Whether it is Politics or Marmite – everyone has an opinion about something. For a business knowing your customer’s opinion can not only help you grow but if the opinion is public, it can have an effect on your lead attraction. As a business, we love it when a client tells us how happy they were with their experience, but when it came to telling prospects about this verbal feedback – we didn’t have the social proof to back this up. This made us think about how we can promote client experience, so we turned to Google Reviews.
Why Google Reviews?
Did you know, according to a survey *85% of people said they trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation? On an average, Google will processes over 40,000 search queries every second – that’s a lot of potential buyers. As Google is the highest used web browser within the UK, it means that majority of all your online leads search through Google to arrive at your website – so, building your social proof to be visible on the first search is a great way to bring in leads.
When you search for Abundant Solutions, do you see what appears on the right-hand side? Looks something like this:
Google allows you to create a collection of information associated with your company and put it in an insight window on the right-hand side of the browser. This can be done through the My Google Business service for free. Having this will help to qualify you as a potential company to support the need of the prospect who is searching the web, as this will be the first bit of information any prospect will see before they even click on the link to your website. This insights window is also where all Google reviews are displayed.
Process for gaining Google Reviews.
There are two ways we ask for reviews and that is either at the end of a conversation with a happy client, or we send out emails. When it comes to emails short and to the point emails are the most successful. Keeping an email short and punchy, along the lines of “Hey, you recently purchased from us and we wanted to know if you would share your experience on Google Reviews?” and have “Google Reviews” hyperlinked to your Google Review form (Like this one) makes the process so easy for your client they won’t feel like it is taking any significant time from their day.
It is also really important to keep a record of who and when you ask someone for a Google Review. A Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system can really help to keep on top of this, as they offer ways to keep notes against a client as well as other helpful features. For example, if you have a CRM system like Infusionsoft, then you have the option to apply tags to clients which you can easily view before you send them another request. However, if you don’t have a CRM, I would recommend creating a spreadsheet on Excel or Google Sheets as you can then filter and search the list when it gets longer.
If you have multiple services or products always try to get reviews to reflect each of these. For example, one of our services is Sales and Marketing Support, however, we also run events such as the London Infusionsoft User group. Proactively managing and requesting reviews can be achieved by creating a Review Request Plan where you can focus your requesting efforts on the products and services that are not being reviewed as much. We created email templates for each of our services and events which allows us to adopt a pre-written email for each client, with the intent to collect a review specifically for what service/event they experienced. For example:
Event Template:
Hi *name*
Thank you for attending *blank*, it was great to see you there. We hope you found the event useful and *blank* helped answer any questions you had about *blank*. It would be great if you could share your experience on Google Reviews, as it helps us improve our service and also brings in new faces for the next *blank* event.
Keep an eye out for the next *blank* event
Kind Regards
Adapted Template
Hi John,
Thank you for attending the London Infusionsoft User Group last night, it was great to see you there. We hope you found the event useful, and our focus topic being Infusionsoft Landing Pages helped answer any questions you had about the new landing page format. It would be great if you could share your experience on Google Reviews, as it helps us improve our service and also brings in new faces for the next London User Group event.
Keep an eye out for the next London User Group event.
Kind Regards,
This not only saves time but also allows you to re-use and adapt the most successful style of review request email.
Always have a plan B
There’s one downfall of Google Reviews that’s always important to know about – your client has to have a Google Account to review you. Although its easy enough to one set-up (click “sign in” in the top right-hand corner of www.google.co.uk, then “more options” and “create an account”)) it is always better to be prepared for this or any other reason they may not respond straight away. To counter this problem, we have two solutions:
1) Always follow-up Emails
2) Ask for a written or even a video testimonial.
When sending a follow-up email it’s good to wait a week after you sent the original request, this allows your client enough time to leave a review before they may need a nudge to remind them. This email also allows you to introduce your ‘plan b’ by saying“if you do not have a google account, we would be just as delighted for you to send any written or even video review” Of course, you can still use their reviews in your marketing materials.
Summary
Hopefully, you will now see just how important public reviews are and you have a clearer picture of how you can implement a Review Scheme into your business. To summarise, here are our top tips for boosting your Google Reviews:
- Keep your email short and punchy
- Always have a direct hyperlink to the Google Review form (this can be found on your Insights Window when you google your business when you click “leave a review” copy the web link in the search bar)
- Keep a record of who you have sent review requests to
- Request reviews to reflect all your services
- Always send a follow-up request
