Reviews are very important for a business to grow. Prospective customers will always check the online reviews of a business before deciding either to buy a product or perform any business transaction.
Small businesses and start-ups can either experience growth or failure through online reviews.
Why online reviews are important for your business?
Online reviews are not only necessary to tell stories about a particular business, they serve as an instrument in propelling a business to the next level.
Studies have shown that 90% of customers read reviews before patronizing a business and 67% are influenced by the reviews they read. This means that online review determines to a very large extent if a business will grow or not.
Positive reviews can help a business grown in a very short space of time. Study has shown that positive reviews increase sales by 18% or more.
Positive reviews could also make customers to spend 31% more of what they initially planned to spend. This means that with positive reviews on your business, customers will buy more of what they initially planned to buy.
Study also showed that 22% of customers who would have patronized a business will not if there is just one negative review about the business.
If there are three or more negative reviews, about 59.2% of customers who would have patronized the business will not any longer. If the negative reviews are up to four or more, about 70% or more will no longer want to patronize the business.
This means that negative reviews can hinder the growth of a business or make a business fail.
Knowing that negative reviews could lead to business failures, business owners and managers need to be on their toes to make sure customers are totally satisfied with the services they are rendering or the goods they are selling.
This helps business owners and managers know what they should do and shouldn’t do to get positive reviews from their customers and consumers.
How to get more reviews on Google my Business?
Reviews on Google my Business are one of the best ways to publicize your business to more people and increase sales.
Positive reviews written for your business on Google my Business increases the star ratings of your business, which invariably increases its position to the top spot on Google my Business and which leads to more people getting to know your business and patronizing your business.
Getting more reviews on Google my Business is not such a difficult task, there are many strategies and things you could do to get more reviews.
Here are some of the things you can do to get more reviews.
Ask your customers to leave a review
The number one most effective way to get reviews for your business is to ask your customers to leave a review after experiencing your services or making any business transactions with you.
Study has shown that 7 out of every 10 persons will leave you a review if you ask them. This is a very high percentage of people. Hence it is very effective.
Thank them first for their patronage before asking them for their reviews in a friendly but professional manner in order to get more responses from them.
Make it easier and educate them on how to leave reviews
Leaving reviews for you is entirely the decision of your customers even though you ask them for it. Hence you need to make the process very easy for them. Most people won’t leave a review if they find the process difficult or too long steps.
It is best to shorten the steps as much as possible and educate your customers on leaving reviews on your Google my Business page.
Send your review links to customers
To personalize reviews, it is best to send review links to your customers through personal emails and messages. This will make it feel more personal and serve as a reminder.
Give Incentives
Incentives are free gifts or price reductions giving out to customers or potential customers in an effort to make them come again. You can give out incentives to your customers and ask them to leave you a review.
The incentives will make them happy and appreciated, making them leave you a review without pressure.
Respond to reviews
When customers see it that business owners respond to reviews of other people, they will be more willing to leave a review because they feel that they will also get adequate responses.
Even if you have a negative review, respond to it in a professional manner and assure the reviewer of a solution for whatever ever problem the reviewer talked about.
If the review is a positive one, appreciate the reviewer and use the opportunity to ask for more patronage.
How to get more reviews on Yelp?
Yelp is a leading business review site to get your business on in order to acquire more customers for your business.
Nearly 150 million people visit yelp every month, which make it a very effective and important website for business reviews. If you want to grow your business by getting more customers, yelp is very important.
But how can you get more reviews on Yelp, you may be asking this question. Here are some of the things you can do to get more reviews;
Optimize your Yelp page
Make a quality Yelp business page and add all relevant information such as address, business hours, packing spaces if applicable and every other relevant information about your business.
Upload high-quality photos of your physical business environment, menu and other services you provide.
High-quality and eye-catchy photos are very important because most customers will make a decision based on how your food menu looks especially for restaurants and food selling businesses.
Ask for reviews
Asking customers for reviews cannot be over-emphasized because this is the most effective way to get reviews. First, ask the customers of their satisfaction with your services then you can go further by asking them to leave a review on your Yelp page.
Make posters and reminders on walls and visible areas
Apart from telling your customers to leave reviews through word of mouth, you can as well make posters and reminders then place it on the walls of your restaurant, tables, or visible areas.
By doing this you have succeeded in making your customers know that reviews are important to you and they will be more willing to leave a review.
Offer exclusive deals or incentives
Offering exclusive deals or incentives such as reducing the prices of food, giving discounts or giving out giveaway gifts are smart effective ways to get more reviews on your Yelp page.
You can organize a giveaway day or discounted dinner dates to get more customers and utilize the opportunity to get more reviews.
Always respond to reviews
Make it a habit to always respond to reviews, both the negative ones and the positive ones. If a customer is not satisfied with your menu, you can offer an apology at first before explaining and assure the customer of a better service next time.
When a customer leaves a positive review, thank the customer and assure them of better services next time. This will make them want to come again and also tell their friends and family members about your services, thereby acquiring more customers and more reviews.
How to get more reviews on Facebook page?
Facebook is a social media site where business owners can create a business page for their businesses for more publicity.
Study has shown that 55% of customers use Facebook to get information on new products to buy. 71% of customers admitted that they completely or slightly trust what they read and see on Facebook.
Facebook can increase traffic to your business website up to 6%. This means that Facebook plays an important role in increases sales and revenue for your business.
Here are some important steps you can take in order to get more reviews on your Facebook page.
Add a call to action on your business website
Your business website should contain a call-to-action in which customers or the people viewing your website will click and will directly take them to your Facebook page where they can leave a review.
Ask your customers to leave a review on your Facebook page
This is the easiest and most effective way to get reviews. Simply ask your customers to leave a review based on their experiences and the services you rendered. It should be totally free-willed and honest review of their experiences about your business or services.
Encourage your customers or visitors to check-in
This is a smart way to get more reviews on Facebook without asking for them. When customers or visitors check-in at your restaurant using the location geo-tagging feature on Facebook, then Facebook will share the location tag with their posts.
After checking-in, Facebook will send them a message after some days or after a day reminding them of their visit to your restaurant and asking them to leave a review of their experiences.
This is a very effective way to get reviews on your Facebook page as Facebook will be working on your behalf.
Send personal emails to customers for reviews
You can as well get more reviews on your Facebook page by sending personal emails to your customers asking them to leave a review by clicking on your Facebook page URL link.
Always make it a habit to collect your customers' email addresses by telling them that you will like to be sending them updates about new products.
These email addresses will also serve as a means to get more customer reviews.
Respond to reviews and be appreciative
Regardless of the kind of reviews you get, either positive or negative review, always make it a habit to respond to those reviews and appreciate your customers for their time to leave you a review.
Respond accordingly and professionally to reviews and more customers will be willing to make reviews on your Facebook page.
How to get more reviews on your e-commerce product pages?
Your e-commerce product page is your business website, it is the online face of your business or store, and thus it needs to be easy to navigate and up to a professional standard.
Reviews on your e-commerce product pages are a great way to get more customers to patronize your business or buy from your online store. More positive reviews on your e-commerce product pages will lead to more customers because many prospective customers always read reviews before deciding if to buy a product or not.
Getting lots of reviews on your e-commerce product pages may sound easy but not as easy as it sounds. You need to strategize and follow some smart steps.
Here are some of the things you should do if you want to get more reviews for your e-commerce product pages;
Optimize your website for mobile
Most people use their phones more than they use their computers, hence if your website is not optimized for mobile you may not get reviews as customers may find it difficult to browse through your e-commerce website.
So, to prevent such as situation as this, make sure your website is easy to browse through and perfectly optimized for mobile phones.
Identify customers that are likely to leave reviews
Another effective way to get reviews on your e-commerce website is to identify your loyal and happy customers who are likely to leave you a review.
After identifying them, you can then start sending them emails periodically asking them for reviews through automated emailing.
Make it easy to leave a review
Always make it easy to leave a review on your e-commerce page because more people won’t write a review if they find the process difficult.
Ask for reviews
You can write on the front or last page of your e-commerce product pages soliciting for customer reviews. First, appreciate your customers for patronizing and buying your products, then, kindly ask them to leave a review about their experiences and the product they bought.
Provide good services and quality products
Naturally, when you provide good services and quality products, your customers will be happy and satisfied which will make them want to write a review about your business.
When happy and satisfied customers make reviews, they make positive reviews which are very instrumental to the growth of your business.
Five ways to ask for reviews from your customers
Maybe you have some new customers who have come to buy goods from you or make business transactions with you but you don’t know how best to ask them for reviews, here are some ways you can do ask them for reviews;
Strike a conversation with them and utilize the opportunity to ask
Be friendly with your customers but in a professional manner. Be able to strike a meaningful conversation with them and ask them about their experiences and satisfaction with your services and products.
When they are about leaving, you can kindly ask them to leave a review on your business page so that more people can know about your business and services.
Ask in response to customer praises
When some customers are very satisfied with the services rendered to them by a business owner or product they bought, they give praises or thanks to the business owner as an appreciation for a job well-done.
This is an opportunity to ask for a review and there is a very high success rate to this because you’re sure to get it.
Personal Phone calls
As a business owner or manager, you can give a personal call through to your customers first thanking them of their time and patronage, then, you ask them to leave a review on your business page.
Sending emails to customers
Sending personal emails to your customers, thanking them for their patronage and asking them to leave a review is another effective way to get more reviews from them.
It is best to add your business page URL where they will click that will directly take them to your business review page.
Give out Incentives
Most customers will do what you ask of them if you give them incentives. Incentives can be in form of price reduction, gifts, coupons, e.t.c. Doing this will make a customer happy and appreciated, hence will freely leave a review.
How getting more reviews helps you grow your business?
Reviews are one of the most important ways to boost your SEO ranking and increase your position in search engines.
The more reviews you have on your business page, the more it increases your SEO ranking and the more people get to know about your business which invariably will lead to more customers and, finally more revenue for your business.
The study has shown that 90% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as they trust personal recommendations. A study in 2017, shows that 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses.
The more positive reviews your customers leave on your business page, the easier it is for consumers to decide to transact business with you.
With reviews, you can connect with your customers and know what they want. Negative reviews will make you know where your business is lacking and how to improve on it.
Positive reviews will enable you to know how far you have gone and what more can still be done to increase productivity.
How to handle negative reviews and make that customer happy?
Negative reviews can have a negative effect on your business if not handled rightly with great professionalism. Even if a review is negative, you can turn it around to positively affect your business.
Here are some of the ways you can handle negative reviews and also make your customers happy;
Respond immediately
The mistake a business will make is to ignore a negative response because one negative review will make 22% of consumers who would have patronized your business to decide not to.
Three or more negative review will make 59.2% not to, while four and above negative reviews will make 70% or more decide not to transact business or buy from your products.
This is to show you that negative reviews can adversely affect the growth of your business and so you need to respond immediately to them accordingly.
Access the problem and proffer a solution
In order not to react incorrectly or write something that will affect the image of your business, you need first to access the problem in the negative review and proffer adequate solution to it.
Negative reviews are always complaints about your products or services and as such you need to have a solution concerning those complaints.
Always say “Thank You”
Even if the review is negative, always say “Thank you”. This will assure the reviewer that you are not angry and also create a view in the mind of other readers or potential customers that you have a good customer service approach.
Correct the reviewer if the feedback is wrong
Some negative reviews can be wrong or maybe the reviewer mistakenly wrote a negative review of another product on your review page.
First, you need to critically analyze the situation to be sure of what you are saying and actually make sure the feedback is wrong. If the feedback is wrong, you should kindly respond accordingly and professionally.
Follow-up to show the customer that you care
After you must have responded to a negative review and proffer solution to it, don’t just forget about the issue.
Follow-up on the issue and ask the customer about the status of that particular problem. This will make the customer feel that you actually care and make him or her happy.
How getting more reviews will improve your conversion rate
The importance of reviews for your business cannot be over-emphasized because reviews are in recent times where the success of a business lies. The more reviews your business gets the more the SEO ranking and your conversion rate. 71% of shoppers will read reviews before deciding to buy a product or not.
Reevoo found out that 50 or more reviews on a particular product can mean a 4.6% increase in the conversion rate of that product. It also found out that reviews produce an average of 18% increase in sales.
63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site which has more reviews.
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