Once you understand the value of earning countless Google reviews for your business, you probably wonder how you can regularly get the best reviews for your business. Here are five tips that can help.
1. Provide Exceptional Customer Service
Your most crucial pursuit as a company when looking to stockpile Google reviews is to provide high-quality service to your customers.
The service must be worthy of their time to write a good review of your company. Consumers value their time. Fortunately, if they find your company appealing and worthy enough, they will leave a positive review for you.
Going above and beyond for a customer usually gives them an unforgettable tale to tell, and people love to tell a good story. Be it on Facebook, Google, Yelp, or just to their friends, they are sure to pass the word around somewhere.
2. Communicate Directly
As a small business, you can communicate directly with your customers. After you perform a service or ship a product, you can send a message to your customers asking them for a Google review. There are a variety of creative ways you can go about asking for customer reviews, like sending a:
- Follow-up email
- Text message
- Postcard
You may also consider having a review setup at your point of sale. If you train your team, they can ask for a review on the spot if they think it will be a good one. You could offer a 10% discount on the next service if they did so.
A simple thank-you message is also a nice touch that can motivate a customer to leave a review.
3. Keep It Internal
When you are looking to improve your Google review rating or the number of reviews you have, turn your focus internally. Consider, for example, giving your employees an incentive anytime they receive a positive review or feedback. This could be in the form of a bonus, which will motivate your employees to promote your business by requesting reviews.
You could run internal competitions to get the most reviews or even turn around a negative review. If you extend the review management responsibilities across the company it will only help you to get more and improve the customer experience.
4. Automate the Process
There is no magic number for Google reviews. Unfortunately, reviews can grow old and outdated in a consumer’s eyes. As a result, you must constantly add to your review reservoir to keep it filled up. It helps to automate some of the review processes to take the strain off of your business.
You can automate your communication step by setting up emails to go out a certain number of days after a customer has purchased a product online and it has shipped. You can also weave it into your company policies to provide excellent service.
There are also pop-up iPad stands that you could buy for your storefront. When people come in you can ask for a review after the service. This could work for a dental or legal office.
5. Respond Responsibly
When customers leave a review on your Google My Business profile, it is like a social media experience for them. They expect a response. In fact, other people reading the reviews hope to see a reply, too. So, as a company, it is essential for you to not only respond but respond responsibly.
Are you wondering how to respond to Google reviews responsibly? Well, for one thing, not all reviews you gain are going to be good. Your reply cannot be angry, offensive, or hateful to the bad reviews because that will reflect negatively on your business.
One thing that automates the process and restricts the urge to fight back on critical reviews is to have an automatic response ready for a positive or negative Google review.
These responses can be tweaked to fit the setting if need be, but they allow for cooler heads to prevail and save you time when you sit down to respond to the surplus of Google reviews you have earned.
Respond to ALL reviews. If it’s positive say thank you for being a customer. If it’s negative apologize and try to take the conversation off of the review site so that you can fix the problem.
Specific Tips to Get Even More Google Reviews
Suppose you have checked all of your boxes with exceptional service, great employees, fun communication, and consistency. In that case, you may need an extra boost to help those Google reviews take off. A few Google-related tips that can help you garner those reviews in bulk are:
- Claim your Google business listing so you can customize it.
- Make your listing shine with professional photos and relevant information.
- Making the invitation to review easy by guiding customers to where the review should go.
- Have a website linked in your Google Business Listing that is equally professional and shares more information about you and your business.
How To Invite Customers To Leave a Review
Alleviating the hassle of the review process for your customers will make them more likely to leave a review for your site. After administering a service or sending a product and asking for a review, communicating with your customers can influence gaining reviews.
Customers can be an exciting bunch, though. So you will need to adopt good etiquette practices, so your company doesn’t come off as too pushy. Some best practices when asking customers for reviews include:
- Determining when it is most convenient for your customers to leave a review and asking them then.
- Expect the customer to leave a review by stressing how important it is to your company.
- Having an online review manager go over any obstacles customers may face when they want to provide insight or feedback.
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