Why are reviews so important? Managing your reputation online / homecare.co.uk Review Score

When exploring their options for potential home care providers, most care seekers look at each provider’s reviews before making an enquiry. As with any service, people trust and are reassured by the experiences of other customers and clients.

The first place they’ll go to for this advice is family and friends and the second is the internet. Having independently verified reviews on your homecare.co.uk profile is the most powerful online tool you have to attracting new clients to your service.

These reviews can offer a library of unbiased feedback from clients, where care seekers can find positive examples of how you have supported people in similar situations to theirs.

Having online reviews builds trust, displays confidence and shows transparency

Having online reviews is the first step to beginning a trusting relationship with a new client and their loved ones. Having online reviews shows them from their very first visit to your profile that you involve clients and their loved ones in planning and delivering care. It shows that you actively seek feedback to help you to improve your service because the client is your top priority.

Having online reviews also shows confidence in your service. Proudly showing your feedback, even if some reviews are negative, says to care seekers that you are an honest, transparent business that is focused on improving the customer’s experience above all.

Online reviews help you to stand out and the more you have, the more likely care seekers are to click on your profile. On the flip side of this, as most providers have at least a couple of reviews, care seekers can be less likely to click on your profile if you have none at all, asking “why not?” and favouring a competitor who has plenty of reviews instead.

Homecare.co.uk Review Score

One of the main things we do with your reviews is to generate a review score. We take into account the number of service users you have, the average review rating and the number of positive reviews you’ve had in the last 24 months. We then give you a score out of 10, which can be easily viewed at a glance by care seekers scrolling through profiles.

From our analytics, we have found that a high review score, combined with lots of new reviews, results in more enquiries generated through our website.

Actively ask for feedback to avoid a negative image

Unfortunately, a single negative review can evoke a stronger reaction in care seekers than a dozen positive ones. It is a sad fact that people are far more likely to bother leaving a review if they want to complain, rather than to praise. Whatever you do, there will always be someone with something negative to say.

The best way to combat one or two bad reviews putting off care seekers is to encourage as many customers as possible to give feedback of their own experiences. This creates a fair picture of the quality of care that you deliver. The odd negative review can even be helpful, as it shows that you are open and honest in showing your feedback, making your positive reviews all the more valid and reassuring.

Social proof and website conversion

The modern world is saturated with marketing, and while marketing can have an amazing impact on your company’s image and generating new business, people generally have a degree of cynicism.

Making the most of the features available on your homecare.co.uk profile is a great way to grab care seekers’ attention and to show them what you have to offer, but this is all the more powerful when validated with reviews. Reviews assure care seekers that you deliver the standard of care that you say you do.

Putting independent reviews online and in your advertising should have a positive effect on your conversion rate. One really good way to put homecare.co.uk reviews onto your website is by installing one of our review widgets.

With a snippet generated from your homecare.co.uk control panel and placed on your website, you can automatically pull in the reviews from your homecare.co.uk profile. This keeps your website up to date with your latest reviews without the hassle of uploading them manually.

Generating more enquiries on homecare.co.uk

At homecare.co.uk, our aim is to help care seekers to find the best possible care to suit their needs.

One of the ways we do this is by helping home care providers to gather as many reviews as possible then displaying them in a user-friendly way.

Homecare.co.uk rankings

When people search for care on homecare.co.uk, they are shown a list of all the providers that meet their chosen criteria. The main thing that determines how high you appear on this list is your review score. The higher on this list you appear, the more clicks to your profile you’ll have and the more enquiries you’ll get.

Number of reviews

Next to the review score, we show the number of reviews you have. This is important as care seekers have told us that they are more likely to make an enquiry to a provider with lots of reviews than one with few to none. Having 30 good reviews and 2 bad ones looks a lot more trustworthy to a care seeker than if you just have one or two flawless reviews. It shows that you are publishing all your feedback, not cherry-picking what you want people to see.

Google.com search results

When people search for care on Google, they don’t tend to click past the first page of search results, and often don’t scroll past the first three results. The higher up you are on Google search results, the better chance you have of your website being clicked on.

However, getting to the top of Google searches is no mean feat. It requires your site to be accessible, fast and constantly full of unique new content. What’s more, the algorithm changes all the time so the rules on how to have great search engine optimisation change regularly. It can cost thousands to hire an agency or staff to keep on top of this and to make sure your website ranks highly.

At homecare.co.uk, we have people dedicated to keeping our website up to date with Google’s algorithm and we regularly rank number one for many different care searches. You can take advantage of our high ranking to generate reviews for your profile, as these reviews often appear in searches. The greater number of comprehensive reviews you have, the more visits you’ll have to your profile and the more enquiries you’ll get.

Winning homecare.co.uk awards

Every year, we look at which 20 home care providers in each region have the highest review scores and celebrate them. Award winners’ achievements are shared with the local press and you can display proof of your award on your website, marketing materials, social media and homecare.co.uk profile.  Find out more about the home care awards here.

These award stamps even appear next to your name in searches, and you will appear on the list of winners. In user research conducted on people looking for care, we were told that these badges grabbed their attention.

Homecare.co.uk can make managing your online reputation easier

Your homecare.co.uk profile is so much more than just a listing. We make it easy for you to generate reviews in a place where you can easily manage and display them. Once you have generated the reviews, we help you to make the most of them across the internet. You can start generating reviews with a Basic profile straight away. To learn more about what paid subscriptions can offer you and how they can help you to generate more reviews, contact our sales team or check out our packages page.