Getting good reviews should be as simple as providing a great service to your customers, but this isn’t always enough to drive customers to leave a review. How often do people tell you that they love your business? Wouldn’t it be great if more of these comments made it onto Google? A study found 85% of consumers trust online word of mouth as highly as a friend’s recommendation. So gaining and leveraging these reviews is an important tool for your business.
As we’ve discussed in a previous post there are multiple benefits to customers leaving reviews on Google:
- Gaining testimonials for marketing content
- Receiving feedback to improve your business
- Appearing higher in Google search results
The saying goes, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” However, Google’s search engine places better reviews higher on the search list.
Before you start chasing reviews, make sure you’ve claimed your business on Google My Business. That way you can manage your business information.
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How to get more overall reviews
Firstly, to get more reviews, make sure you’re asking for them. Getting more reviews is as simple asking! Find the right time in your sales process to ask customers to review your business. If you’re a brick and mortar store, do it before the customer leaves. If you’re an online business, contact customers soon after the product or service is received. The key to getting people to review is recency. Don’t ask people months after the product is delivered, it can make them dubious about your business practices.
How to gain more positive reviews
To ensure your getting more positive reviews, screen out which customers are pleased with your service. Firstly, contact customers and ask what they thought about your business. If they say you’re a 4 or 5 star, then prompt them to leave a Google review. If they’re not pleased, ask them how you can improve or offer a solution. That way, more happy customers are leaving reviews. and dissatisfied customers can be assisted.
After getting these reviews, remember to respond and thank customers in a personalised way to foster further goodwill.
Negative reviews are inevitable though, so don’t be discouraged. We will talk more about managing negative Google reviews in a future blog.
Wouldn’t it be nice to screen customers automatically?
There are softwares available that screen your customers automatically so you can get those 4 and 5-star reviews without dozens of phone calls. For more information, call SBIM on +61 7 3325 0505 or email webmaster@sbim.com.au
