The power of reviews: how Hellopeter can unlock serious business growth

When entrepreneur Alon Rom bought Hellopeter and took over as CEO in late 2014, the customer advocacy platform, which connects SA consumers and businesses, was at a crossroads. 

The founder had done phenomenally well in establishing the platform, but it had gained a reputation as being a space for customers to air their grievances rather than post honest reviews, whether good or bad.

Regardless, Rom knew how valuable this feedback could be to businesses, from his days working with Takealot and Mr Delivery. He had inspired ideas of where the brand could go, but first he had to change people’s perceptions of it.

The 'Karen' conundrum 

Remember, Hellopeter was born before social media. It takes seconds to jump online and get an issue resolved today, but back then you’d have to spend hours on hold waiting to speak to customer services. So, consumers were frustrated, and rightly so. 

In came Hellopeter, a place where they could state their grievances and get the attention they deserved. So, of course, only negative experiences made their way on to the platform.

Journey from complaints to community  

Fast-forward to more than seven years later and this narrative has started to change. 

Consumers still tell their stories on Hellopeter and, in doing so, help others make better-informed choices. However, thanks to efforts made to communicate to them the importance of sharing positive experiences too, these stories are not all doom and gloom. 

As people began praising businesses, SA started seeing Hellopeter as the online review platform it is and not the complaints platform it was perceived to be. 

Rom’s next challenge was to show companies that Hellopeter was no ombudsman to fear. The truth is, it doesn’t intervene between businesses and customers. It simply provides a platform where the two can come together to find a solution that suits both parties.

The core value for businesses is that they can showcase their sincerity and commitment to their customers.

The birth of Hellopeter Business 

Rom also wanted to show businesses that Hellopeter could unlock serious business growth. They could attract more customers, grow a trusted online presence and become more discoverable on search engines like Google — all through the simple process of collecting and managing reviews. 

"My biggest frustration has been that most local businesses don't yet fully understand just how much value they're leaking by not taking their online consumer reputation seriously,” he says.

"Every sustainably successful business I've been a part of has had one thing in common: they embraced the customer's success as their priority, and I saw Hellopeter as an opportunity to take that principle to the next level.” 

As such, Hellopeter has blossomed into a tech company dedicated to rolling out innovative features that make it easier for customers to submit reviews and empower businesses to collect, manage and publish those reviews.

How to unlock the power of customer reviews

Any business can sign up for a free Hellopeter business account. This unlocks all the basic features needed to manage its online reputation. 

However, if companies really want to use their reviews to unlock business growth, Hellopeter offers upgraded plans, and its brand strategy and customer success teams can help.

Some of the advantages of its AI-assisted review management technology is that reviews are vetted via spam filters, and Hellopeter reviews can be tracked and managed alongside those from Google and Facebook on a single platform. There’s also the option for API integration, enabling businesses to collect and respond to Hellopeter reviews within their existing customer relationship management or support system. 

The Hellopeter business portal also provides insights and analytics, allowing businesses to compare their online reputation to competitors’. It gives companies numerous options to collect customer feedback by issuing review invitations on-site, in-store, via SMS, in mail, using QR codes or even via WhatsApp.

As showcasing these reviews can be a powerful form of digital word-of-mouth marketing, it includes features enabling businesses to easily publish reviews on their websites using embeddable widgets, and to effortlessly turn the best ones into ads that can be shared on social media.

Find out more on biz.hellopeter.com

This article was paid for by Hellopeter.