It’s common for shoppers to ask the opinion of trusted people before buying anything new. Now, most shoppers rely on customer reviews to help them decide which product or services to buy. That’s why customer reviews are very influential and can increase your sales more than marketing ads. Your current customers, through their reviews are a company’s best marketers. Let’s discuss how to get more reviews from customers.
So how do business owners get more positive reviews from their customers?
How to Get More Reviews from Customers
1. Create Business Profiles on Different Online Review Sites
Make sure your business has a presence on all of the major social and appropriate review sites where shoppers go to read reviews of your business. Among the major sites are Google, Facebook, Yelp, Angie’s List, Better Business Bureau (for businesses in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada), Trip Advisor, Bing and Yahoo.
It’s important to be on a variety of platforms to make sure you cover all your bases.
Customers at Google reviews may not see your Facebook or Yelp reviews and vice versa. Know your target market and where they search for information.
2. Pay Attention to the Guidelines on Different Review Sites
Make sure to read, understand and comply with all the policies regarding customer reviews set by the various sites where you have your business page.
Knowing the rules will help you use the sites without the risks of having some of the reviews or worse, your profile removed.
3. Offer Incentives
Unless it is against the site’s policies, you can offer incentives to your customers for their effort in writing the reviews. This is not like a payment for the reviews because you won’t ask for a positive or a 5-star review.
The incentives can be discounts on their next purchase, participation or entry in your business–sponsored contests or gift cards.
4. Screen Customers before Asking For Reviews
There are various ways to ask for customer reviews and it would be ideal if all of them would agree to write positive reviews.
However, that’s not always the case. What if after actively asking all customers for their reviews you end up with more negative than positive reviews? You can reduce the chances of getting negative reviews by screening the customers before asking them for reviews. Here are some ways to screen customers:
- Don’t ask for a review in the note or message sent together with the package or in the follow up email. Just ask the buyer if they received the product in good condition and provide your contact information if there is any problem. If you get a positive response or you have satisfactorily fixed any problems they reported, then it’s time to send another message asking for a review.
- Brick and mortar businesses can check if a customer had a positive experience before asking for a review.
- Conduct a survey to determine if a customer had a positive experience. Some businesses uses apps that ask customers to put a score from 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. Then, ask reviews from customers who give high ratings.
- Ask customers who re-order or recommends your product or services to other people
5. Make It Easy For Customers to Leave Online Reviews
Some customers find it difficult to write reviews. So please, make it easy for them by:
- Showing them how by providing links to examples. You can suggest what you want in the review by asking specific questions in the review request.
- Posting badges on your website that will link the customer to review sites
- Optimizing your website for mobile devices.
- Giving customers in brick and mortar businesses the necessary information in small cards or on the receipt.
6. Respond to every review
Monitor your reviews as frequently as you can (at least daily) to be updated about what is being said about your business, to be able to respond to all reviews in a timely manner and to fix any concerns as soon as possible.
By giving a response to new reviews, you will not only make the customers feel appreciated, but it will also encourage your other customers to go ahead and give you a review.
Responding to reviews gives the customers the impression that you listen to and care for them
7. Learn How to Deal With Bad Reviews
When you get a one-star review, what will you do? Bad reviews can happen even if you always do your best. It is in your best interest to learn how to handle bad reviews.
If the complaint is valid, admit the mistake and apologize. Otherwise, explain to the customers why they are having problems. Then, offer your solution. If there’s no immediate solution, let the customer know who is attending to the problem.
8. Share Positive Customer Reviews
With the customers’ permission, share your positive reviews in other relevant sites to spread the positive social proof about your product or services.
Studies show that social proof is very influential in a customer’s decision making process.
Summary
The more positive reviews a business has, the more trustworthy it appears to potential customers. Positive reviews help in increasing sales.
So, always keep track of the reviews on various platforms and respond to all — both positive and negative.
It can be challenging to get reviews from your customers. However, if you give them a great product and customer service it will be easy for them to write good reviews about your business.
