How to Get Real Customer Reviews

Are you wondering why no one is leaving your business a review? Do you think having more reviews would help draw more customers to your business?

You’re thinking along the right lines. It can be tough to get people to leave your business a review, but there are ways to encourage it.

Just ask!

The first, and most obvious, is to ask them. Have a simple request print on their receipts. Have signs up in your store asking for a friendly review. Or, you can simply just ask them to leave a review if they enjoyed their experience at your store. Sometimes, the most direct route is the most effective!

Print friendly reminders.

If you’re not comfortable vocalizing your request, try to encourage reviews with a sign at your place of business. Strategic placement of signs around your place of business can help remind your customers to leave a review. You can also request that they “like” or “follow” you on social media platforms!

Focus on Google My Business first.

Focus on Google My Business reviews above anything else—these help you rank on the first page of Google, and these are going to be the reviews that people see before they head to Yelp, Angie’s List, or another review website. So, link to your Google My Business review form everywhere you can. All you need to do is find your website in Google, click on “write a review,” and copy and paste the URL into social media updates or newsletters; place it in an obvious spot on your website, blog, or even YouTube channel, and print it on receipts if you can. To make it a bit more user-friendly, you can shorten the URL by heading to a site like https://goo.gl/ (Google’s own URL shortener) and get an easier-to-type URL.

Let customers know where to find you.

Post links to your profile on your favorite review sites everywhere, and send out a newsletter with reminders. (Don’t have a newsletter? Try a service like AWeber or Mailchimp to get started!) If your type of business allows for easy email communication with your customers, and they have agreed to have their names added to a newsletter list, make it easy for them to click a link to leave you a review. Place the link in a visible place on your website and post about it occasionally on social media. The easier you make it for them to leave a review, the more likely they are to do it!

Make it fun.

Encourage customers to leave reviews for a chance at winning something. Don’t offer something too big, or this might look like bribing customers or buying reviews. But there’s nothing wrong with encouraging reviews with some little incentives! Some good ideas include leaving reviews for a coupon, entering the reviewer in a lottery for a chance to win something small from your store, or offering them something exclusive, such as the chance to try out a new product first. Whatever you can think of that might entice your customers—without purchasing or bribing.

Can you think of any other ways to encourage customers to leave reviews? Let us know!

#googlemybusiness #reviews #customerengagement