Reviews are a form of social proof. They tell your future customers that your current and former customers had a good (or not so good experience).
Consider these numbers:
88% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their best friends’ recommendations.
Customers who have a bad experience are twice to three times more likely to write an angry review than customers who had a great experience are to post a happy review.
Not to mention that people who read the reviews won't know whether the person writing them is actually telling the truth or just has a grudge.
So now you get why consciously trying to get reviews from happy customers is essential.
How you can use good reviews
As we mentioned above, reviews are a form of social proof. And social proof is required at different points in the customer journey.
During the awareness stage social proof can just be witnessing people like you using a particular product or service.
During the consideration phase, watching people you know on social media use and like a particular product or service might interest you to consider it.
During the decision phase, reading people's reviews on Google and other comparison websites might push you to finally purchase a product or service.
What steps to take to get good reviews on Google My Business (GMB)
Let's go step by step. First step...
Set up your Google My Business page
If you haven't already, claim your free Google My Business page and fill in as much information about your business as possible.
The previous lesson should walk you through the complete process.
Once you've created your GMB listing, you'll find this card on your GMB Home dashboard:
Clicking Share review form allows you to share a link with anyone who wishes to give you a good review.
Link to request more reviews
Now you're ready to go review hunting 🏹!
Good ways to ask for a review
Ask happy customers: If a customer expresses their satisfaction with your product, that's the best time to send them a short message saying: Hi Customer, thanks for liking our product/service. It would mean a lot to us if you could leave us a review on our Google at this link: (insert link)
Incentivize leaving a review: A chance to get a free giveaway might be a good incentive for a customer to leave you a good review on Google. Try to use that as a CTA in a newsletter that goes out to customers.
Make it part of your email signature: Especially if you regularly have email conversations with customers, you can add some text below your signature saying "Leave us a review on Google" and link it to your Google review form.
Share good reviews on social media: Use a nice but simple visual template to create a quote and share the link to your google review form in the caption.
And finally, once you get reviews on Google My Business, don't forget to reply to them.
Show your gratefulness for the good reviews and assure bad reviewers that that you've acknowledged their suggestion.
Try to find the cause behind bad reviews. Genuine reviews from ideal customers can help you improve as a business.
How to share your reviews with Willow
Go to Willow's Ideas tab. When you filter on Promotional posts, you'll find Customer Review posts.
Customer Review Post Idea in Willow
Click on it to learn more about customer review posts and best practices around posting them on social media.
You'll also find some great examples of customer review posts from industry leading businesses that you can emulate.
You'll also be able to add a customer review post to your schedule with this button:
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
