Com­pet­i­tive Analy­sis - Read­ing Your On­line Re­views Is Not Enough!

You know how im­por­tant on­line re­views are for your business’s rep­u­ta­tion, but it’s not just your re­views that you need to be mon­i­tor­ing. While your re­views can give you good in­sight into the minds of your most out­spo­ken cus­tomers, your com­peti­tors’ re­views can do the same.

When you’re com­pet­ing for the same clients, com­pet­i­tive analy­sis is es­sen­tial, es­pe­cially when it comes to on­line re­views. Here are some things to keep in mind.

An­a­lyz­ing Com­peti­tor Reviews

The re­views of your com­peti­tors will help you learn more about their com­pany. First of all, you’ll be able to iden­tify some things that the cus­tomers think that busi­ness does well and what they think needs to be im­proved. This in­for­ma­tion is very valu­able, be­cause it will help di­rect you in how to im­prove your com­pany so that your busi­ness will do those things bet­ter than the other guy.

You want to ex­cel in the ar­eas they don’t, so that there’s a clear rea­son for their cus­tomers to pre­fer your busi­ness, and you ob­vi­ously want to match and ex­ceed their good points, too.

Track­ing Com­peti­tor Reviews

Hope­fully you have some pro­fes­sional mon­i­tor­ing ser­vices for track­ing your re­views, be­cause it will make things a whole lot eas­ier for you to track your com­peti­tors’ re­views, too. You can spec­ify what com­peti­tors, what key­words, what web­sites, etc. and be de­liv­ered no­ti­fi­ca­tions when new re­views are posted.

It’s im­por­tant to stay on top of read­ing their re­views as soon as you can, be­cause time­li­ness is an is­sue and can of­fer more in­sight. You also want to con­tinue mon­i­tor­ing neg­a­tive re­views to see what re­sponse (if any) your com­peti­tor gives. Their re­sponse can help you com­pare their on­line cus­tomer ser­vice to your own.

Other Types of Reviews

At the same time, there are other types of “re­views” you should be mon­i­tor­ing. They may not be typ­i­cal re­views, but they can also of­fer in­sight into the minds and thoughts of your com­peti­tors’ customers.

• Most im­por­tantly, reg­u­larly visit their web­site or have it mon­i­tored for any changes. Com­par­ing your web­sites is important.
• Also, mon­i­tor any com­ments on their fo­rums, blogs, Face­book pages, etc.

While some­thing might not be con­sid­ered a re­view, it can still in­clude in­for­ma­tion that will help you com­pare your busi­ness and the thoughts of your cus­tomers to theirs.

Com­par­ing Profiles

An­other thing to con­sider is mon­i­tor­ing the pro­files of your com­peti­tors’ on all re­view sites. You should be claim­ing the list­ings of your busi­ness on any site such as Google+ Lo­cal, Yelp, etc., which will al­low you to add in­for­ma­tion about your business.

At the very least, you don’t want to post less in­for­ma­tion than your com­peti­tors do. Your pro­files should be at least as de­tailed as your com­peti­tors, but prefer­ably more so, so that peo­ple who are com­par­ing busi­nesses will have more in­for­ma­tion avail­able to help them make a fair and ac­cu­rate comparison.

On­line re­views can make or break a busi­ness. Don’t un­der­es­ti­mate how valu­able they can be, and al­ways re­mem­ber that your com­peti­tors’ re­views can be equally as im­por­tant as your own.