Customer reviews are great when they’re glowing, and a problem when they’re scathing. They can have a real and significant impact on your business and customer perception. Did you know that in 2020, 87% of consumers checked reviews for local businesses, compared to 81% in 2019. Potential customers are checking your ratings more than ever, which means the amount of positive and negative reviews you have will be put under the microscope. So here’s 5 simple ways to generate more customer reviews and keep the negative ones at bay.

*According to a study by BrightLocal

1 - Email

One of the simplest ways to encourage customers to write reviews is just by sending them an email to ask if they were happy with the service they received, usually best sent at the end of the customer journey. Using a CRM system like WillSuite, you can build this process in the system for one-click email sending. You only need to set up what you would like the content of the email to be and upon the entering of the pipeline step,you can send it. You can even delay the sending of the email if you need to.. You can even record whether customers have left you a positive review in CRM fields.

2 - Be more personal

With thousands of firms in the UK who are offering the same services as you, businesses need to do more than ever to stand out from the crowd. This applies to customer reviews as well, what are you doing differently that will earn you that positive review? One big way to stand out from the rest is to provide a more personal service and automated communication will make you stand out. 

3 - Point your client in the right direction

One key point to remember when asking for a client to write a review is to make it as easy for them as possible for them. One way to do this is to ask questions like, “How did we do with document turn-around time?” or “How was our customer service?”. Providing links to your Google reviews or Trustpilot is also good practice, as you’re minimising the steps needed for them. You can access your review link from your Google My Business profile.

4 - Using social media

Social media is a great tool for generating more reviews and platforms like Facebook have their own review systems. For the customers who don’t mind, a quick mention on social media thanking them for their business could be the special mention that encourages others to write a review.

5 - Always respond to negative reviews

One of the best ways to maintain a 5 star Google or Trustpilot rating is to avoid negative reviews entirely. In the case that you can’t, a swift response to the review should two things:

1. Demonstrate to anyone looking at your reviews that you are proactively looking to resolve problems customers may have had, no matter who was at fault.
2. The quicker you respond to a negative review the better, this could potentially lead to resolving the dispute and end with the customer removing the negative review.

For more marketing or training, visit our events page where we run webinars to help grow your business. If you’d like to chat about how you can incorporate customer reviews into your sales funnel, get in touch at [email protected]