ATTRACTING REVIEWS

Are you interested in bringing in more reviews? Here are some tactics to pursue:

Teach customers how to review — It’s true; some people just don’t know how to review. They’re not comfortable putting words together and won’t know what to say or how to proceed without guidance. So, it’s your job to guide them. And, again, when you do, you’ll be guiding them in how to use language that customers would use in search engines, which is a plus for search engine optimization (SEO).

Provide detailed instructions — For example, include a link in your footer for “Write a Customer Review,” which can take visitors to a page with instructions and screenshots. You can also link to this page when encouraging customers via email or Facebook to write reviews.

Promote good examples — What constitutes a good review? Show them. Select a well-written review to feature in emails or social media outlets. Show customers how to elaborate on the service experience and product appreciation. That way, they can see how to write more than “good job” and will be more likely to script something like, “I appreciated how they were respectful of my time, neat in their appearance, friendly in their attitude, and serious about their work.”

Create a sweepstakes — Enter the name of any customer who writes a review into a drawing for $100 of free services. Promote the sweepstakes via your website, through email, on Facebook, and frequently on your Twitter feed.

Email encouragement — Periodically send emails showing examples of great reviews. Encourage your audience to write one of their own.

Send follow-up emails — After a job, send a follow-up email to your customers encouraging a review.

Share reviews on social networks — Tweet links to a good review from the company’s Twitter feed. For example: “See what one customer says about why she was happy with our service and can’t wait to see lower energy bills [add link].” You can also allow customers to click a checkbox on their review to have it sent to their Facebook profiles. (They’ll have to log in to Facebook before sending.)

Make reviews search-friendly — An important requirement for using user-generated reviews for SEO is to make sure they’re visible to search engines. If the reviews are not visible when the search engine’s spiders visit your site, then they will not help your rankings.

Allow ratings and voting — Customers can write a review and provide an overall rating, while visitors to the page can click “yes” or “no” to indicate whether a review is helpful. Watch for rating mistakes, however. If you see a rating that is especially low (a one-star ranking on a five-star scale), reach out to the customer and ask if the rating is accurate. It could have been a misunderstanding of the instructions.

BRAND ADVOCATES

Remember, before prospects contact your company, they listen to what those who know you better have to say. They’re likely to go online, talk to friends, and look at your Facebook page.

So, how can you get customers to talk about you more often, in even-more strategic ways? Creating brand advocates among your customer base begins the way most good customer relationships do: Serve them at a higher level. Give them a reason to appreciate you by keeping your promises — provide same-day service, complete installations precisely, guarantee your work, and offer products that are warranted. Go above and beyond with 24/7 service. Learn your customers’ names. Talk to them as friends, sharing “inside information.” Follow up personally. Stay in touch. Correct problems. No one’s perfect, and when you can recognize your weaknesses and address them through solid customer service, you build relationships. When you ignore them, you weaken relationships not just with the initial customer, but with all his friends, relatives, and social media followers.

Make it easy to tell your story. Create sharable content through videos, reports, or blogs that highlight a problem you can solve. Create strong, intriguing offers that are also easy to share.

And, of course, give customers incentives. Creating a referral program where customers get a reward (such as a future discount or restaurant gift card) shows you appreciate them. If most people are happy with your service and products, they’ll be happy to tell others who are seeking the same service. But, someone needs to get that thought in their heads, and that someone is you.

A referral program (online and offline) with an incentive helps trigger the referral process and provides a reward for something that your customers may have done freely. But they’ll appreciate you even more when they get your incentive. And that’s another way you’re continuing to serve at a higher level.

Publication date: 8/31/2015

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