Customer reviews can impact your business’ fortunes in more ways than you can imagine. According to a recent Zendesk survey, a whopping 90% stated that their decision to buy was influenced by positive online reviews. Indeed, this is a world where the reputation of your brand is shaped by the customers who interact with it. Which brings us to an all important question. Is your business generating a steady stream of positive reviews? If yes, that’s great. If not, then here’s a blog with 6 tips that will help you increase the quantity of your reviews in less time than you imagine.
1 Give your business maximum online visibility
The first step to increasing your customer reviews is to increase your visibility across platforms. Make sure your business profile is added on to sites that are visited most by customers looking for reviews. Some of the sites that you could upload your business profile on include Yelp, Angie’s List, Google, Trustpilot, LinkedIn, to name a few.
2 Request customers to share their experiences
A happy customer will most likely want to share their experience with your business with the community out there. All you need to do, to turn this enthusiasm into an invaluable business growth tool, is ask them to leave a review. Timing is important when seeking reviews, and the best time to ask for feedback is right after the customer transacts with your business. Make it a point to not get too intrusive or pushy when requesting for reviews.
3 Show customers the path to leaving reviews
Guide customers to the platform where you’d like them to leave feedback about your business, and you’ll further increase your chances of landing good, solid reviews. So when you’re asking contented customers for their feedback in-person, over a call or via email, make sure to share the link that will directly take them to the review platforms where you want customers to leave reviews.
4 Give customers a good reason to leave reviews
Your customers might have a million other things on their minds and therefore, may sometimes need to be ‘enticed’ into giving a timely review. Some of the ways you can make it rewarding for customers to share genuine reviews is by offering special discounts to regular review contributors or by holding contests where you offer giveaways to a limited number of customers who share their feedback about your business.
5 Appreciate customers who share reviews
A great way to ensure existing customers continue to share reviews and new customers follow suit, is to appreciate every customer who leaves their feedback on a review site. Replying to reviews tells customers their opinions matter and are taken seriously by your business. Throwing in an occasional ‘discount code’ might be a great way to express your gratitude to customers, who take time out from their hectic schedules to help your business grow in a fast and hectic world.
6 Integrate review collection in your marketing plan
Your business can not only maintain but even increase the flow of reviews, provided you make review collection a regular business practice. Make your customer-facing staff aware of the significance of reviews and the necessity of doing regular and timely follow-ups. A great way to get your staff kicked up about obtaining customer reviews is to create a recognition program that identifies and rewards employees who are rated highly and consistently by customers.
Look for tools to automate your review collection process
Maintaining a regular stream of customer reviews takes considerable time, effort and resources. The good news is, you can automate the entire process of review collection and updation and focus your time and energies where they’re really needed – in growing your business. How? With tools like Propel – an advanced review engine you can rely on to get and manage bulk reviews from diverse platforms, all at one place. In fact, you’ll also experience other advantages like knowing who’s checking your reviews, how many customers reading your reviews are reaching out to you and so on. If you find this interesting and would like to more, visit propel.ly
A proven partner for integrated digital marketing solutions
We hope the tips mentioned here will help you land more reviews without the trouble and the wait. If you’re looking for a digital marketing agency to partner with for integrated and customized solutions for your business, reach out to us at SocioSquares. We’re a digital marketing agency with over 11 years of experience in guiding small and medium sized businesses to their growth goals in a way that’s cost-effective and fast. Call us at +1 215 253 5622 or write to us at SUPPORT@SOCIOSQUARES.COM and we’ll develop a customized strategy to help your business gain 100 reviews in 30 days.
