6 Ways To Boost Your Online Reviews
Make sure you’re signed up for review sites! For your customers to leave glowing reviews you first have to have a place where they can leave them. Start with Yelp and Facebook as they are the review sites consumers trust the most[1]. Some other review sites to consider signing up for are Foursquare, Google My Business, and Yellow Pages. For even more, a list of 16 review sites can be found here.
Just ask for them! A great way to generate reviews is simply by asking your friends, family, and loyal customers to give you a review[2].Let them know just how much a positive review helps you out. These are the people that are looking to support your business and this provides a simple and easy way of doing so! These positive reviews can make a large impact when you only have a handful of reviews, as each positive review will strongly influence your overall rating, and will also make negative reviews leave a much smaller dent.
For good measure, follow up your transactions with a request for a review as well[3]. Your business will still be fresh in the customer’s mind, making them more likely to go ahead and leave a review for you.
Include Your Staff! There are plenty of ways to encourage your staff to point happy customers to your review sites . You could have a friendly competition or make a sweepstakes where the entire team is rewarded for x amount of reviews. The options are as vast as your creativity!
Share them! Feature glowing reviews on your homepage or on any product pages you have[3]. Make a social media post thanking a reviewer for leaving a glowing review, and show the review off while doing so! This will show your customers that their reviews are appreciated, and will also show new customers how great you are!
Respond to them! Respond to your reviews to encourage more positive reviews, or to conduct damage control on negative reviews. For positive reviews make sure to give the reviewer a “thank you!” Show your customers you genuinely appreciate their feedback and the help it provides you. This will encourage more reviews from your loyal customers, as well as provide an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with the customers that gave you a helping hand.
For negative reviews look at them as an opportunity to hear out a customer, and even win them back. Negative reviews provide a chance to see where your business could make corrections. Responding to them allows you to show the reviewer and any on looking customers that you listen to feedback and immediately get to action fixing any problems your business may have.
Invest in a review software! A review software I have found our review software very useful. The software does a large amount of the work for you, making the management of reviews simple and painless. This software brings all of your reviews to one place.
In the platform you can respond directly to reviews and become notified whenever you receive a new review. The platform also creates a detailed analysis of all of your reviews from across the web. Finally, we even automates review requests for you across multiple channels such as email, text, and Facebook messages.
If it fits in your budget the our platform can save you a lot of time and energy, making your efforts to boost reviews much more effective.
References:
- Local Consumer Review Survey by BrightLocal: https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/
- “4 Ways to Increase Your Positive Yelp Reviews” by AllBusiness Networks: https://www.allbusiness.com/4-ways-increase-positive-yelp-reviews-11679-1.html
“10 ways to increase and improve your customer reviews” by Big Commerce: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/10-ways-to-increase-brand-loyalty-and-product-reviews/