It is no secret that customer reviews are extremely important for your business.
As it turns out:
88% of online shoppers trust online reviews similar to personal recommendations. Not only that, 90% of online shopper read online reviews left by other customers before making a purchase decision.
Customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business that has a 5-star rating, and for local businesses, 92% of new customers will buy from a local business if it has at least a 4-star rating on Google or other online review rating platforms. Here is a link to more stats on online reviews.
Importance of Collecting Online Reviews for your Business
- Direct customer response- Online reviews give you a chance to interact directly with your customers and receive a genuine response from them. Most people are a little hesitant to give negative reviews physically; however, online reviews create a platform where even shy customers can express their feelings genuinely, therefore, enabling you to fully understand how good your product/service is.
- Marketing strategy- Google reviews help increase your SEO, making your website rank higher. Gathering more reviews also attracts more customers by increasing their buying confidence, thanks to social proof.
- Increasing trust- The more you collect positive reviews, the more you increase your online trust. However, a 100% review rating or near-perfect may also be interpreted as too good to be true. Having some few negative reviews or medium to low ratings creates more confidence, thanks to the famous rule of nothing is perfect. In short, do not be discouraged when you get a few negative reviews.
- Increasing customer interaction- Encouraging customers to review your products/services and responding to reviews or concerns creates an atmosphere of trust, thereby increasing customer loyalty. It also increases reach since the majority of satisfied customers are more likely to recommend your brand to their friends or even share on their social media accounts.
- Significant impact on sales- According to research by Harvard Business School, a one-star rating increase on Yelp.com results to a 5-9% increase in sales. This is without mentioning increases in repeat sales and increased order sizes due to the increased level of trust.
I’m sure by now you don’t have any doubt that you need to generate more online reviews for your business. But a question that might arise is whether you need to spend the same amount of effort if you own a physical walk-in business compared to an online business.
The answer is YES.
Google local business listing makes it possible for physical businesses to gather reviews online regardless of whether they own a website or not.
The image above is a screenshot of a Google local business search result for “barbershop in Tottenham”. As you can see, the top result has 411 reviews- it’s an ad- but the second ranking business has 80 reviews and a 5-star rating.
What is most important to note in the above image is Rayz barber. He/she ranks 4th yet he/she doesn’t have a website. All he/she needs are numerous excellent reviews and Google automatically ranks him/her high.
How to Claim your Listing on Google Local Business Listing
You can skip this section if you have already claimed your business listing 😊
By default, Google already has your business listed in Google maps. You can verify this by zooming in your local map on Google, searching for a service in your area similar to the one you offer or searching your business name on Google Maps.
However, for you to take full control of your business listing, you first need to claim your business and offer proof of ownership. It’s not that difficult though.
All you need to do is enter your correct postal address, add a marker to your specific business location, plus other minor edits. Google will then send you a verification code to your postal address for which you have to enter the verification code sent for final approval.
It is also important to note that if you don’t have a business website and would like to create one, Google offers a free hosted single-page website that you can easily edit through drag-and-drop at zero cost. Follow this link to understand more how to claim your business listing.
And now to the fun part!
How to Collect Reviews
Let’s be honest collecting reviews is a daunting task.
You have to convince someone you just took money from to give you a positive review so that he/she can help you make more money from other people, just Kidding 🙂
But:
Here is the point, not so many customers remember to leave a positive review after you deliver an exceptional service unless you remind them.
But still, you have to do it in a kind of friendly way else they will feel like you are coercing them. So, which is the best way to collect reviews from customers?
Well, several methods have been proven effective for convincing customers to leave reviews. The first and most effective method is offering a reward in return of a review.
And these rewards can vary from simple discount offers to more complex and expensive ones depending on what your business sells and what you think your customers would value enough.
The secret is don’t overdo it.
Your objective should be to offer just enough to make the customer feel appreciated and therefore feel obliged to leave a review. And it doesn’t have to a physical product that you are offering.
One of the rising trend businesses are using and one that has proven effective is the use of social media tags. By this, all you have to do is ask customers to write leave reviews and you tag them on your social media posts.
The second option is asking for reviews from customers. For this to be effective, you will need to make sure you serve them well. After that, you can ask them in a friendly way if they are happy with how you served them if they say yes, ask them to leave you a review on Google.
And make sure they write the review right there before leaving your business premise. The highest probability is they will forget to do it after leaving or will just ignore it.
However, a key point to highlight is product/service quality. Before asking your customers for Google reviews, you have to make sure your product or service is on point.
Nobody will review your product if he/she is not happy with how you served them. It might even work against you by customers leaving negative reviews which will have super negative effects on your business’s reputation online. Remember customers are more likely to leave reviews when they are unhappy with your product/service than when they are satisfied.
I know all this may sound a complex and unattainable, but what if I told you there is a platform that you can use to streamline this entire process and increase your ratings in such a short time.
Meet ReviewSocio
ReviewSocio is a reviews management software that was created by a business owner who was struggling to raise reviews just like you are. It is well packaged with incredible features and enables you to easily convince customers to leave reviews directly from your website or your social media pages.
What makes ReviewSocio so crucial for your business is it enables you to showcase reviews on your website, choose which reviews to showcase, and also make numerous edits to feature just the reviews you want. And trust me, you definitely need to starts showcase reviews on your website and here is why.
When you receive new visitors on your website, they don’t know you, your business, or the products you offer; consequently, you need to give them a reason to trust you and your products and the most effective method of doing so is by showing them reviews on your homepage. It sounds simple but I promise you it has proven so effective for so many businesses.
Here is a quick video of how it all works and what you stand to benefit from this amazing platform.
Wrap-up
Reviews are super important in the current online atmosphere. I’m sure you have learned everything you need to know to start collecting and showcasing reviews on your website.
With that said:
I can only summarize this article with this:
more reviews=more sales= more profit.
Start Collecting reviews today. Visit ReviewSocio.