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