Admit it or not, your sales increase when you have good reviews. If you are rated with five stars, anyone looking for your product or service can immediately choose you among the other businesses. But while reviews are important, it’s also challenging to get. Here are some ways that can help you get those coveted reviews:
- Ask nicely.
The first step to getting those reviews is to ask. Most companies forget that getting reviews is only possible if your customer knows that you are asking for it. Otherwise, they won’t leave a review except if they have had a bad experience with you.
If you haven’t noticed, those who are willing to leave reviews are customers that are either very satisfied or very disappointed with your service or product. But you shouldn’t wait for a customer to get mad for you to be proactive about getting reviews. Before they even attempt to shame you on your page or on social media, send them a link to your Google Review.
- Have multiple touch points.
There will be times that no matter how hard you try, sending them an email will not increase the number of reviews. Unless your target market’s behavior is constantly checking their email, you wouldn’t get reviews by just sticking to this platform.
What you can do is to notify your customer that you are asking for surveys at every touch point you have. For example, the moment they open your website, they should already be aware that you want them to leave a review. You can also notify them when the service is done or if you’ve noticed that they haven’t continued with their purchase. However, you should always remember not to bombard your customer with review links. Over time, this can be annoying especially if you’ve asked them to review your service for 5 times already.
- Give them a link.
The next thing you should do is to generate a link that leads to your review page. Depending on the way you get reviews, this can be in the form of a survey or a form on your site. There is also a Google Review template that can guide you on how to make design a customer review form.
Customers are more likely to leave a review if you have given them a link. This link should direct them to the actual survey and not make them go through so many pages. Doing so will just make your customer lose interest, and you do not want that.
- Make it personal.
One of the ways to entice your customer to leave a review is if you make this personal. For example, using their name in your survey email will already make them feel that you are giving importance to their feedback.
If there is anything a customer wants, it is knowing that the company they just bought from values their relationship. The best way to do this is to use their first name or to customize your approach depending on the person. If you’ve seen that their order is taking too long, be proactive and shoot them a message. This way, you don’t have to wait for the service to be done for you to get a review.
- Emphasize the incentive.
But other than feeling important, customers want another thing too – that’s incentive. If they give a review, what’s in it for them? If you have a freebie for every review they give, then make sure you emphasize that. Leaving a small note in the receipt will not generate more reviews.
What you can do is to show a pop-up and say something like “Give us a review and you’ll get a free _____”. This is your one-way ticket to get all the reviews you need to be able to increase your sales.
- Reply to reviews.
And lastly, you can encourage more people to leave reviews if they see that you engage with the people who have left reviews. As they scroll through your Google reviews, they will get a glimpse of how you interact with your customers. So in turn, you should take this opportunity to show other customers that your company cares. Always appreciate those who have left good reviews and at the same time assist and apologize to those who had bad experiences with your service.
