Latest / Financial Survival Network / One-Star Reviews, Five-Star Sales - DJ Sprague and Scott Brandley #6267

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One-Star Reviews, Five-Star Sales - DJ Sprague and Scott Brandley #6267 · Financial Survival Network

0:00
Speaker 1: Because people trust brands more when they display actual, true
0:06
Speaker 1: negative reviews from real customers, because then they know they're
0:09
Speaker 1: not gaming it. So if they see some real negative
0:12
Speaker 1: reviews from real customers that don't manipulate like you said,
0:14
Speaker 1: where it's a negative but it's a positive, then they
0:17
Speaker 1: trust the company more, and they trust the other reviews
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Speaker 1: more because if they only see five star reviews, there's
0:23
Speaker 1: no way. There's no perfect company. Yeah, there's no five
0:25
Speaker 1: star company, right, we all know that. But if you
0:27
Speaker 1: only show five star reviews and a five star rating,
0:30
Speaker 1: your trust goes out the window.
0:31
Speaker 2: You're listening to Carrie.
0:33
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0:37
Speaker 3: just can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times.
0:41
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0:46
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0:59
Speaker 2: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
1:02
Speaker 2: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, when it
1:06
Speaker 2: comes to reputation, when it comes to buying online or
1:10
Speaker 2: buying in a store, reputation is everything. And if you're
1:15
Speaker 2: in business and you're doing well, the odds are you
1:19
Speaker 2: have a good reputation and why is that important? Well?
1:24
Speaker 2: DJ Sprague, Scott Brandy, two experts in the space, are
1:30
Speaker 2: here with us now to really explore this. And Scott,
1:34
Speaker 2: you mentioned when you're buying some gold and silver from
1:38
Speaker 2: a company you don't know, reputation is everything because you've
1:42
Speaker 2: got to send your money to that dealer before you
1:47
Speaker 2: even get the stuff shipped, and they're going to hold
1:50
Speaker 2: your money for at least a week to make sure
1:53
Speaker 2: you can't back out the ach or the wire transfer.
1:57
Speaker 2: So determining a company's reputation is everything, and it's not
2:02
Speaker 2: just as simple as doing a Google search, is right.
2:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are a lot of brought out there, right,
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Speaker 4: and especially when it comes to gold and silver high
2:15
Speaker 4: ticket items. You know, there's a lot of shady characters
2:20
Speaker 4: and businesses that will take your money and not give
2:23
Speaker 4: you what you actually wanted. So one of the most
2:26
Speaker 4: important things you can look for is trust signals, and
2:31
Speaker 4: one of those one of the biggest things there is
2:33
Speaker 4: ratings and reviews, which is kind of what we.
2:36
Speaker 2: Do all right, So ratings reviews. My son almost got
2:41
Speaker 2: a job one time with this company called Trust pilot
2:45
Speaker 2: much bigger in Europe than in the United States, but
2:48
Speaker 2: they seem to be catching on here in the United States.
2:51
Speaker 2: But you need to be your own trust pilot, right
2:54
Speaker 2: You need to figure out the trust even in the
2:56
Speaker 2: absence of others who say you can trust this person
3:00
Speaker 2: or company.
3:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there needs to be especially when it comes
3:05
Speaker 4: to high ticket items like golden silver, you really need
3:09
Speaker 4: to look for a third party rating and review company
3:12
Speaker 4: that is trustworthy.
3:14
Speaker 2: And there are there's.
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Speaker 4: A few that I would recommend, including us, but there's
3:23
Speaker 4: also a lot that I wouldn't recommend. And there's different
3:29
Speaker 4: things you can look for on it as far as
3:32
Speaker 4: ratings and reviews go, so that you know if you
3:34
Speaker 4: can trust a company or not.
3:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I would just say when it comes to
3:39
Speaker 2: buying gold and silver, I'm going to do this a plug.
3:42
Speaker 2: He's not a sponsor, but we do. He is an affiliate.
3:46
Speaker 2: I'm an affiliate marketer of his, and that is Miles Franklin.
3:53
Speaker 2: I know Andy Shackman, personal friend of mine, been working
3:56
Speaker 2: with him for going on fifteen years. And if you
3:59
Speaker 2: look up the company Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, you
4:04
Speaker 2: will find that he's never had a Better Business complaint
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Speaker 2: in thirty five years, and he's never had a lawsuit
4:12
Speaker 2: during that time. So if you're looking for third party
4:16
Speaker 2: validation and you're thinking of buying gold, you get over
4:20
Speaker 2: to Miles Franklin dot com and you tell them that
4:22
Speaker 2: I sent you, so I can make a couple bucks too.
4:25
Speaker 2: But because I know, and I crafted this this tagline
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Speaker 2: for him, which is when you buy, they ship, because
4:35
Speaker 2: the jails are full of gold, gold, and silver fraudsters
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Speaker 2: stealing your money and never shipping. So anyway, I'm just
4:42
Speaker 2: putting that plug in for Andy, and he's, like I said,
4:47
Speaker 2: great friend, totally honest, above board. How many How do
4:52
Speaker 2: you find people like me to give companies recommendations like that? Guys?
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Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, it's it's tricky. That is a form of trust, right,
5:03
Speaker 4: A personal recommendation from an expert is a form of trust.
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Speaker 4: The Better Business Bureau, the fact that he didn't have
5:09
Speaker 4: he hasn't had any complaints, that's a form of trust.
5:14
Speaker 4: And so you just got to look for those kind
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Speaker 4: of things when you're buying online.
5:19
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you want to look at multiple review platforms too.
5:23
Speaker 1: There's a lot of companies that collect their own reviews,
5:26
Speaker 1: and by collecting their own reviews, they're also able to
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Speaker 1: delete any review they don't like, so you'll see only
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Speaker 1: four and five star reviews, are only five star reviews,
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Speaker 1: and all of the less than perfect reviews are deleted.
5:43
Speaker 1: So you want to make sure that if you're collecting
5:45
Speaker 1: ratings reviews as a website or e commerce store, you're
5:49
Speaker 1: working with a Google review partner, because as a Google
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Speaker 1: review partner, you cannot delete the negative reviews and that's
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Speaker 1: a big, big form of trust. And also working with
6:01
Speaker 1: a Google review partner like shopper Approved, you'll plug for us.
6:06
Speaker 1: We have a unique ability to send reviews to other
6:08
Speaker 1: review platforms like trust Pilot, like Better Business Bureau, like
6:12
Speaker 1: recelerating site Jabber, etc. So that your reputation can be
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Speaker 1: distributed across the web and not just on your own website.
6:23
Speaker 1: And we like to say that if you only have
6:25
Speaker 1: reviews on your website and nowhere else, then they're basically
6:28
Speaker 1: an island and nobody sees those reviews unless they go
6:31
Speaker 1: to your website. But then the question is can they
6:34
Speaker 1: believe those reviews if they're not also showing up on
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Speaker 1: other platforms. So those are some good trust signals and
6:40
Speaker 1: Scott and I wrote a book called Reputation King that
6:44
Speaker 1: talks all about the review industry and how to leverage reviews,
6:48
Speaker 1: how to create a positive online reputation, how to syndicate
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Speaker 1: reviews across the web, and how to really make sure
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Speaker 1: that you're putting your best foot forward, not in a
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Speaker 1: contrived and manipulated way, but in a positive and accurate way.
7:02
Speaker 2: Okay, so you know like websites like Yelp, right, they
7:10
Speaker 2: do restaurant reviews, right, and you know then they're playing
7:14
Speaker 2: the other end where oh you want to get rid
7:17
Speaker 2: of them, you know, by a sponsorship here advertised with Yelp.
7:23
Speaker 2: You know, I remember Amazon. There's a group that I
7:27
Speaker 2: knew that was attempting to manipulate the the review mechanism
7:33
Speaker 2: there and using people in China, virtual private networks, all
7:37
Speaker 2: of this, and for a time it worked. They were
7:39
Speaker 2: doing amazing, but then they were dumb. They had a
7:43
Speaker 2: private Facebook group where people swapped reviews about products and services.
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Speaker 2: Amazon I think it was Facebook routed them out to Amazon.
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Speaker 2: They wound up getting sued and that was the end
7:56
Speaker 2: of their course. But they made several million dollars in
7:59
Speaker 2: the process. US reviews are tricky, but a lot of
8:04
Speaker 2: the site's reputations rely upon these reviews and they police them. Yelp,
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Speaker 2: I take those reviews with a grain of salt, because
8:14
Speaker 2: you could get a lousy meal at the best restaurant
8:18
Speaker 2: on the planet and you write a lousy review, and
8:21
Speaker 2: what does that tell you?
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Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, well, Carrie, you're up to something. There's actually
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Speaker 4: two different types of review platforms online and most consumers
8:29
Speaker 4: don't know that, but you just talk to that. So
8:32
Speaker 4: there's open review platforms where anyone can leave a review,
8:35
Speaker 4: like yelp or trust pilot, and then there's verified review
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Speaker 4: platforms where only people that actually buy from.
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Speaker 2: That company can leave a review.
8:44
Speaker 4: And consumers aren't aware that there's two different types of
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Speaker 4: platform and so they do go to places like yelp
8:50
Speaker 4: or trust pilot, and it's kind of a mixed bag.
8:53
Speaker 4: Like you were saying, like you just don't know if
8:56
Speaker 4: those reviews are manipulated, if their competitor is actually review
9:00
Speaker 4: bombing them, right, or if they're paying, like you said,
9:05
Speaker 4: to these other third party companies to actually add fake
9:09
Speaker 4: reviews to their account. So you have to be really careful.
9:12
Speaker 1: Well, the other part of that with Yelp specifically, and
9:14
Speaker 1: they've been sued multiple times. You can look this up.
9:17
Speaker 1: It's public information. But unfortunately the courts always side in
9:22
Speaker 1: their favor because they say, look, it's a private enterprise.
9:25
Speaker 1: They have a private, proprietary review algorithm, and we can't
9:29
Speaker 1: control it. The courts cannot control their private algorithm. The
9:32
Speaker 1: way their algorithm works is if you're paying client, then
9:36
Speaker 1: the negative reviews are weighted less in the algorithm and
9:40
Speaker 1: the positive reviews are waited more in the algorithm. The
9:42
Speaker 1: minute you stop paying, literally immediately, it swaps. The negative
9:47
Speaker 1: reviews are weighted more in the algorithm and the positive
9:50
Speaker 1: reviews waited less. So it's literally the mafia. It's the
9:54
Speaker 1: review mafia. You have to pay to play, and that's
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Speaker 1: how Yelp works, and that's just what it is.
10:00
Speaker 2: And if you're a restaurant, you almost have no choice. Now.
10:03
Speaker 2: One thing, guys, when I look at a series of reviews,
10:06
Speaker 2: I don't like to see all good reviews, okay, so
10:13
Speaker 2: giving one lousy review can really enhance the credibility of
10:18
Speaker 2: all the positive reviews. And some of these guys are
10:22
Speaker 2: really sneaky because they will write a negative review, a
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Speaker 2: three star review in the most positive of terms, like
10:31
Speaker 2: you know, even though I didn't like the product that much,
10:34
Speaker 2: they were always on me with customer service, responding positively
10:40
Speaker 2: and doing everything that a company should do. So it's
10:44
Speaker 2: called like damning them with faint praise or the opposite
10:48
Speaker 2: of that, which I don't know what it is, but
10:50
Speaker 2: elevating them with faint criticism. I guess it's.
10:55
Speaker 1: Interesting you mentioned that, Karrie, because there's a couple of studies.
10:58
Speaker 1: One study found that when people read negative reviews, they
11:03
Speaker 1: convert at a seventy nine percent greater conversion right. Another
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Speaker 1: one says that when people read the complete negative reviews,
11:12
Speaker 1: they convert at one hundred and eighteen percent higher conversion rate.
11:16
Speaker 1: Why is that Because people trust brands more when they
11:21
Speaker 1: display actual, true negative reviews from real customers, because then
11:26
Speaker 1: they know they're not gaming it. So if they see
11:28
Speaker 1: some real negative reviews from real customers that don't manipulate
11:32
Speaker 1: like you said, where it's a negative but it's a positive,
11:35
Speaker 1: then they trust the company more, and they trust the
11:37
Speaker 1: other reviews more because if they only see five star reviews,
11:40
Speaker 1: there's no way there's no perfect company. Yeah, there's no
11:43
Speaker 1: five star company, right, We all know that. But if
11:45
Speaker 1: you only show five star reviews and a five star rating,
11:48
Speaker 1: your trust goes out the window. In fact, research says
11:51
Speaker 1: that the sweet spot is an average star rating between
11:55
Speaker 1: four point two and four, and that's really where you
11:58
Speaker 1: want to be. You don't want to have a perfect
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Speaker 1: five star rating.
12:00
Speaker 2: No, it's so true because it's a credibility builder and
12:06
Speaker 2: people don't like perfection. But yeah, so let's talk about
12:16
Speaker 2: just thinking about that. Like company like Overstock, it's not
12:19
Speaker 2: unusual to see products listed on their website to have
12:27
Speaker 2: lousy reviews like twos or threes, you know, And to me,
12:31
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, that that is the ultimate credibility builder
12:36
Speaker 2: because then when I see there's one hundred four and
12:39
Speaker 2: a half store four point eight store reviews, a much
12:43
Speaker 2: more app to believe it. Yeah, you and everybody else. Yeah,
12:46
Speaker 2: it's really the way it works.
12:47
Speaker 1: And here's the other check about negative reviews, Carrie, is
12:50
Speaker 1: respond to every negative review because people look at negative
12:54
Speaker 1: reviews almost more than they look at positive reviews because
12:57
Speaker 1: they want to see how bad is bad? Is the
12:59
Speaker 1: product absolutely deplorable or did it just arrived in a
13:04
Speaker 1: you know, torn up package, but the product is great?
13:07
Speaker 1: They want to see how bad it is and what
13:08
Speaker 1: they can expect. But what they really want to see
13:11
Speaker 1: is how did the brand respond to that review or
13:14
Speaker 1: that complaint or that criticism. And if you have let's
13:17
Speaker 1: say ten negative reviews and you don't respond to any
13:20
Speaker 1: of them, then the consumer thinks, oh, they're not a
13:22
Speaker 1: responsive customer centric brand. But if, on the other hand,
13:26
Speaker 1: the brand responds to those and say, hey, Carrie, sorry
13:28
Speaker 1: that the package arrived, you know, in a damaged box.
13:32
Speaker 1: Will ship you out another one or whatever, you know,
13:35
Speaker 1: We'll take care of you. However, many nine percent of
13:38
Speaker 1: our clients are very happy. Look at our positive reviews,
13:41
Speaker 1: our three two hundred and twelve positive renews, So you
13:45
Speaker 1: flip that. But the main thing is the customer wants
13:48
Speaker 1: to know how bad is bad, and the brand is
13:51
Speaker 1: actually reading, listening and acknowledging it responding to those issues.
13:56
Speaker 1: If they goost those customers, then people feel, well, fiber.
14:00
Speaker 2: Problem, I can take care of me either. So it's
14:03
Speaker 2: really important to resland totally. So you know, one review
14:08
Speaker 2: that I see, one negative review that I see is
14:11
Speaker 2: the crank. The crank negative review where you know, the
14:15
Speaker 2: guy is just annoying and he's not going to be
14:19
Speaker 2: happy with anything or she for that matter. And that's
14:23
Speaker 2: also a credibility builder because you read it and you say, well,
14:27
Speaker 2: if that's the worst somebody had to say, that ain't
14:31
Speaker 2: so bad, and then and then that actually enhances the
14:38
Speaker 2: credibility of the company.
14:40
Speaker 1: Right, that's exactly right. People complain about the most ridiculous things.
14:45
Speaker 1: You see reviews all the time and one star rating
14:47
Speaker 1: because it arrived the day later than they thought of
14:49
Speaker 1: what was going to arrive a one neighbor house, right, God, yeah,
14:54
Speaker 1: left at my neighbor's house.
14:55
Speaker 2: Like, hey, they're not ups, they're not the post office.
14:58
Speaker 2: They shipped it to you. I got it eventually, What
15:01
Speaker 2: are you bitching about? Right?
15:02
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, And that's one of the reasons people read
15:06
Speaker 1: negative reviews for those things like really, is it the
15:08
Speaker 1: product or is it the ups or or the call?
15:11
Speaker 2: It is her?
15:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, the or the customer? Is it the person at
15:14
Speaker 1: a bad day?
15:16
Speaker 2: So what are some real red flags though that you
15:18
Speaker 2: look at and reviews and online reputation and you say, no, Moss,
15:24
Speaker 2: skip this one. We don't want to know about them.
15:26
Speaker 4: Well, I would say not if you if a if
15:30
Speaker 4: a company has very few reviews or if they don't
15:33
Speaker 4: have reviews from a third a trusted third party site,
15:37
Speaker 4: that's a big red flag. You want to find a
15:41
Speaker 4: company that has a lot of reviews. And the second
15:45
Speaker 4: thing we talked about, you don't want a company with
15:48
Speaker 4: just five stars. You want to have some a company
15:51
Speaker 4: that's got somewhere between, like you just said, four point
15:54
Speaker 4: two to four point seven, and you want to look
15:57
Speaker 4: at the one stars and make sure that they're responding
16:01
Speaker 4: the companies responding to those one stars, and that they're
16:04
Speaker 4: showing some empathy and really trying to help those clients.
16:09
Speaker 4: If it's just you know, just a plug, you know,
16:13
Speaker 4: automatic response type thing that doesn't do any good either, right,
16:18
Speaker 4: you want you want to make sure that they're actually
16:20
Speaker 4: taking time to write a custom response to those one
16:24
Speaker 4: and two star reviews. And then also triangulate, you want
16:29
Speaker 4: to do a search for that company online, so ABC
16:33
Speaker 4: dot com reviews and see if they have what their
16:37
Speaker 4: views look like on other review platforms that pop up,
16:40
Speaker 4: and if it's consistent across the board and they have
16:42
Speaker 4: a lot of really good reviews in that range and
16:45
Speaker 4: they're taking care of their clients, it's a trustworthy company.
16:48
Speaker 2: All right. And hey, can you name a company that
16:52
Speaker 2: like manipulated all the algorithms and everything and really put
16:56
Speaker 2: one over on the clients and the customers and you
17:00
Speaker 2: almost got away with murder.
17:01
Speaker 1: There's lots of lawsuits about that. As you know, you
17:04
Speaker 1: mentioned Amazon earlier. A lot of people have sued companies, well,
17:09
Speaker 1: the the uh, it's actually illegal.
17:12
Speaker 2: It's it's illegal advertising.
17:14
Speaker 1: It's manipulative advertising to bury negative reviews and only show
17:19
Speaker 1: positive reviews. If you're caught, you could literally be sued
17:23
Speaker 1: for that for false advertising, manipulating the consumer into thinking
17:28
Speaker 1: you have a better product than you really do. We
17:30
Speaker 1: don't want to mention brands, but there's lots of brands
17:32
Speaker 1: that have that have tried that. And you know that
17:34
Speaker 1: Amazon is constantly trying to identify and penalize or kick
17:39
Speaker 1: off the platform companies that manipulate the reviews, buy reviews,
17:44
Speaker 1: et cetera from people that weren't even customers, because it's
17:47
Speaker 1: a real big problem. So you know, you got to
17:51
Speaker 1: look at that. But you also, here's the other trick
17:53
Speaker 1: key thing, Kerry, is there's also been a situations where
17:57
Speaker 1: a brand took a position, a political position, religious position, whatever,
18:04
Speaker 1: they took a position, and then the opponent, you know,
18:09
Speaker 1: the party or the group or the religious group or
18:13
Speaker 1: what have you that didn't like that position bomb bass
18:16
Speaker 1: that company even though they didn't buy from that company,
18:20
Speaker 1: and they kind of get on their little phone trees
18:22
Speaker 1: and email trees and say, hey, leave a negative review
18:25
Speaker 1: for you know, ABC dot com because they said this
18:29
Speaker 1: and they don't support that. And that's the problem with
18:32
Speaker 1: open review platforms is it become a complaint board for
18:35
Speaker 1: people that aren't even real customers. So when we say
18:38
Speaker 1: a verified review platform, you really want to work with
18:41
Speaker 1: a platform that collects reviews from verified customers, which means
18:44
Speaker 1: post purchase, they actually purchase the product, then they get
18:49
Speaker 1: the opportunity to leave a review. But if you can
18:51
Speaker 1: go to trust Pilot, for example, and not even be
18:55
Speaker 1: a customer and leave a negative review or a positive review,
18:58
Speaker 1: is there any validity in that? Is there any credibility whatsoever?
19:01
Speaker 1: If you don't have to show proof of purchase, it's
19:04
Speaker 1: just an opinion. It's not really a review because there's
19:08
Speaker 1: no proof of purchase behind that review. So those are
19:11
Speaker 1: some of the things.
19:11
Speaker 2: You gotta look at, all, right, And yeah, you see
19:15
Speaker 2: that on Amazon unverified, or you know verified purchase and
19:21
Speaker 2: you know you want to see that they really did business,
19:25
Speaker 2: So all right, right as well, Hey, how do we
19:27
Speaker 2: find out more about you? How do we get your book?
19:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, go to Reputation King dot com and you can
19:33
Speaker 1: download the free audio and video version of the book.
19:37
Speaker 1: You can also buy the book for twenty dollars. We
19:39
Speaker 1: ship the hard copy book with some other fun goodies.
19:43
Speaker 1: Twenty bucks include shipping, handling the book the whole bit,
19:47
Speaker 1: or you can download the digital audio copy. You can
19:49
Speaker 1: also go to shop or approve dot com and learn
19:51
Speaker 1: more about our verified rating review platform or a Google
19:56
Speaker 1: and being review partner, so we send a eight our
20:00
Speaker 1: reviews to both the search engines Google and bangsh helping
20:03
Speaker 1: your Google ads, your organic listings, your Google shopping, et cetera.
20:07
Speaker 1: And we wrote the first and only book in the
20:10
Speaker 1: entire world on e commerce reputation management because that's what we.
20:14
Speaker 2: Do and it's in our DNA. All right, Well, we appreciated. Hey.
20:19
Speaker 2: Link is in the show notes this interview on Financial
20:22
Speaker 2: Survival Network dot com and make sure when you go
20:26
Speaker 2: there you sign up for your free newsletter. Like seventy
20:29
Speaker 2: five thousand other FSN numbers have done. I think close
20:32
Speaker 2: to seventy five thousand and If you're getting questions for
20:36
Speaker 2: myself or the guys, here kl at Carrie LUTs dot
20:39
Speaker 2: com is the email address. Appreciate you guys coming on.
20:43
Speaker 2: DJ and Scott wish you the best. Thanks Gerry, thanks.
20:46
Speaker 3: For listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your solution
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Speaker 3: to today's trying times. For the latest, go to Financial
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Speaker 3: Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,