Customer feedback has always been useful to any business. Now, customers can easily make their experiences public which makes good reviews more important than ever.
Customer reviews can help your business in these three ways:
- Inform you of what your business is doing right and what it is doing wrong.
- Increase the visibility of your business in Google’s search results.
- Get testimonials from real customers to use on your website and in marketing.
The number and quality of reviews for a local service in Google is one of the strongest ranking factors for local search, In addition to being likely to rank higher than others, the listings that include good customer reviews look more credible and typically get more clicks. If your Google My Business listing shows a 4.8 star rating with 22 reviews and your competitor has fewer reviews and a lower score, most people will recognize that to mean that your business is trustworthy.
Keep in mind that customers will review your business whether you want it or not. Most websites that publish consumer reviews will not let you easily remove bad reviews. To get the most out of your reviews and keep as much control over your business’ reputation as you can, asking your customers to leave reviews about your company on your Google My Business page should be a top priority. ServicesPro’s review acquisition feature makes it easier to reach out to your customers to get real, positive feedback where it counts the most – on Google.
A good testimonial from a real customer has a strong influence on other potential customers. You can tell me you are nice, and I may believe you. However, if an unbiased third party tells me you are nice, I’d be much more inclined to believe it. I88% of consumers check out many reviews before making a purchase.
A potential hazard of soliciting testimonials is that you might receive a bad review that you cannot remove. Effectively responding to negative reviews and resolving problems customers may have shows potential customers that you can be trusted to take care of them. ServicesPro has a review management dashboard that makes it easy to respond to good or bad reviews on a variety of websites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and others.
Warning: DO NOT PAY FOR FAKE REVIEWS!
You may be tempted to pay a small fee to someone who can provide dozens of glowing praises for your business. Don’t do it. Google’s algorithms and human staff are smarter than that, and you can do a lot of damage to your business by trying to game the system. And don’t offer incentives like discounts or gift cards in exchange for good reviews. That is actually against Google’s terms of service and can lead to your listing being removed from Google. ServicesPro’s review gathering service reaches out to your customers and encourages them to leave feedback on Google or other review sites in ways that are completely within Google’s rules. Really, it is usually just a matter of asking nicely – we just make it fast and easy.
