Why Asking for Customer Reviews Can Make or Break Your Reputation
Online reviews can make or break a business. Based on survey data, 95% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. The last thing your business needs is a glaringly angry negative review driving away new customers. That’s why you need a strategy for asking for customer reviews. From identifying a positive experience to asking for customer reviews in-person or through email and text message marketing, keep reading to learn the best strategies to improve your online reputation.
Identify Positive Experiences
The first thing you should do in your strategy for asking for customer reviews is to identify a positive experience. This includes identifying customers who had a good experience at your business. Identifying a positive experience can happen on a weekly or daily basis before sending out online review requests. By choosing these specific people, you’re making sure that you’re sending review requests to people who are more likely to give you a positive online review.
[Related: The Cost of Ignoring Online Reviews]
Asking for Customer Reviews
The most direct way to get a customer to leave a review is to simply ask. Whether they are physically in your store or office building or after they’ve made a purchase online, asking for customer reviews is crucial, or they likely won’t supply one.
Methods of asking for customer reviews include:
In-Person – Make an effort to ask a customer to leave a review when the moment is right. Typically, this is right after they’ve purchased from your business. This works best when a customer expresses that they’ve had a positive experience or paid a compliment to your business’s services or products.
On Your Website – A great business website provides ample opportunities for online customers to leave an online review throughout the site. Although it isn’t as direct as asking in person, it is a way for customers to leave their opinion.
Review Sites (Google, Yelp, etc.) – Online review sites are built solely to gather and display reviews from customers of every business. Business owners can ask for a review specifically on these sites and then use them to thank customers for their kindness or attempt to communicate with an unhappy customer.
Social Media – Business owners can use social media to bolster their reviews by simply asking customers to leave a review. This strategy can be turned into a contest that offers a free product, gift card, or something similar to an individual who leaves a review in the next week.
Email/Text Message Marketing – If your business regularly sends out emails or text messages, then you can use that as another opportunity to ask customers to leave an online review on your website. This is where Kydos – our online software management software – can come in handy with its email/text message marketing feature.
[Related: Tracking Customer Opinion for Free]
Send Multiple Requests for Online Reviews
Part of your strategy to get customers to leave an online review should include sending more than one request after the first time you’ve asked. We’re not telling you to pester your customers, but remind them of the opportunity by asking politely. There are several methods to go about asking for a customer review, whether it is asking the next time you see them in your store or through a short, simple email or text message every few weeks.
[Related: Reputation Management for Your Business]
Follow Up – Thank Them or Ask Again
Show your appreciation to your customers with a personal follow-up via phone or email. You can thank them for their business and for taking the time to leave an online review. Following up with customers allows you to ask them one more time to leave an online review on your website if they haven’t already.
A simple call or email follow-up gives a personal touch and shows people that you truly care about your business. This is also an opportunity to discuss and correct any issues or negative experiences an individual might have had with your business. In the long run, this level of customer service will benefit your business’s online reviews.
[Related: Good Practices to Keep with Clients]
Feature the Online Review
Featuring your customers’ online reviews lets them know that you read and care what is said about your company as a business owner. It’s also another opportunity to show your appreciation for your customers. The most obvious place to feature reviews would be on your business’s website.
Another way to feature customer reviews online is by using social media. You or your social media manager can take a screenshot of a review or create a simple graphic highlighting your customer’s review.
Catapult Creative Media has an online reputation management software solution called Kydos for business owners looking to increase their online review ranking. With Kydos, you’ll be able to read, reply, and request reviews from multiple different platforms all in one place. Our latest software update introduces text message marketing and so much more. Contact our marketing specialists today to learn more at 225-590-3310.
Allison Bruhl is a Copywriter at Catapult. She has a degree in mass communication with a concentration in journalism and a minor in Spanish. In her free time, she does photography at local concerts and music festivals.
Work with Catapult Creative Media Inc. Catapult Creative Media Inc. is a digital marketing and design agency serving clients over the United States but is proud to call Baton Rouge, Louisiana home. Founded in 2007, Catapult provides digital, social and mobile marketing solutions backed by relevant strategy and measurable results. Catapult works the web to their clients’ advantage, launching them to their next level of success.
