Tell us what you think, but only if it’s good

Ah the scary topic of reviews. Everything you buy these days asks for feedback, from the window cleaner to the toilet roll, everyone wants to know what you think – as long as it’s good. So why has the world gone review crazy? Simple. Google.

Google announced that one of its factors for ranking is now reviews, so the more you get, the more points you get with Google. Unless they’re all bad of course, then you’ll never be seen again… and we don’t want that! It’s not just Google, there’s Amazon too. People are much more likely to buy a product that has reviews on there. We as consumers need to know we can trust the product and the best way to understand whether we trust the product is to ask people who have used it. Their feedback is so much more powerful than the marketing spiel written (very lovingly and well, no doubt) by the marketing team.

So, how do we get them?

Firstly, set a goal. How many reviews do you want to get per month? This will obviously differ depending on the type of product you are selling and how many customers you get on a monthly basis.

Secondly, do a fantastic job. There’s no point trying to get reviews if you aren’t providing the best possible service or product, as no one is going to write about it. Generally, people leave reviews either when a product or service is really good, or when it’s really bad and we much prefer the first option!

Then you need to figure out the moment of delight. For us it is normally when a new website goes live or the client receives their first batch of beautiful flyers, or when the first lead comes in from a new campaign. It is at this point you need to ask for the review. And if you can, ask in person. So, for us “We are so pleased you are happy with your flyer, would you mind leaving us a review on Google please?

You need to make the request as human as possible, so if you can’t do it face to face, can you do it over the phone. And if that isn’t possible either, consider writing a handwritten note. When you receive a product with a handwritten note, you know that person has gone to a lot of effort to get your attention and really cares about their business and the review must be therefore really important to them.

Then when you’ve got to this point you need to make it as easy as possible to do the review. You could follow up with an email with clear instructions on how to find the place they should review you. If you don’t have a Google My Business page you will need one of these to manage the Google reviews. We wrote a handy blog to get you started on Google My Business here. LINK. The link is not one you could remember to tell people if you wanted to, so you could use a URL shortener like bit.ly to make something more memorable. Another option would be to make a small review card with the link on it to leave with your delighted customer.

Once you’ve asked, make sure you follow-up this could be with an email in a more automated style approximately two days after you have asked in person, then another similar a week later and finally ask again in person two weeks after that “did you get a chance to leave us a review, we’d really appreciate it if you could”

The best time to begin converting a customer into a review is minutes after you have completed the job.

The 2nd (2 days after text) and 3rd (7 days after text) follow ups can be sent by email; we saw a 50% open rate and a 10-20% conversion rate.

But (and here’s the really cool part) the conversion rate jumps back up to 40% on the 4th and final message (by email – 14 days after text). The reason the conversion rate jumps up is because the last email we send out always has a personal.

If you do get a review (good or bad) make sure you reply to it, as quickly as you can to show that you really appreciate the effort your customer has taken to leave you a review. Google also likes you to reply quickly so more brownie points with them too.

Have a link to your review page in your email footer so it is easy for people to find where to leave a review and you can also send reviews from previous customers to those who are thinking about using your services to help seal the deal.

Finally, don’t forget to review the companies you work with as well, everyone needs a little love, especially right now. 🙂