A good old-fashioned
'thank you' online or in person goes a long way toward convincing customers to
give you 'stars.'
GUEST WRITER
Entrepreneur, Growth
Hacker and Marketer
January 28, 2019
Opinions expressed
by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Is your small business
struggling to get reviews online? It’s hard to compete with the big guys who
have hundreds, even thousands, of amazing online reviews about their products
and/or services. And that fact is made all the more important
because these days, almost nobody buys something without first checking
out the online reviews.
In fact, according to
a survey conducted by Bright Local, 86 percent of consumers polled said they read reviews for
local businesses.
So, if your potential
customers are coming across your small business online and running away in the
opposite direction once they see your lack of endorsements, what can you do to
turn that around?
If your online
business profile is still looking lonely, with only one or two reviews, check
out these five tips to get more online reviews for your small business.
1. Create an email campaign.
One way to encourage
more online reviews for your small business is to create an email campaign. If
you already have an active email list, you’re off to a great start. Your email
subscribers are your biggest fans, so chances are, if you send them an email
asking them to leave your business an online review, they’ll do it.
If you haven’t built
an email list yet, get started by signing up with an email marketing software
and adding a popup
on your website to encourage people to join your list. Plus, if
visitors can place an order from your website, you should already have their
email addresses to add to your email list.
To get the most
responses, send a triggered email campaign. This means your online review email
will send automatically any time a customer places an order, like what happens
in the example below from Everyday Art.
Sending an email right
after consumers' purchases, while the positive experience is still fresh in
their mind, will get you the most online reviews.
2. “Ask” them in person.
Now, by in person, I
don’t mean asking every single person who walks through your doors to leave a
good review for your business online; that would be time-consuming and
exhausting. Instead, gently encourage your customers to leave an online
review in various places around your physical location. There are a number of
ways to make the most of your space to generate more online reviews including:
- A Yelp sticker added to your
front window
- Tabletop signs
- A message at the bottom of
receipts
- On business cards
Your regular customers
who walk through your doors might not have checked you out online beforehand,
but by advertising offline that you want more online reviews, you’ll be
able to reach all of your customers -- new and old.
3. Reply to every online review.
When asking people to
review you online, you open yourself up to bad reviews, too -- and that’s
okay. Just remember to respond to every review, in a calm, helpful fashion and
seek to turn any poor review into a positive experience. What's important is that
you shouldn’t respond just to negative reviews; you should respond to
positive reviews, as well. Replying to your reviews will show other future
customers that you’re active in your online communications.
In fact, according to
a study in the Harvard Business Review, replying to customer reviews
results in better ratings overall. Through their studies, the researchers found
that users exposed to management responses -- for example,users who read
your response to a negative comment from another user -- left ratings 0.1
"stars" higher than those who had not.
This finding
applied in the same way to responses to positive reviews. Additionally,
customers who read management responses were also less likely to leave a
trivial or unsubstantiated negative review.
4. Share glowing reviews.
Another way to get
more online reviews is to share the glowing reviews you’ve already received.
When others see that people are leaving you great reviews, they’ll be more
inclined to do so themselves. In fact, according to Psychology Today, people look at what others are doing to
learn what’s correct. That’s social proof in action.
Not only does this
tactic work to generate more online reviews for your business, it also helps to
advertise your business and get more customers through your doors.
5. Go above and beyond in customer service.
You can use all the
tips and tricks in the world, but if your business is giving poor customer
service, you’ll never get online reviews -- or else you’ll get a ton of
scathing ones. The easiest way to get more online reviews for your small
business is to go above and beyond for your customers. Most people don’t leave
a review for a pleasant but mundane experience, but people will be more likely
to leave a great review for your business if you've provided them with an
amazing experience.
So, try to make your
customers' day by saying "please" and "thank you," sending
a personalized thank you note in their online order, giving a small discount to
apologize for a customer service issue and so on. Customers will remember your
kindness and return the favor by leaving you a five-star review.
Over to you
With these tips for
getting more online reviews, your small business will stand out from the crowd
online. Patrons will be lining up at your business because they’ve heard
nothing but good things about you. Customers will be happy. And you'll have
just one more task for immediate future: thanking your customers for their kind
words and the extra sales their favorable reviews will prompt.
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