Raise your hand if you’ve asked a friend…or better yet your entire group of Facebook friends…for a recommendation lately.
It turns out we trust people more than we trust brands when it comes to making choices. In fact, 84% of people say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.
What about your business’s reviews? If you don’t have any, you need some. And if you have negative reviews, you need to do something about it. It’s time to get more online reviews.
DO enable reviews on your social sites.
DON’T be overly selective.
You’re shooting yourself in the foot if you fail to enable reviews wherever you’re found online. Because chances are the people already following your business are fans and customers. Go to sites like Facebook and your Google Business Listing, and enable reviews there to get started.
DO ask customers to leave you reviews.
DON’T ask customers to leave you positive reviews.
The best time to ask customers for a review is right after you’ve done business with them. Their experience will be fresh on their mind, and if it was a negative one, you’ll get the chance to address it on the spot.
Even if they had a great experience, don’t ask them to leave you a positive review. It goes against the policies of most online review sites and can put a sour taste in their mouths too.
DO remind customers to submit reviews.
DON’T incentivize them to do so.
It’s ok to send a follow-up text or email asking for that online review. Include a link or two to make it easy.
Don’t, however, try to incentivize these reviews by offering a freebie or special discount. Just like before, doing so could be seen as bribery for “good reviews,” and could make trouble for you with the review sites.
Getting more online reviews is the first step in improving your online reputation. The next step is engaging customers who leave reviews, both good and bad. And if you’re hunting around for them so you can reply, you’re likely to miss them.
Thryv helps you view what your clients are saying about you on every review site, and take action. You can view all of your reviews and metrics from one place, filtering accordingly, so you can respond quickly when a new one pops up.
