Some people worry at the thought of online reviews but fear not – reviews can be really awesome for your business!
There are several ways your clients can review your business – Facebook offers a review system, as does Google My Business, and other sites such as Tripadvisor. Even your website can be setup to take reviews!
97% of consumers looked online for local business reviews in 2017, and 85% of consumers trust online reviews. Reviews also increase visibility on search engines, helping you show up competitors.
Unfortunately, people who leave reviews can sometimes tend to be people who only leave negative feedback, so it’s suuuper important to encourage all those good reviews!!
Encouragement is key
To get the good thoughts flowing, you should encourage clients to leave positive reviews (you are pretty great, after all)!
You could think about using reward incentives such as discounts, or simply asking your clients outright will often be effective, especially in a small local business.
Replies
When you get a review, make sure to reply – be it positive or negative! Be efficient with your reply time and be positive. It will be easy to share the love on a positive review, so here’s our number 1 tip to navigate a negative one:
• If the review is on a public platform, take the exchange out of the public sphere!
• A simple reply along the lines of; “Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are sorry to hear you had a negative experience with us. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further – please call or email us when you are available”.
• You should also avoid having an ugly conversation online, or even in-store in front of other customers.
Let the kind words flow
After your positive reviews start rolling in, feel free to share them! In fact, do share them!! It’s great for other customers to read the positive words.
You can make a quick text post sharing the review in quotation marks, with the customers first name to post to your social media pages or website!
If you would like some Zest-y help, we can certainly help you out with social media or Google My Business, or in setting up your website to allow reviews! Check out what we can do for you here!
