How do you ask a client to leave a review? Is it something you have a process in place for, or do you ask if you happen to remember?
We all know that having customer reviews is important.
Social proof, the fancy marketing name for customer reviews, positive social media, or video testimonials, can mean the difference between a sale or not.
In this blog I am going to take you through how to ask for more reviews from your clients, and show you how to make sure you get them in the best place for your business.
How to ask for more reviews from your clients
First of all you need to acknowledge that this is important.
"About 95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase". Spiegel
When we think about what is important in business, sales is probably the first thing we consider. It has to be or we wouldn't have a business.
It is far harder to make a new sale, than it is to work again with someone who knows and likes us.
When someone you know tells you that a product or service is good, you take notice. How often have you watched a programme or bought food & drink because friends have recommended them?
Effectively this is what is happening when a client who is happy with your services leaves a review.
So here is how to ask for more reviews from your clients.
Create a process for asking for reviews. When you are pitching for work, include a line in your proposal that says, when we finish our project together I'll ask you for a review if that's ok. If you are working in other ways, for example if someone buys a product from your website, include asking for a review on the sales page, and have a means to follow up after a week if you haven't received a review. If you have a shop and sell face to face, you could consider having a tablet set up that customers could use to leave a review straight away. Or you could stamp paper bags, or cups or anything else a customer takes out of your premises with ' like our service? leave us a review'
Make it as easy as possible for your client to action the review request. Send them a direct link to the place where you want the review. I am going to tell you how to do this for a Google review in just a moment. If it is LinkedIn you want reviews in, send a review request from your account. If it's Trip Advisor or Trust Pilot do the same. Don't leave it to your busy, multitasking client or customer, to have to do the finding bit.
Set yourself a target. When I start working with clients and identify that they are not asking for reviews I often set them a target to reach within a 90 day period. This is not something I enforce in any strict way, it is more a means to motivate and assist people in thinking about it as important and necessary. I currently have 31 five star ratings on Google, 15 five star reviews on Amazon, and lots of positive testimonials on LinkedIn and Facebook. But you need to think about where it makes the most sense for you and your business to have ratings.
How do I get customers to leave a Google review?
Here are the exact steps to follow.
Mobile
On your mobile device, open the Google My Business app . If you have multiple locations, open the location that you want to manage.
Tap Customers. Reviews.
In the top right, tap Share . If you haven't created a short name, you'll be prompted to make one.
Copy your short URL to share with customers
This is what will show up once you do the copy and paste
If you are reading this and thinking, hang on a minute Google My Business sounds important but I'm not there at the moment have a read of this
And this is the view your customers will see when they look up your business next.
Just before I sign off, did you know that another reason getting good reviews is important is that customers can filter by your star rating?
If you look at the image below, you can see that the results allow you to filter by distance, being open and top rated.
Finally if you are not already managing your business listing you can do that here
Thank you for reading, I really hope this was helpful for you.
Shona
P.S If you would like to receive blogs like this straight to your inbox, you can sign up here for my mailing list. I mail once per week on a Friday.
Would you like more marketing advice?
If you would like a book of 100 Marketing Tips written just for small business owners then do have a look here
You can even download a free chapter now if you would like a taster?
About Me
Shona Chambers is a Marketing Consultant based in SE London.
Specialising in helping Small Business Owners and Freelancers with their Marketing.