If you’re in business potential customers have probably looked you up online to read what other customers say about you.
That’s natural. People trust the judgement of the crowd. There’s social proof that choosing this company over another could be a good decision.
A company with many positive reviews and multiple stars will get more notice in a general search than a company that has few or no reviews.
There’s Opportunity in Being Reviewed
If your competitors have little to no online reviews that’s an opportunity to stand out as a top-rated company!
And once you have a system in place to encourage reviews, it will be difficult for your competitors to catch up—if they figure out the importance of reviews.
Being Strategic With Getting Reviews
If you’re new to the review process, let’s talk about strategy. While it might be easy to just get reviews from every happy customer—you should focus on encouraging reviews in specific categories of services and products.
That type of strategy takes a bit of online keyword research and competitive analysis.
For example, a pest control company finds that competitors have many reviews on their residential services and few for commercial. Keyword research determines that commercial pest control—maybe in a specific industry—is searched often by potential customers.
By encouraging reviews in that specific category, that pest control company could overtake competitors and become the top-rated company for that service. Once you’re comfortable in that category, expand your strategy into others.
Getting Reviews
To be honest with you, that’s easier said than done. After all, people are busy these days. But the effort is worth it. Adding a request for review in the customer’s lifecycle experience can be effective.
- Train your staff to ask for a review whenever they get a compliment
- Ask long-term clients to give you a review
- Ask owners of businesses you do business with for a review
How Many Reviews and Where?
The web is awash with places to leave business reviews. However, you don’t have to target every review site to be effective. Think about where your customers might find you online—then make sure they see how good of a job you do for customers.
As a general rule:
- Get at least six 5-star reviews on Google My Business
- Get at least five to ten reviews on your Facebook page
- Get at least five reviews on industry-specific websites such as Zillow.com for Real Estate Agents, Avvo.com for Attorneys, Healthgrades.com for medical professionals, etc.
By the way, the key phrase above is “at least.” Getting reviews is an ongoing process that helps keep you a “top-rated” company.
And if you ever get a negative review, respond quickly and positively. In some cases, the review site might take down the review if it’s unfair; it never hurts to ask. And if you do resolve an issue with an unhappy client, ask that they provide a follow up review.
There’s power in showing how responsive you are at settling issues.
Do you have a review system in place?
How is it working for you? Give us a call, 904-429-4588, and we’d be happy to help you with your reviews.