{"id":17941,"date":"2018-01-07T15:16:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T20:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.studyabroad101.com\/?p=17941"},"modified":"2022-11-03T13:44:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T17:44:25","slug":"abroad101-providers-newsletter-winter-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studyabroad101.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/abroad101-providers-newsletter-winter-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Abroad101 Providers Newsletter \u2013 Winter 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nHappy New Year!\u00a0 As we all shift our thinking from holidays to work, please take a moment to reflect on how you used the Internet this holiday season.\u00a0 Did you use reviews to guide some gift purchasing, select a hotel, restaurant or movie, or assist you in selecting someone to fix your home heater?\u00a0 Reviews influence decisions and for 10 years, Abroad101 has been helping future students and their parents become better education abroad consumers.<\/span><\/p>\n

How to Get Students to Write Reviews?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Your presence on Abroad101 is greatly enhanced by reviews.\u00a0 So often we hear that it is hard to get students to do anything, let alone spend 20-30 minutes on a review.\u00a0 This is especially true when students feel that the activity has no benefit for them.\u00a0 We find that students ARE inclined to share their experience if the exercise gives them a chance to tell their story \u2013 it is exactly what they do on social media for hours a day!<\/span><\/p>\n

If the student believes the review is good for them, they will generally participate.\u00a0 That takes some groundwork before they go abroad and as they prepare to return.\u00a0 One idea to get more engagement is to incorporate a review in your end-of-term programming and use the review process as a step toward preparing the students to share their experience with others.\u00a0 Just like career counselors who tell students to prepare a good resume for a job search, we hope that study abroad staff will help their students prepare for their return home by guiding them to submitting a thorough and candid review.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alumni Ambassadors and Perfect Reviews<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This “always sunny” concept is something that savvy marketers are concerned over.\u00a0 Study Abroad providers are increasingly using Alumni Ambassadors in their marketing efforts.\u00a0 These are typically very satisfied students who have demonstrated great affinity for a program and are fantastic spokespeople.\u00a0 When they are tasked with writing a review, human nature kicks in and we have noticed these reviews are overly promotional and “too good to be true.”\u00a0 In looking at the traffic these reviews generate, they get less page views than reviews with candid titles and lower overall ratings.<\/span><\/p>\n

We welcome Alumni Ambassador submissions and in your training of them we hope you’ll reinforce the need to be candid in their stories so the review will be viewed as legitimate and credible.\u00a0 Please read: Why Imperfection is Ideal<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

What to do with Bad Reviews?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The most common objection we get to fully transparent publishing of student reviews is a concern about how a negative experience will impact a program or the institutional stakeholders.\u00a0 In the complex world of social media and online transparency, the opposite is often true.<\/span><\/p>\n

People often come to review sites to validate their choices and to search for the negative. Reviews of student struggles and reports of negative things will actually help future students prepare and set their expectations.\u00a0 In an odd twist of logic, they go to review sites to relieve the anxiety about what happens when things go wrong.\u00a0 Reviews also provide a practical balance to the always-positive websites, brochures and on campus presentations.\u00a0 For those, like parents, who may not be present in Q&A sessions, reviews provide a welcome reality check.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking some best practices from the tech sector, it is ironic to discover that negative reviews actually have a positive impact.\u00a0 We suggest you read “You Don\u2019t Want A 5-Star Review<\/span><\/a>”\u00a0 When you get a bad review, we encourage you to respond using the feedback tool at the bottom of each review.\u00a0 We suggest you restate what the student said went well, then thank them for their participation and feedback and reinforce your goal to make the program better.\u00a0 It is never a good idea to tell the student they were wrong, especially in a review.\u00a0 Some consumers look at the feedback to get a better sense of the personality of a program and the attitude of the staff.\u00a0 The comment section is a place to showcase that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Please note that Abroad101 is still in business today due to our professional approach to\u00a0review management.\u00a0 The vast majority of reviews on Abroad101 come from our university partners who either require, or encourage their students to participate in the review process.\u00a0\u00a0Our desire is to collect quality reviews and every once in a while, we have to\u00a0intervene maintain the quality and integrity of our site, our university partners and our industry.\u00a0 Count on Abroad101 to do to the right thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putting Reviews on Your Website:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Each review on Abroad101 has a fixed URL, as does each program.\u00a0 Each provider has an index of programs with an accompanying review tally and average score ratings.\u00a0 These link addresses don’t change, so we encourage you to benefit from SEO and place web links from your website to your presence on Abroad101 with link text that says something like \u201cRead the Reviews\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Abroad101 also offers a chance to summarize the review scores of programs or you as a provider with our widgets.\u00a0 The widget produces a badge-like graphic on your website that is constantly updated with the latest results from Abroad101.\u00a0 See how yours would look:<\/span><\/p>\n