If you want to get more reviews for your local business this month, not by year’s-end, do these 9 things. The big $ secret: consistency.
Google reviews have become essential to your local business’s online presence and are one of the most powerful online reputation management tools. They have a major impact on Google rankings and companies should be implementing multiple strategies to get more reviews.
Picture this: It's lunchtime and you're in the mood for tacos. But the spot around the corner is getting old. It’s time to try somewhere new. So you call up 500 of your closest friends to see which shop they recommend.
Wait, what? 500 personal recommendations for tacos?
While this scenario sounds absurd, it reflects your customers' experiences when they read your business's Google reviews and compare you to the competition. In fact, 79% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family.
Generating a high volume of Google business reviews is crucial to attracting potential customers and standing out from the crowd online. But unlike generating word-of-mouth referrals, getting more Google reviews for your business requires a scalable, consistent and proactive strategy to succeed.
Thankfully, after generating and managing over a million reviews on behalf of our clients, we've uncovered some tried-and-tested tips for how to get more Google reviews that every local business should know.
Here are Widewail's top nine insider secrets for how to easily get more Google reviews:
Providing excellent customer service is crucial to building trust with consumers and is one of the best ways to generate more Google reviews. In our 2023 Voice of the Customer Report, we found that Staff is mentioned in 8 out of 10 automotive reviews, with 7 of those reviews being positive. A stellar interaction with your team can compel customers to leave a positive review voluntarily.
You can also train your team to ask customers for feedback or show their thanks via Google reviews. Keeping your team in the loop on how and when to ask for reviews should increase review frequency and overall review volume.
As NY Times best-selling author Nora Roberts once said, "If you don't ask, the answer is always no." Proactively asking customers for Google reviews is one of the fastest and most effective ways to increase your review volume. In fact, our customers have found that for every 100 customers you ask for a review, around 20 will follow through; depending on your customer volume, you could achieve that number in less than a week!
Beyond direct solicitation, try passive measures such as putting review links in your email signatures or sharing QR codes at the point of purchase.
Hey, Jake here - so you're asking everyone...but what do you say? You could probably come up with a few ideas, this isn't rocket science, but wouldn't it be easier just to grab a handful of templates and pick your favorites? I put together some ideas for you, hope this helps.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but optimizing and maintaining your Google Business Profile (GBP) is key to driving traffic to your website and can ultimately lead to more reviews. The more up-to-date your GBP is, the easier it is for customers to find and engage with your business. A consistently managed GBP will be more successful in drawing in new customers and keeping it accurate helps build trust.
Maintaining your profile's Questions and Answers feature offers another opportunity to interact with patrons and demonstrates that you care about their business. Answering all questions accurately and consistently removes a barrier of entry for potential customers and makes them more apt to choose your business.
Your customers are busy. They have jobs, families, activities and a never-ending to-do list they're likely juggling at any given moment. So, when you ask customers to leave you a review, make it as painless as possible for them.
Send them a direct link to your Google My Business review page, remind them who they worked with in the message and explain how quick the review process is. This removes friction and makes it easy for your customer to leave an accurate, detailed review.
An automated solution, such as our Invite platform, can pull this data and make the review generation process simple for you and your customers.
Not all review request channels are created equal. According to Marketing Tech,
While using multiple review request channels (email, in-person, social media, etc.) helps cover all of your bases, SMS is the most scalable and effective channel to get more reviews. Like email, SMS communications can easily be integrated into your sales CRM system and automated to scale across your entire customer base, quickly improving your Google review volume.
Reviews are one of the best ways to establish trust with potential customers because they act as social proof. Promoting positive reviews via social media, like posting a memorable 5-star review on Instagram or sharing a story from a satisfied client via LinkedIn, can encourage others to leave their own review.
Dedicating a section on your website to highlight positive reviews is another great way to showcase customer feedback.
Responding to Google reviews might not be top-of-mind when you're trying to generate more reviews. However, an analysis of TripAdvisor data found that hotels receive 12% more reviews on average when they start responding to reviews.
Responding to every review, positive or negative, increases your number of positive reviews. Responding to customer reviews demonstrates that you care about their experiences and feedback. The more two-way interactions you have with customers, the more inclined they will be to engage with your business.
Responding to every review can be daunting and time-consuming, but its high impact is worth the effort. Alternatively, investing in review response software can streamline your reputation management strategy. For example, Widewail’s Engage ensures that no reviews go unresponded to, and is powered by a team of real and experienced writers.
By embracing and responding to negative reviews, you offer your side of the story and show you value patrons' feedback. Research from Mark Collier found that, of customers who received a response from a company after leaving a negative review,
By engaging with negative feedback and learning from it, you show prospective customers you appreciate their opinions and increase your chances of turning a negative review into a positive.
For more tips on how to respond to positive and negative Google reviews, check out our free guide.
Getting more Google reviews is a marathon, not a sprint; managing this process takes time and consistency. Incorporating scalable review management solutions is the easiest and most effective way to drive sustainable, long-term growth in your Google review volume.
If you're struggling to manage reviews on your own, automated review generation platforms can help remove the stress and overhead of manually soliciting reviews. Alternatively, a full-service review management partner like Widewail can help you respond to reviews faster and more strategically than in-house or automated response solutions.
If you're still wondering how to get more Google reviews, the main takeaway is to be consistent in your review management strategy. From asking every customer for a review to responding in 24 hours or less, the more consistent and proactive you are, the better your results will be.
Thanks for reading! Next, grab the templates and start generating more reviews.
*This post was updated on 4/17/24 and originally published on 3/10/21.
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