Customer service is very much part of our online shopping experience nowadays. Whether we’re purchasing a beautiful new sofa or are looking for a fabulous social media agency to get your brand out there (hello, 24fingers), you’ll no doubt have a look at the online reviews as an digital try before you buy exercise before you commit.
That’s why it’s important to have a plethora of pleased patrons in your past, so getting more online reviews is crucial. After all, we all know that your business is fabulous, so why not get your current clients to tell your future clients that they also think you’re fabulous?
Get yourself out there
First things first, to get online reviews you need to be in a position to receive online reviews. By this, we mean that you need to be on certain websites and platforms where your clients can review you.
Of course, in this day and age of social media, if you’re on Facebook you’ll already have a ready-made platform for online reviews, and if you’ve signed up for Google My Business, the biggest search engine in the world will display your five stars for you, but have you thought about having a testimonial form on your website, or setting up on a platform such as Yelp or Trustpilot? Once you know where you want your reviews to be, you can use a link to direct your clients to give you a (let’s face it, more-than-likely-stunning) review.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get
What’s that, you want more online reviews but aren’t brave enough to ask your clients to shout about how fabulous you are? In the world of online reviews, it is a case of don’t ask, don’t get.
People are all too quick to jump online and shout from the rooftops of Twitter when service goes wrong (Ed’s note: keyboard warriors I think you’ll find the term is), but will they be popping onto Facebook to give you a glowing review if everything is as it should be? Unfortunately it’s just human nature that when service goes right, we simply enjoy the end result and forget all about telling the company how grateful we are for the product / service / whatever.
With this in mind, you may well need to ask for reviews. As business people we become good at pitching for new business, but don’t forget that this is a pitch in its own way: if you ask your clients for a review, and if it’s a good one, that client is singing your praises to your future clients.
It’s important to bear in mind that when asking for reviews, you need to be careful if you go down the incentivising route. Advice from Trustpilot says that it’s ok to incentivise, as long as you tell them about it in advance (so that they can review what you’re offering your clients) and that incentives are equal for everyone. This means that you need to offer a free gift, or the chance of a giveaway, to everyone that leaves a review – regardless of how good or bad it is – and it shouldn’t be dependent on a future purchase. So if you do incentivise, you’ll need to follow the rules of the platform you’re using.
With this in mind, what are you waiting for? And if you think you haven’t got time to ask for reviews, it’s time to think again. It’s actually pretty easy to set up automated emails requesting a review. Not sure how to do so? Let us give you a helping hand.
Deal with bad reviews positively
Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. We know that your brand is fabulous, but with the best will in the world, there will be times when things don’t quite go according to plan. When this does happen and you receive a negative review, or just a negative post on one of your social media platforms, you need to deal with it in a timely, positive manner. Check out our advice on how to handle negative feedback like the boss you are.
In this connected world, online reviews can be a really powerful tool in gaining future business and establishing your brand, so it’s important to put some time into putting together a review strategy for your business. Time to get those gold stars with your name on them.
