You've had the "Please leave us a review on Google" sign up on your business' front desk for months now. You've sent out 3 email blasts asking for reviews from all of your customers. You've set up a "Review Us" button on your website. You've tried the questionable practice of offering incentives for reviews. You've even resorted to asking your happy, repeat customers for a review over the phone.
Some of these ideas might not be so bad, but the majority of your customers still fail to leave a review even after all this effort. Either they keep going on with their day and forget to leave the review, they don't know how to find your online listing, they don't check their email, or they're just "too busy". There are a number of reasons that your customers don't end up giving you the "5-Stars", even if they are satisfied customers.
Luckily, there are a few practices that have been proven time and time again to achieve great results, like really great results. (Lucky you for finding this blog post!)
#1 OFFER A GREAT SERVICE.
This is the most basic building block to getting a nice 5-star review online. Make sure that every single customer has an amazing experience. This should already be a part of your business and it's culture, but if it's not, know that the customer's experience is everything. They are your brand advocates, your (unpaid) marketers, the very reason your company exists! If your customer isn't satisfied when it comes time to leave you a review, they'll do one of 2 things: 1. Not leave you a review. 2. Leave you a really bad review. Let's just try to avoid both of these options :)
#2 PERFECT THE MESSAGE.
There's a big difference between getting a random message that sounds like it's being sent from a robot, and a message that comes from a real human being:
"Thanks for your business. Can you leave us a review? -Dan's Carpet Cleaners"
or
"Hey Nancy! This is Jim from Dan's Carpet Cleaners again. Here is the link that I had mentioned to leave us a review. Thanks! And please let me know if you need anything else!"
I personally would not feel any need to respond to the message coming from Mr. Robot in example #1. But I would definitely feel the need to respond to the kind technician, Jim, who just did a great job cleaning my carpets in example #2.
#3 THE MISSING LINK.
Another absolutely key factor is having the exact link that will take them directly to your Google listing within the message. If you're just asking them to go and find your Google listing by themselves, good luck! There are a thousand other failures in the same boat. Get in line. Statistically speaking, less than 10% will actually leave you a review that way. Most are too lazy, some can't find your listing, and our older friends will be asking you "what a Google is".
#4 ASK THEM IN PERSON.
Now that you've made sure to help each customer have a great experience and have created the perfect message, you can now ask your customers to leave a review with confidence! This is a very simple, yet EXTREMELY important step. You, or even your employee, could say something as simple as, "Thanks for coming in today, Ryan! Can I text you a link to leave us a quick review?" Really. It's that simple. Don't over complicate this. Don't be shy. They'll most likely say something crazy like, "Sure. I'll be looking for it on my phone. Thanks again."
This step is super important because your customer has now agreed to leave a review due to your asking. This is a happy customer we're talking about. They just told you they would leave you a review. This is way more personal than getting a random email at 8 pm asking for some online review. They have personally agreed to leave you a review, and (even better) they are now expecting your text! This is as good as it gets people!
#5 SEND THE MESSAGE ASAP.
This part is incredibly important as well. If you or your employee waits till the end of the day or week to send off the messages to each customer, the chances of getting a review plummet BIG TIME. Your customer is going to be at dinner with their family, see the text come in, read it real quick, decided to leave the review after finishing dinner, and then forget about it. Sad, but true. It happens everyday.
So send the message right away! That way the customer is already looking for the message on their phone, they still haven't moved onto the next task of the day, and they're still ecstatic about the amazing service you just offered. It's prime-time for reviews.
#6 CREATE A HABIT.
These few, simple actions will lead you to online review glory. But only if they become a habit. Only if they become a part of the regular routine. Getting reviews is a numbers game (quite literally), so it's important to be doing this on a consistent basis. Either you or your employees need to have these steps absolutely ingrained into their DNA: #1 Offer A Great Service #2 Ask Them In Person. #3 Send The Message ASAP. #4 Repeat.
Even when you do follow these steps, there are people that still won't get to leaving a review. With those who are following these steps to the T, the conversion rate still hovers anywhere from 35–60% of review messages being sent (by the employee) to actual reviews being left by the customer. So don't throw a fit when you've sent out 20 review links at the end of the week and only one leaves a review. You need to follow these steps, and keep going! Remember, it's a numbers game.
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Overall, there are a lot of ways to go about asking for reviews. I've been in the review business for quite some time now and have seen a large number of attempts, failures, and successes. These steps I've shared are literally gold for anyone looking to gain reviews. They have been time-tested and proven over and over again. Now, all you need to do is make sure you're using Revetize so that you can send the link directly to your business' listing :)
