How To Get Great Business Reviews

Many businesses make the mistake of taking a reactive approach to managing their online reviews.  They expect that just offering a good product or service will result in an influx of positive reviews. It very rarely works that way. Remember, leaving a good review is an additional piece of work for the customer, and no matter how small the task is, most happy customers just don’t leave reviews. They enjoy the product, they might even tell their family and friends, but they won’t go online and write a review. There is an old saying that says, “For every 100 happy customers, you will get 5 positive reviews. For every 10 disappointed customers, you will get 5 negative reviews”.

Of course, getting good reviews starts with offering an outstanding product or service.  At the end of the day, people will only consider leaving a good rating if they enjoyed what your business provided.  However, there are many different things you can do to get good reviews, as a business you need to take a proactive approach. Here are the top tips from Thriday on how to get good business reviews.

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1. Make it easy for customers to leave reviews

The best way to have high review ratings is to ensure that your happy customers leave a good review in the first place. There will always be situations where customers leave a bad review, and even though those customers might be in the minority, if your happy customers are not leaving a positive review, the negative reviews may look like the majority. To make it easy for your happy customers to leave a positive review, include prompts after purchase or delivery for customers to rate their experience.  You can even ask customers if they had a positive or negative experience, before directing them to provide a review. For those that had a negative experience, you have a chance to contact them and alleviate the issue before they rate your business. At the end, remember to thank the customer for sharing their feedback.

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2. Give an incentive for reviews

Some customers will be non fussed about leaving a review, even if you make it easy for them to do. To further encourage your community to share their experiences, we recommend you offer an incentive. It could be a simple discount on their next purchase, or it could be entry into a competition where they could win a grand prize. We recommend you test the incentives out and see how much they help contribute to additional positive reviews. Getting extra positive reviews can be worth their weight in gold.  Consider two similar businesses; the first has an average rating of 4.6 from 2,200 reviews, and the second has the same average rating of 4.6 from 300 reviews.  Which business would you pick? More often than not, consumers will pick the business with more reviews.

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3. Provide excellent customer support

A high percentage of negative reviews are actually generated from poor customer service experiences. If a customer has a poor experience, their first port of call will be to contact the business online, over the phone or on social media.  Because customers are already frustrated, what their customer support experience is like can play a huge role in determining if they leave a negative review or not. For many customers, leaving a negative review serves two purposes; a list ditch cry for help, or a way to punish the business for not helping them out. Excellent customer service can avoid these and in many cases, can turn a negative experience into a positive. It’s important to really train your help desk to show empathy and have flexible options to address issues before they escalate online. Watch out for slow response times or no response at all. Countless negative reviews are caused by these two bugbears.

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4. Proactively respond to feedback on review sites and app stores

Many customers will go directly to review sites and app stores to leave feedback.  The good news is that most review sites and app stores now allow you to reply - which wasn’t always the case.  Due to this, it’s important that you set up a process to manage, monitor and respond to these reviews quickly.  For positive reviews, make sure you thank the customer for their feedback, for negative reviews, do your best to assist the customer through to a resolution.  Either way, replying to customers leaves a positive impression. Potential customers will think highly of your brand if they see you responding and trying to address the customers’ issue.  Some customers also change their mind if you help them deal with the issue and they even change their review rating, win-win!

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6. Show that you value reviews in your business 

Make sure you promote all reviews including awards, testimonials, ratings by including them on all your marketing materials including website, social media, brochures and emails.  Customers want to feel part of it, and seeing positive reviews encourages more customers to leave positive reviews.

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7. Review feedback and act fast

Every piece of feedback should be treated as a gift. A customer telling you how they feel, positive or negative, is invaluable insight you can use to improve your product or service. Having a good ‘feedback loop’ is important and ultimately in the long run, creates a virtuous circle that will lead to positive ratings. It works like this, first offer a great product or service, then monitor your feedback, act on it by improving your product and service, and then get even more positive reviews.  

Positive reviews are definitely powerful when wanting to influence other potential customers. It’s critical that your business invests in developing an effective review and feedback strategy. This strategy will make it easy for potential customers to source third-party reviews to ensure your product or service features in their consideration set. Remember, the better your reviews are, and the more you have, will put you at a huge advantage to all your competitors.