away, breathe and look at the situation objectively before responding. Some online financial planners also consult their ORM specialists on the best way to handle negative reviews professionally.
Be Careful When Replying to Negative Reviews
Whether you have an ORM specialist to deal with critical reviews for you or not, it helps to know these best practices when responding to negative feedback:
- Respond quickly. Make resolving every negative financial advisor review your priority. As online financial planners, promptly responding to critical feedback shows people you take your business and your clients seriously.
- Acknowledge your customer’s poor experience. Recognizing your customer’s concern – and apologizing for it – gets you closer to a resolution while preventing further conflicts. Ultimately, it demonstrates your professionalism and business ethics.
- Take the discussion elsewhere. The best and worst thing about online reviews is that everyone can see them. Considering this, you can offer to further address a customer’s concerns on a private platform convenient for them.
Receiving a negative financial advisor review is never a pleasant experience. Nevertheless, remember that the right response and attitude can turn these unflattering comments into marketing wins for your business.
More Smart Tips for Online Reputation Management
Other than knowing how to respond to a customer review professionally, here are more ways you can enhance your online brand and inspire customer confidence:
- Feature the Best Reviews
Get the most out of the positive reviews you receive by featuring them on your website or other digital marketing platforms. This is an effective way to further establish yourself as the best financial advisor for your customers’ needs.
- Keep Your Social Media Profiles Updated
Potential clients also look at social media profiles when searching for online financial advisors. Considering this, take the time to keep your profiles up to date. Having a neglected social profile gives the negative impression that you’re inaccessible or that you don’t care about your social media presence at all, pushing prospects away.
- Hire an Online Reputation Management Specialist
If your core responsibilities don’t allow you to closely monitor your online reputation, it’s best to seek help from ORM specialists. These professionals use effective financial advisor reputation management software programs and strategies to bolster your reputation.
Boost Your Financial Advisory Services With Smart Online Review Management
Every business is unique, and the tactics in online marketing financial advisors leverage are bound to differ across practices. But one thing is true for all advisors: Aside from delivering top-notch financial advisory services, you need to generate positive conversations around your brand to grow your business. Consequently, you must market your brand to inspire customer confidence and attract high-intent customers.
But while business growth requires solid online marketing, financial advisors are bound to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations that make online reputation management quite a complex undertaking. If you need help overcoming this part of the process, we’re the team to call.
At Rize, we implement SEC-compliant ORM solutions to help you navigate the industry regulations. Our ORM experts also use robust financial advisor reputation management software to ensure all your online activities enhance your brand.
Send us a message or call us at 866-325-0303. We’d love to help you get more reviews, respond to customer feedback efficiently and build trust with your followers.
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