Online reviews play a large role in determining which business a customer chooses. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lawyer, doctor, restaurant, or hair salon, your prospects want to read reviews from current and past customers so they can have actual testimonials from people who have experienced your product or service.
There is also an idea that online reviews help influence your placement within the Google Places search results. If you haven’t already, make sure you claim your Google Places profile. While there is still some discrepancy here and not all businesses with 50 reviews appear in the first position of the Google Places results, it can hurt to have reviews to maximize your changes.
Most importantly though, Google Places includes a summary count of the number of reviews from each source (Yelp, Citysearch, TripAdvisor, Insider Pages, Open Table, etc.). Like a crowded restaurant or a line out the door, this is social proof that helps the businesses with more reviews get more visibility.
Delighting Your Customers
The first step in getting glowing reviews is to consistently provide your customers with a positive and memorable experience. They need to want to tell others about how great you are. That’s the first hurdle to overcome, but should be the easiest because you’re completely in control of what happens in your business (or at least, you should be!). Once you’ve delighted your customer, your job now is to get the review.
Helping Happy Customers Give You Glowing Reviews
The easiest way to get reviews from customers is to ask them! You can do this a few ways: ask them in person once you’ve performed the service or you send them an email requesting the review. Be specific in your instructions on how you want to receive the review.
If you want a testimonial for your website, ask some leading questions to help get them thinking. No one likes staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what to write. If you want them to post a review to a specific site, give them a link to a page on your website like www.yourwebsite.com/review-us that provides specific instructions on how to create an account and post a review to each site.
Most customers get hung up on this step because they want to give you a review on Yelp, but they don’t have an account, can’t easily find your profile on Yelp, and don’t know how to give a review. Make it super easy for them by providing step-by-step instructions on even better, a video.
Giving Customers Something In Exchange For their Review
It’s reasonable to give a little something to your customers in exchange for their review. One idea is to give a coupon for a future discount. Another idea is to enter the customer’s name in a contest for a drawing in the future (be sure to check local laws regarding contests). The coupon and contest entry don’t need to be contingent on the completion of a successful review. The purpose is to show that you value their feedback. By providing specific instruction on how you want to receive the review, you’ll increase the number who are able to successfully complete the process.
When requesting reviews, use your best judgement. It only makes sense to request and reward a positive review for clients who have had a great experience. You want to help encourage them to share that experience to others.
If you know that someone had a bad experience, don’t request a review, but try to understand what specifically happened that caused them to have a bad experience and try to make amends as best as possible. If they’re going to leave you a negative review, you don’t want to reward them. The only thing you can try to do is defuse the situation and make good on whatever expectations were not met. Don’t ever try to punish customers for giving negative reviews. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
What are some ways that you have been able get your customers to give you reviews?
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