In today's business world, online reviews can have a significant impact on your growth and referral network of new customers. I can honestly say that when I am looking into a business that provides a service I am looking for, I absolutely read their reviews and factors those comments into my decision; this is most likely true for many consumers out there.
Our agency, as well as many other businesses, find it challenging to increase our online customer reviews. Not because we aren't doing a good job, but because we don't think about it or maybe even don't know how to ask for it.
Below are a few ideas to help increase your online customer reviews.
- Simply Ask: if you are providing great service and have been praised by your customer for your efforts; simply ask them if they would take a few minutes to write their positive comments down and post a review. Most happy customers will be more than willing to provide a review when they feel good about the job you're doing for them.
- Make the Review Process Easy: a common barrier to a customer leaving a review is that it takes up time. If a customer has to look all over to find a place to leave a review or there are several steps to go through to leave comments, they will more than likely not follow through with a review. Make it easy by giving them a link that takes them directly to the site where they can leave a review; or make your website user friendly and provide a very simple single step that allows a customer to leave a review.
- Have a Review "Promotion": while we don't recommend doing this regularly, sometimes it's a nice motivation for good customers to leave a review. You can offer a $10 gift card to their favorite restaurant or maybe a round of breakfast burritos for their small business. Offering a small incentive can help pick up your review traffic.
- Do an Email Campaign: send a selective email campaign to customers you know have voiced their happiness with your company. Choosing customers that have specifically voiced positive feedback is important because it will feel like less of a task for them to complete. They are already happy with you and your business and have verbally conveyed that to you which makes it that much more likely they wouldn't mind going online to do a quick review. Make your email short and direct with your ask and of course make sure your email provides a link that takes your customer directly to the place they need to leave the review.
There are many ways and opportunities to get reviews from happy, loyal customers. We know as a business it can be hard to find the time to complete this ongoing task and we hope making a few small changes to your process will help you gain the momentum to build your online reviews.