The Fine Art of Asking for and GETTING Local Reviews

[Linda Buquet]

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I was just watching a Tony Robbins video and he said something about the fact that if you make something overly complicated - it stifles execution. In other words "keep it simple, stupid!"

It reminded me of a good review post I wanted to share.
To get reviews you need to make it E A S Y!

If you ask for a review or a testimonial - that's hard. It conjures up the fear of "well I don't know what to say" or I don't know how to write one." OR I don't have time, because they are thinking it needs to be long and eloquent. Ask for "feedback" - that's easier.

Then give them a hint about things they could say. Feed them some very specific and appropriate sample questions to help them get their creative juices going and give them ideas about what they may want to say in their review.

This post is about written testimonials, but I think much of it can apply to getting online reviews as well.

<a href="http://www.imcreator.com/blog/the-art-of-the-testimonial-how-to-get-your-clients-to-rave-about-you/">The Art of the Testimonial: How to Get Your Clients to Rave About You</a>

Giving a testimonial is also difficult for clients because they often don?t know what to say and we often don?t do a good job of helping them figure it out.

To avoid that situation, ask clients for feedback instead. The advantage here is that customers are much, much more likely to give feedback than they are a testimonial, even though the purpose for you remains the same.

Then he goes on to talk about doing more of a survey, but for review purposes you could still give customers some ideas. He shares some questions you could ask clients to spark their imagination or give them specific things to consider reviewing you about. (Which would of course vary based on the service.)

ONE of the review problems I see all the time is companies asking for a review like this. "Please do us a big favor and leave us a review."

Guess what? The average person does not want to take time to do you a favor. Or to help YOUR business. They want to know the WIIFM!!! (What's in it for me.)

Prompt them by saying something like the following, which incorporates the idea of giving them more benefits for leaving 'feedback" as well was giving them ideas about what to say. (I just made this up quickly and didn't have time to think it through. ([Forum went down so now I'm in a rush to publish.)) So feel free to poke holes in it or adjust to suit.)

Note: People LOVE to help and be helpful...

"Many of our customers want to offer feedback to help us ensure we are offering the best possible service and also to help others understand the benefits to working with us. But some hesitate to leave feedback simply because they are unsure what to say. Here are a couple ideas for the type of feedback other valued customers have left, just to give you some food for thought. But please feel free to offer whatever feedback you think would be helpful.

"If you recommended me to a friend, how would you describe the service I provided for you?

"How severe was your leaking roof problem? How did my service help you?
How satisfied were you with the result?"

The author even shares a sample letter - again asking for a written testimonial, but the idea could be tweaked to use for reviews. So head over to read the rest.

I could write a book about the psychology of asking for reviews, but that's all I can do for right now.
And right here in the REVIEWS sub-forum, you'll find many other posts that have good strategies as well.

What do you think???

What's your fav strategy for asking for and GETTING local reviews?

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[jonkeel]

Great post, Linda.

We see two issues with getting customer reviews.

The first has to do with the client. Basically we're asking people to change or modify their behavior. If this is the, in the case of a medical professional's office, a front desk person, where they're already "over busy", it can be challenging (our experience anyway). As an aside, we've found that asking at the point of customer interface works best in terms of results.

Languaging is all important (read scripting). Agree that simpler is better. What we've found more often than not is "Can I ask you for a favor? Would you mind giving us some feedback?" We tried more complicated scripts for several years; this seems to work best.

In terms of their customer, how to make it easy/simple. We provide a "review page" at which they can leave their "feedback." We also have several other 4 or 5 star reviews showing on the page as a subliminal suggestion of what can be said.

When they say, "I'd love to but I just don't have the time right now," it's merely an email away with a link to the review page.

There's a lot more to it than that, but this are some general ideas.

 

[Laustin1878]

Boy, you guy make it sound easy....lol

I have to imagine this is a large hurdle for most businesses. Phil Rozek's approach to finding sites that your clients feel most comfortable using seems to be a great strategy. Having the person who deals mostly with the customers obtain that info is where the leak is.

I recently wrote personal emails to 5 recent customers on a site highlighting the product they purchased (with a link to the product review page), a link to the Facebook page to like and add a photo as well as 2 links to third party review sites. I took the "feedback" approach and what can we do to improve the experience and received nothing in return. Maybe I asked for too much but I wanted to make it personal and try to build on the connection. No joy.

I've been experimenting with contact times after purchase, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, etc. and have not made it through each cycle yet. I'm guessing people either a) don't want to be bothered or b) don't have the time.

I've thought about implementing a referral program with incentives and including this information in the email to see if I get any response at all. I really want the honest feedback and the bonus would be leaving a review or writing a testimonial.

I'll be re-reading the article again to hone in on a way to get reviews. I do like the questionnaire idea over the survey. How would one translate that to a 3rd party review though?

 

[Mbrinton]

Linda, et al,

No doubt there's a fine art in asking for local reviews, especially Google ones, but more importantly, if the process isn't fast and easy, the GETTING of reviews won't happen. Period.

I have been trying for 7 years to help encourage my clients to get more reviews, with little success. I have found that even clients with the best intentions don't get it done because they are just too busy to remember to ask. More importantly, though, even if they ask, their customers are even busier, and don't leave reviews because the process is cumbersome and time-consuming for the average joe -- unless they had a terrible experience. Sound familiar to anyone?

Here's the good news: I am confident I have the answer. My partner and I just completed a tool that simplifies the process, making it easy for the business to ask for a review and more importantly, making it super easy for the customer to leave a legit Google, Yelp, or Facebook review from their smart phone while they are right there in the business (within seconds). No joke.

Please let me know if it's appropriate to show a demo in this forum, and I'm happy to show some screenshots of how it works. We are in beta, but if received well, we are going to make it a white label for SEO's to offer to their clients. If not, we'll just help our clients dominate.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Please let me know if it's appropriate to show a demo in this forum, and I'm happy to show some screenshots of how it works. We are in beta, but if received well, we are going to make it a white label for SEO's to offer to their clients. If not, we'll just help our clients dominate.

Thanks Mitch!

You can't post about it directly due to forum rules and some complicated issues I'll need to explain. But I'll reach out with a way via email and explain soon after I get Dragon trained to type better for me.

 

[theitsage]

First, I'd like to say Thank you! to all contributors and the great resources on this forum. I've been a lurker for the past 6 months and have only now felt I got something useful to share.

One of my strategies in getting reviews is helping the clients take the path of least resistance. Their email addresses is very valuable in determining which online review source I push them on. Gmail.com addresses is obvious (to Google My Business). Yelp takes a bit of work. I use Yelp's finding friends tool to identify whom of my customers have a Yelp account by their email addresses.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi theitsage,

Welcome! Thanks for coming out of lurker mode to join and share!