Getting Reviews

A review acquisition strategy is fundamental in building a diversified, trustworthy reputation that improves your businesses visibility and positively influences conversion. This is where your ingenuity, perseverance, and creativity all come into play, developing the internet reputation you need to earn to instill trust in consumers. If you are unsure how to increase your local business reviews you'll be encouraged to know that many customers are inclined to leave a local business review when provided with clear directions, positive encouragement and a friendly reminder.

With the support of this article, and your knowledge of your customers, you’ll be able to explore and implement a combination of review acquisition tactics that help you earn ongoing local business reviews on the platforms that matter most.

Top tips earning local business reviews:

• Actively ask for reviews on platforms that permit it. 51% of your customers will always or usually leave a review if asked.

• Ask in multiple formats. 54% of customers prefer to be asked for reviews via email, 45% prefer in-person requests, and 29% prefer to be texted a request.

• Follow up and include reminders. The top reason customers don’t review local businesses is because they forget to. Remind your customers on print assets like receipts and packaging, and send follow-up reminders via email and text.

• Include clear instructions in your requests and a direct link to your review profile. 30% of customers don’t leave reviews because they find the process confusing.

• Show your customers you value their engagement by responding to all reviews your business receives. 26% of customers don’t leave reviews because they don’t believe businesses will care enough to read them.

• Experiment, investigate and explore your customers' preferences. Talk to your customers and community to better understand their favored platforms and channels for requesting reviews and following up.

Data Source: The Impact of Local Business Reviews on Consumer Behavior | SEO Industry Report - Moz

Detailed Tips for Earning Even More Local Business Reviews

1. Understand the motivations of reviewers so that you can tailor your review requests to their priorities. 73% of customers write reviews to tell others about their experience, so your requests could mention that you want the reviewer to let the whole community know what it’s like doing business with you. 63% write reviews to show appreciation of the business, so your requests could mention how grateful you would be for a review. 38% use reviews to tell a business how it needs to improve, so be sure you are consistently replying to negative reviews with explanations of how you’ve taken constructive criticism to heart and improved the business. Finally, 21% write reviews specifically to get a response from the business, so be sure customers can see that you have always replied to every incoming review.

2. Diversify the platforms on which you are asking for reviews. While 66% of review writers spend the most time on Google, 42% prefer Facebook, 36% focus on Yelp, and 16% spend the most time on NextDoor. Depending on your goals, your review acquisition campaigns might sometimes focus on a single platform where you want to build up your body of reviews, but it’s often the best idea to give customers a choice so that they can easily review you on a platform where they feel most comfortable. And don’t forget to dedicate resources to building up the first-party reviews you are requesting for publication on your business’ own website. Review diversity can decrease negative impacts when a particular platform filters out or loses some of your reviews.

3. Collecting email addresses at the time of service is the most powerful practice for both brick-and-mortar and service area businesses seeking to increase reviews. When a customer is willing to share an email, follow up within a few days to ask them to write a review about their experience. If your first request doesn’t result in a review, follow up a week or two later. Remember that the #1 reason customers don’t write more reviews is because they forget to when they have free time. Reminders are welcome so long as messaging doesn’t become annoying to the customer.

4. Be sure customers are encountering review requests everywhere. Service Area Businesses, like plumbers and contractors, can focus on digital requests via email and text, plus print-based requests on mailers and receipts. Brick-and-mortar businesses can make additional use of in-store signage to encourage reviews. Consider banners, business cards, brochures, receipts, window clings, menus, and flyers as vehicles for communicating both your desire for in-person feedback and your appreciation for online feedback. In-store apps, beacons, QR codes, and interactive media displays can also convey this message. Just be sure that customers are always leaving reviews on their own devices - never on any device owned by the business – to avoid reviews being deemed suspicious by platforms.

5. Train staff to verbally mention how much a review would be appreciated, especially when a customer seems happy. This works better in some businesses than others. It may be off-putting to customers standing in a line to hear every clerk at the counter reel off the same “rate my service” message ad infinitum. But, in a different situation, a friendly staff member can be empowered to use their discretion to say, “It would be so helpful if you’d consider leaving a review about our business — we’re trying to get the word out to our neighbors.” Where rapport exists, a request for a review can feel natural instead of forced. Remember that staff includes both in-store service providers and online and phone support.

6. Bearing in mind that not every customer is a tech whiz, be sure you’re sharing a direct link to the platform/s on which you want to be reviewed. A simple Google review link generator can help you locate the right URL to share with customers.

7. On your website’s own reviews or testimonials page, showcase links to your third-party review profiles, or create a separate page on your website just for that purpose. Audit this page by asking yourself questions. Is the page in your top level navigation menu and easy to find? Have you provided links and instructions for leaving reviews? Have you provided multiple options for review platforms so that the customer can choose the one on which they already have a profile? Are you avoiding review gating – the practice of requesting and displaying only positive sentiment, or are you ensuring that your website-based review content looks trustworthy because it contains a normal amount of mixed sentiment?

8. Use social media to ask specific questions about a particular facet of your business, directing followers to respond by leaving a review on their choice of 2-3 platforms. For example, a restaurant might ask if there was an older menu item that was removed that customers really miss. The business owner could ask customers to mention that in their review as a “vote” for bringing it back. Or, for another example, a luxury hotel might take the same approach, asking customers to mention what the best view is from the establishment and why they like it. A plumber might ask customers to leave a review telling others what the worst mess their team got them out of was (a plugged sink on Christmas Eve, etc.). This approach allows customers who have stories they’d be willing to share in the form or a review to speak up, if it’s suggested to them.

9. Respond quickly to all reviews you receive and you will exceed customer expectations. 64% of customers expect a response when they write a negative review and 40% expect a response to positive reviews. You should be responding to every incoming review to prove that it’s worth your customers’ time to write reviews. Speed matters. 60% of reviewers expect to hear back from your business within two-or-less days of them leaving you a review. Use software like Moz Local to be alerted as soon as you receive new reviews so that you can respond right away.

10. Be sure you are tracking the outcomes of specific review acquisition strategies. You may discover that there are days of the week or even times of the day when you see a better response to email, social media, or other forms of “asks.” Focus on the times when your customers seem most willing to leave a review, and find ways to prompt them to do so when they’re in the right frame of mind.

11. When possible, patronize the business of any local competitor who is getting more reviews than yours on important platforms and see what insights you can glean into how they are handling review acquisition. Go ahead — give them your personal email and see how actively and aggressively they seek out a review from you. This tip is an easy one to try out in some industries (e.g.: retail, hospitality) but may not be possible in others (e.g.: insurance, real estate, medical). This may feel sneaky, but it’s just another form of competitive research.

12. Don’t overlook the value of more formal and professional reviews. While these don’t impact your business in precisely the same way as consumer reviews left on platforms like Google Business Profile or Yelp, they certainly form part of your online reputation. If your business can earn a good review from a local or industry blog or a professional review entity, it can drive new leads your way, which can, in turn, lead to new customer reviews.

13. Remember that even when you’ve earned a healthy number of reviews on a given platform, your work there isn’t done. 39% of customers filter reviews to see recent sentiment first. Customers want to know what a business is like right now, not what it was like six months ago. Review acquisition is an ongoing practice that aims to deliver a steady drip of reviews across time so that there is always fresh content for the local community to read.

Review Acquisition Don’ts

Any business that values its reputation, rankings, and revenue should avoid these mistakes:

• Don’t offer money, gifts, or other incentives in exchange for reviews. 40% of consumers have been offered incentives in exchange for reviews. This is forbidden by most local business platforms and illegal in many countries.

• Don’t pay anyone to post reviews while posing as customers. Customers should always post their own reviews directly on all third-party platforms. Neither you nor your marketers should post reviews on their behalf.

• Don’t review your own business or prompt your staff, former staff, or family to review it. All reviews for your business should come directly from your real customers.

• Don’t set up a review kiosk in your place of business to ask for reviews. A single IP address being shared amongst multiple reviews on a given platform can lead to those reviews being flagged and removed. Sometimes even reviews that come from the same wireless network can cause review filtering, but there’s not much you can do to control customers reviewing you this way.

• Don’t negatively review your competitors. It’s unethical and against the guidelines of most review platforms to post reviews of your competitors, negative or otherwise.

• Don’t try to get your competitors’ legitimate reviews flagged for removal.

• Don’t engage in forms of marketing that result in a sudden influx of reviews on a single platform. This can trigger filters that may result in the reviews being lost or considered spam.

• Don’t narrow your focus to a single platform. Diversity in where your business has reviews posted is insurance against reputation loss should something happen to your reviews on any one of the platforms.

• Don’t harm your reputation with unprofessional owner responses to negative reviews. 46% of consumers will definitely avoid your business if you argue with customers in the owner response feature, and 33% will avoid brands that accuse customers of lying..

• Don’t fail to state how you’ve solved a problem when responding. 54% of customers will definitely avoid your business if your owner response doesn’t solve a problem cited in a review. An additional 47% will avoid your business if you don’t specifically apologize when a customer cites a problem in a review. Be empathetic, apologetic, and eager to resolve problems mentioned by customers.

• Don’t ignore the guidelines of specific review platforms. Neglecting to play by the rules of the most stringent review sites can lead to review takedowns, public shaming messages on your profile, and in some cases, litigation. For example, Yelp’s guidelines specifically prohibit business owners from directly asking customers for reviews.

• Don’t forget about your own website. It’s a very important platform for featuring honest reviews and testimonials.

You’ve Got Time to Try New Things

Unlike certain aspects of Local Search Marketing, which should be implimneted immediately, review acquisition is more of a marathon than a sprint. Yes, local business reviews influence rankings, and yes, they absolutely influence conversions, but given that you’re going to be seeking reviews over a period of months and years, time is on your side. It’s a smart practice to make a good effort at implementing a particular review acquisition technique for a set period of time and to record the results to see what that strategy yields. If it’s successful, that strategy is a keeper for your tool kit. If not, move onto a new idea and see how it works.

With a robust strategy and a sprinkling of luck, you’ll find a combination of 3–5 techniques that help you move towards building a diversified, positive reputation across platforms that matter to your customers, local community and business.

Keep learning

• Understanding Review Guidelines
• Understanding Review Filters
• Responding to Customer Reviews
• Do You Need Professional Reputation Management?
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