Here’s what I do to help clients get positive reviews about their business. By rallying customers quickly when you do get a particularly damaging review, you can mitigate the damage fast.
1. Embrace Yelp. If you are a local serving business, grab your Yelp Business page. Then put the link to review you in your email signature, point customers to your Yelp page for a review in your blog and e-newsletter.
2. Ask for Reviews. When you finish a project or provide a service, get in the habit of asking for feedback. You can use an online form hosted back at your website what asks questions and provides a way to customers to rank you anonymously and let you know about the experience of working with you. Then email the client a link to the form and ask for a review and comments you can use on your website. I like to use a five star rating system for my own forms. I ask five questions and provide several radio button choices for the client to assign a rating.
3. Use Rich Snippets. Get your webmaster to code the reviews you receive in step 2 with Google’s Rich Snippet code for reviews. Google will show rated reviews that are posted on your own website with your own star rating in the Google.com index if it is coded properly.
4. Ask and Get Buy-In. Don’t be afraid of reviews, embrace them. Be open to changing what you do when you get negative feedback and make your negative reviews turn into positive ones with concern about improving your user experience. I had one client give feedback that he did not like how I required him to fax his signature to the agreement as he did not have a fax machine. Based on his feedback I moved to a digital signing app and even asked his advice on the use. He was happy to try it out and give additional feedback. I learned that customers want options that match their own technology skill sets.
5. Give Options. Choose more than one path to give you a review. Some clients do not want to set up an account at Yelp to leave a review, or do not know what a Google Account is and why they have to set one up to review you at Google+. But everyone can complete an online form that resides on your website if you email a link. Give options to allow those who do want to say something nice about you and your services and make it easy for them to do so.
If you need help getting reviews or need help figuring out how to resolve bad reviews or build great reviews, make sure to check out our Brand Booster program.