Customer reviews are an incredibly important part of a businesses sales and marketing strategy. It’s even more important for a service-based business where trust and credibility form the cornerstone of success.
Generating positive reviews is not just about getting customer feedback. Reviews can literally propel a business from obscurity to local market dominance over the course of time.
Despite their critical importance, many businesses find themselves trailing in the race to generate reviews. And oftentimes, they find themselves forever trailing behind established competitors who have an ever-growing reputation that can leave the business feeling like David fighting Goliath.
The good news is that generating reviews doesn’t have to be hard or expensive! In this article we’ll break down a highly effective and affordable strategy rooted in proven psychological principles, aimed at significantly boosting review acquisition.
How affordable is it? You could be generating reviews for as little as $6.00 per review.
Continue reading to discover the step-by-step process that can transform the review collection process into a competitive advantage.
What You Will Learn
Reviews form the backbone of a local business’ success. They play a huge role in the businesses success because people look to the experiences of others to determine if they’ve found the right business for them. Search Engines know this, and factor this into their algorithms when it comes to “recommending” a business to a searcher.
Every review that a business gets is a vote by another consumer, who has themselves done their research, and is now backing their decision publicly. That’s powerful.
The amount of trust that is baked into a positive review is significant. One review can literally “make some’s mind up”.
Building trust and social proof through reviews increases the likelihood of getting more customers who are researching options online.
Search engines look at a business’ Google Business profile reviews to get qualitative data about the business, as well as determine the relevance of the business for a searcher’s query. The more reviews you have the more likely Google will show your business’ profile in local business listings when a user is performing a search online. Although there is much more that goes into Google Business Profile Optimization than simply reviews, this is one major area where business owners can do a lot of the leg work.
The searches that Google displays Google Business Profiles for are generally more transactional in nature. So having your business’ profile listed directly translates to more business inquiries, and therefore more business.
In a world where everyone, including their uncle, wants to start a business - it’s not uncommon to see new competitors emerge all the time.
A new competitor, aiming to take market share away from established businesses, will try to replicate success and compete on things like price to get more customers.
But competing against, or replicating, a strong review profile full of genuine, positive reviews is not easily done by newcomers. And your business’ reviews become one of the greatest assets you can build for defensive marketing purposes.
At Propel Digital Marketing, we’ve helped many local businesses dominate their local market. One of the ways in which we’ve done this is by helping clients generate more positive reviews for their businesses consistently and effectively.
This strategy has helped increased the success rate of review requests for some of our clients by as much as 300%!
In this section, we’ll break down one of the most effective strategies for getting more reviews for service-based businesses.
This strategy is particularly effective for home-services businesses where they are able to have in-person communication and connection with their clients.
Why is this strategy so effective? Well, it’s because we leverage powerful psychological principles that are used by some of the most successful sales people in the world.
Let’s explore why this strategy works…
The psychological principle of reciprocity suggests that people are more willing to do something for you, if you do something for them. Even if they didn’t ask you to give them something, or do something for them, the person on the receiving end of your generosity is significantly more inclined to reciprocate that kindness. It’s human nature.
In research conducted at Harvard in 1978, Ellen Langer found that giving someone a reason for doing something significantly increased the likelihood of compliance from that person - regardless of what the reason was.
This means that if you want someone to do something, give them a reason using the word “because” and you are significantly more likely to get them to do that thing.
So how does this all come together? This strategy for getting more reviews from clients combines the psychological motivators of reciprocity and justification to maximize the likelihood of having customers give you a review!
Let’s break down the strategy…
First, buy some $5 gift cards from a local store like Starbucks, Tim Hortons, or Dunkin Donuts. Consider your average customer and what they may prefer, when choosing the business to buy the gift cards from.
💡 TIP: Look for gift cards that come with sleeves. The sleeves will add to the final packaged look of the gift!
Find a good pre-made design for “thank you” cards. You can find templates online at places like Envato Elements. Here’s the design that we’ll use in this example:
Download the template, and customize it with your brand's colors, fonts, and logo. This is one area where professional branding can really help elevate a simple strategy like this.
These thank you cards are the key component to success, so be sure to include the following features:
Next, you’ll want to bring your customized thank you card design to a local print shop and get them printed on card stock. You want a slightly thicker paper so that the cards don’t feel flimsy, and they are able to support the weight of the gift card.
💡 TIP: Get the print shop to cut the cards out for you. It’ll cost you an additional few bucks but it will save you a lot of time, headaches, and mistakes.
Next, buy double-sided stickers. These are the same type of stickers that the banks use to stick a bank card to a letter when they send you a new bank card in the mail.
These stickers cost only a few cents each, and you can conveniently buy these in packages of 200 or more on amazon. Here’s a the ones we used in this example:
Lastly, you’ll need to put these all together:
Keep these gifts on-hand and distribute them to customers who have not yet left you a review. Don’t limit yourself to only new customers. Add a note to your CRM of choice or tag customers who haven’t left you a review and make sure to leave them this gift on your next visit.
💡 TIP: Take a minute to align the card properly before you stick it to the thank you card, to ensure that it is centered perfectly. This will give the packaged gift a clean and professional look.
As with any marketing strategy, you always want to do whatever you can to maximize the results and minimize the cost per result.
Below are some tips for making the most of this review collection strategy.
If a customer is not home when you complete the job, do NOT give the gift card to just anyone in the home. The person who hired you to do the job is most likely the one that will be leaving the review.
Instead, consider leaving the gift card in their mailbox. This gives you a reason to follow up with the client. Reach out to them via phone or text message (email is not ideal), and let them know about their gift and where you’ve left it. Ask them to confirm with you when they’ve received it so that you know the gift found its way to their hands. When they confirm, take that opportunity to send a soft ask for the review again.
When this strategy is used in conjunction with a well-executed service, this strategy leaves a very strong and lasting first impression on customers. Make sure to follow up with all customers and use the act of generosity as a conversation starter. A simple, “Hey Sarah, I hope you found time to treat yourself to a tea or latte”, can open the door for a genuine human conversation. Piggyback off that opportunity to build a connection and relationship with that customer. Show interest in them and ask them questions. Allow the conversation to naturally flow and don’t force a sales conversation. If all you do is end the conversation with “if you need any more help with XYZ, we’re here to help”, it’s still a win. Make sure to continue to follow up periodically to stay top of mind and increase the likelihood of repeat business.
The success of most marketing efforts lies in the ability to maximize lifetime value from a lead or customer.
For businesses that service dozens or hundreds of customers every week, or find it hard to find the time to follow up consistently, consider leveraging some automations.
Instead of following up manually to continue asking for a review, put those contacts into an automated email and/or SMS sequence.
Instead of following up periodically to stay top of mind, consider putting those contacts into a long-term email and/or SMS nurture sequence.
In fact, at Propel Digital Marketing we implement both of these time saving automations all the time for customers using our All-In-One Sales & Marketing software.
This strategy works by leveraging psychological principles, backed by research, to maximize the likelihood of customers leaving your business a review. This is a safe and effective strategy provided you are not preventing customers from leaving a negative review, which is against Google's terms of service.
Reviews are a great way of generating more leads and revenue for your business. This strategy is proof that generating reviews doesn't require expensive and sophisticated tools. By simply leveraging research backed psychology, you can implement a strategy like this as an affordable and effective way to maximize the review generation for your business.
