Google’s recent purchase of online review site Zagat.com last week has made the old blogosphere kick up a bunch of dust about online reviews. We’re not here to debate how useful or important online customer reviews are though, because we here at ArizonaSEO already KNOW how important they are, not just to your online reputation but to your SEO efforts as well. That’s why we thought we’d offer these 5 tips for how to start getting your customers and client to leave you more (and better!) online reviews for your business:
1. Do not offer incentives, monetary or otherwise. You’ll be pleasantly surprised the percentage of customers who will do it for free if you just ask. If you offer to pay these “brand ambassadors” it may be that they will get turned off to the whole idea. This could backfire in a big way.
2. Make it easy for your customers. Don’t send them a link to review you on Google unless they have a Gmail address.
3. Don’t ask people for Yelp reviews. You may get a few positive reviews in the short term, but if your customers are not active Yelpers, Yelp’s SPAM filters will eventually toast their reviews. You’ll end up with no reviews and potentially some angry customers who wonder why their review disappeared. if they happen to be active Yelp users, then excellent, but not a significant portion of the population is.
4. Do it promptly. Don’t wait. People are most likely to give you feedback right away. The longer you go from the time of service to the time of request, the likelihood of getting reviews drops precipitously. According to Ted Paff, CEO of CustomerLobby, a review service, “Comment card reviews solicited at the time of service can see completion rates of 80-90%” vs. much lower rates for other forms of review solicitation.
5. Follow up! If you have the customer’s email address, follow up your initial request three days later with a reminder email containing links of where to for review submissions. Reminder emails can account for a huge percentage of review conversions.
While positive reviews are great, the real power is in the reviewer. A customer willing to spend the time to review you is a brand ambassador. Instead of just asking them for reviews, you should be thinking about how you can harness your relationship with these valuable people to help spread the word, both online and off.
Which method is right for you depends on how you conduct your business. Consider the following:
Do you collect customer email addresses? Most of the businesses I work with know they should but rarely do, or rarely do it with any rigor.
Do you have more than 50% of your customers’ up-to-date email addresses? If so, then you can use email solicitations where you can ask them to provide a review via email or you can direct them to a website where they can leave a review.
If email doesn’t work for you, then you’ll need to consider how you typically interact with your customers. If most of your business is done in person then give them a comment card. If it’s over the phone, you may have to do it via mail. Try stapling a comment card with return postage to your invoice.
If you have any questions about why online reviews are so important for your business online marketing strategy, get in touch with the experts over at Phoenix Synergy.
