In a world where digital presence pushes sales, online reviews are undeniably crucial to your business reputation. And that’s not all; the importance of online reviews grows by the day. How do you get more reviews?
At least 6% more consumers read reviews before purchasing a product or service in 2020 than in 2019. That said, it is glaring that online reviews are golden – and will continue to be so. For that reason, you should devise strategies to get more reviews on Google and industry-specific review sites as well. Doing so can be instrumental to upscaling your business.
But, how? How can you devise strategies for get more reviews…especially positive ones? It is pretty simple. You need to come up with a plan that gets you more feedback from your customers and then enable that plan with systems and processes to make it easy for you, your staff…and your customers.
Even at that, we understand that getting people to commit to anything isn’t always straightforward. That is why we have compiled in this article three strategies to help you get more reviews. Have a look!
Note: if you are a total stranger to the concept of reputation management, you might want to read this first: Getting Started With Small Business Reputation Management.
Make Your Business Accessible
Your business shouldn’t be the needle in the haystack – it should be the hay. In other words, if you are not where your customers want you, there is no way you’d make sales, let alone have reviews.
So, the first strategy for building online reviews is to ensure accessibility for your business. By the way, have you even Google-d your company recently? Were you on the first page of the search results? Did Google say, “do you mean…”?
If Google doesn’t recognize your business, you have your work cut out for you. But not to worry; what you need to do is invest in SEO. Then, optimize your pages with the keywords your customers use. Lastly, list your business on web directories – and do so accurately.
Suggested reading: Reputation Management Software: Reputation Pro
Do Commendable Work
From our experience, we have found that the best strategy to gather and manage online reviews is to fulfill the promises you made to your customers. If you sell X with a Y deliverable, uphold that. And if you would require an extension on deliveries, ask and communicate well ahead.
More importantly, do commendable jobs – you owe that to your customers. If you follow such a path, you wouldn’t even need to ask your customers before they leave you reviews.
And here is the best part of it all: when you deliver excellent work to your clients, you’ll get quality reviews. By that, we don’t mean the two-liners like “great job” and “thank you” – no! Quality reviews are detailed and long feedback that appraises your professionalism and business. Plus, they leave stamps of recommendation all over you.
Reply to Reviews With Intent
We have seen the way companies respond to reviews. And it is either in a carefree manner or with generic responses. Frankly, there is room for improvement – at least, there should be well-pronounced customer service.
Or perhaps most people don’t even know how they manage reviews can get them more business and solidify their business reputation. And it doesn’t matter if the feedback you’re handling is positive or negative; you should always reply to your reviews with the intent of getting more customers. Tools that utilize AI for small business can help by suggesting appropriate review responses.
And that’s it – you have the strategies to manage and grow your online reviews now. Tools like Customer Voice and Reputation Manager can enable these strategies.
If you’d like to understand how your business stacks up with others in your industry, request a free digital marketing snapshot report. Our team will look at your reviews as well as several other aspects of your online marketing health and provide you with a detailed report and recommendations.
