Helping Small Businesses Get Online Reviews from Their Clients
Helping Small Businesses Get Online Reviews from Their Clients
Online customer reviews are becoming increasingly influential to anyone who owns a business. From Trustpilot to Angie’s List, Growing Reviews to Yelp, clients are sharing their experiences on almost everything, and their reviews can have a lot of impact on your small business.
Nowadays, a single Google review has the capacity to grow your business far more than a mere Google Ad. According to the recent survey conducted by Zendesk survey, around 90% of clients claim that the positive reviews influence their buying decisions, and 86% claimed negative reviews influence their decisions.
A small business can be scuppered by just one or two negative reviews. The most efficient way to neutralize the few negative client reviews is to load up the rave review by encouraging your happy customers to take some of their time and write about their experiences. Below are some valuable tips you can use to help the small business get online better online reviews from your clients.
Set Up Your Business Profile on Multiple Review Sites
You need to determine all the sites that are relevant to your business: Trip Advisor, Yahoo Local, City Search, Google Local, Yelp, LinkedIn and Angie’s List. Don’t feel complacent if you are not in a review-centric sector like hotels or restaurants, the review sites like Trustpilot and TrustLink can be of great importance to you.
Always Ask Your Customers
If you want to find out the best way to increase the number of reviews for your small business, just ask. Your customers are acutely aware of how important their review is to your small business, and, provided you offer an excellent service or product, they will always be willing to write a review. Always request that your customers leave feedback on one of your target review sites whenever they compliment your business via a phone call, email or in person. Leverage on positive sentiment when you receive it.
Simplify the Process of Leaving Reviews
Excluding when a client has a negative experience to share, customers rarely look for ways to leave a review for your small business. It is, therefore, important that you send them links to review forms, and even incentivise them with discounts. Reduce the barriers for them and they are more likely to help you shine online.
Thank Your Reviewers
You need to thank every customer who has posted reviews about your product or service; comment on the review site if the review site allows it. This act will help to transform a satisfied client into an incredibly loyal evangelist.
Consider Making Reviews Part of Your Process
It is important to ensure that all of your sales employees and customer service team understand the benefits of soliciting reviews from the customers they interact with on a daily basis. Come up with a bonus program to help motivate your sales employees or customer service personnel who source positive reviews from their clients; this is undoubtedly one of the most efficient way you can spend your marketing money.