Happy Birthday WWW
The World Wide Web celebrates its 28th Birthday this December, when the first website went online on December 20th 1990 at CERN.
Although this was an internal site, it wasn’t made available to the general public until almost 12 months later, and at that point, history changed forever. Now analysts are claiming that over 50 billion devices will be connected to the web by 2020!
A Magic World
In the past, we would get our information from papers, magazines, the TV or even a quick gossip over the garden wall. Now there is a whole world, a magic world, full of opinions, reviews and information.
The Internet.
Now we just type in a few words, and like magic, a whole world opens up with every bit of info you would ever need.
- A review on a restaurant?
- Finding info on a shopping site?
- Checking out a Doctors credentials?
All the information is now at our fingertips, the good and the bad. Everyone has an opinion, one which is shared over and over. Reviews can stay around for years, and can make or break the reputation of a business, person or institution. Reviews certainly mattered to me when I had a car accident in the early part of the year.
Imagine being told you need surgery. Now imagine having to trawl through all the thousands of surgeons, Doctors and Medical centers until you found The One.
After months of Doctor visits and physiotherapy, I was told I needed surgery. After a few stops and starts, I finally found my surgeon. The first thing I did was look up his credentials online. I checked out his reviews and scrutinized his background, after all, this was someone that was going to perform major surgery on me. And finally, after meeting him, I felt confidant that everything would be ok, his reputation matched up! Those reviews helped me choose the right surgeon, and that is how it is done these days.
In fact;
85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business
Reviews Matter
There is always the risk of reading negative reviews, but if a company has responded in a positive way, it shows they are on the ball, protecting their online presence.
Make Reviews Count
When all is said and done, a negative review is not the end of the world.
No-ones online reputation is perfect. We expect to see some negative reviews, Having a good or bad online reputation can have serious financial implications for businesses. Therefore, businesses do care about what people are saying online, simply because it may affect their sales and their reputation. It is more likely that a business will take corrective actions to improve the quality of service and helping to keep their potential customers happy and informed as to what kind of service they should be expecting.
Sharing is Caring
Sharing our experiences , good or bad is important. And the publicity of a good service, can make a business stand out in an intensely competitive market place. For me, the reputation of a medical person was of the utmost importance.
I certainly wanted to make sure I had the right Surgeon, and I’m glad I was able to read his reviews, through people sharing their experience. Luckily, everything worked out ok, and my surgeons reputation was impeccable.
We live in a world of sharing, so go ahead and share!
