This is a must-read if you are still unsure about your Google reviews.

In this day and age, online reputation can be your asset or liability. Here are a few reasons why Google Reviews can’t be ignored:

  • 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation

  • 92% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business

  • Online reviews impact 90% of purchasing decisions

  • 74% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a local business more

  • Businesses with two negatives on the first page of search results risk losing 44% of its customers.

consumer-deciding

So as you can see, ignoring reviews is not a good idea. Unless you’ve got processes in place or a platform that helps you get customer reviews, you are at the mercy of people deciding whether to review your business or not. What’s even worse is when someone you’ve never dealt with leaves you a negative review. Sound familiar?

If you can’t work out a process to get clients who are raving about your business to leave a review in a timely manner, you will probably never get their reviews. It’s not that they don’t want to leave you a review. It’s usually that the process is too cumbersome and requires directions.

If a client doesn’t have a Google account, can they still leave a review? This is a question we commonly get asked.

The simple answer is no.

When it comes to leaving reviews, here are some of the problems that people complain about:

  • It’s hard to find a link to leave a review

  • They forget about the request for review

  • They don’t always have a Google account

While the latter is impossible to resolve as Google requires people to log in to leave a review, most people don’t realise that they’ve got a Google account that they use for something else. A Google account for Gmail, Google Ads, Google Business, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, YouTube, or any other Google service would allow you to sign in to leave a review.

What can my business do to get more reviews?

There are a few things that you can do as a business to get more reviews. Here are some:

  • Email past clients to ask for a review

  • Post request for reviews through your Facebook fan page

  • Add a link to your website, so customers can leave reviews

  • Reward your staff for getting reviews (review marketing is one of the cheapest ways to market your business)

  • Add review link to your email signature

  • Send SMS to clients who are happy about your services (we’ve built a platform called Happy Clients that does this)

  • Reach out to your business network to leave a review for your business (anyone can leave a review for your business, so you may as well get reviews from people who know you)

Emailing past clients for reviews

The strategy of asking past clients for reviews is probably the easiest. Here is a template that we’ve used in the past which worked well:

Hi NAME,

We are always looking for client and partner feedback for our business. If you have a minute could you please leave us your review via https://goo.gl/DHcY4H. We would really appreciate it.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask us.

Kind regards,

You get the idea. Keep it simple for clients to follow. With the link, we are using a shortener to track link clicks and also to bring people directly to the stage of the process where the client leaves a review.

If you are having trouble getting reviews, or if your business has received some negative ones and you need help, feel free to reach out to us. While Google reviews can only be removed in rare cases, typically a strategy and process can be put in place to generate positive reviews, which improves the average star rating.