Asking for Google Reviews
If you run a business, you want to attract more clients. This is true regardless of whether your business is thriving or whether you need every scrap of business you can get.
One of the best ways to get a new business is through recommendations from satisfied customers. Traditionally, this was done by word-of-mouth from friend to friend, but in modern times, online reviews are the best source of feedback.
- Google Reviews is by far the most popular customer review platform.
- Millions of people use Google daily to search for businesses.
- Google Reviews uses a five-star rating scale to measure the popularity of a business.
- Whenever your business is searched for, its rating is displayed along with reviews customers have written (if applicable).
The more reviews you receive, the better this rating will represent your business. Getting a high quantity of reviews is important as 63.6% of people check Google Reviews before visiting a business’s website. Because of this, if you have a low quantity of reviews and one person gives you a scathing rating, it can make your business appear significantly worse than it truly is.
In this post, we will tell you how to ask your satisfied customers for a review to make sure you get the maximum number of positive reviews, in turn driving more traffic to your business.
When to Ask for Reviews
Many business owners are reluctant to ask their customers for reviews as they feel it is a pushy tactic and will leave an overall bad taste in the customer’s mouth from what was an otherwise positive experience.
However, if you want to see your traffic increase, this is a reluctance you must overcome. The easiest way to get positive reviews is to directly ask your customers. But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about asking.
You want to make sure you are asking customers who you know will leave a positive review and not those who had a difficult experience.
- The first thing you need to do is to assemble a list of customers that you feel had a positive experience over the last month.
- Once you have your list assembled, send your customer an email after their service is complete thanking them for their business and asking them to leave a Google Review with a link to your review page included.
You will yield the most positive results if you ask at the right time. Here are some time frames where you should be asking for reviews:
- After you have proved your worth
- When a customer returns to make another purchase
- After a customer has used your service for a specific amount of time
- After the customer has received a discount from your loyalty program
- Immediately after they have received their product
- After there are no more flaws to iron out
If you ask your customer to leave a review during these windows in time, the likelihood of getting a positive review will drastically increase.
Remember: positive reviews increase conversion by 270% so if you can maximize the number of positive reviews you get, you can massively improve your amount of business.
How to Ask for Reviews
The language and means of asking for a review are very important in determining the quality of the review.
The easiest way to ask for a review is over email.
However, you don’t just want to send a bland and generic email template. This will make your client feel as if they were not memorable and not worth your time. Instead, write a personalized email that follows a template, but uses specific details from your interaction.
Try something like this:
Dear [satisfied client],
We want to thank you once again for your purchase of [product/service purchased] from [your spectacular company]! Your business is invaluable to us, and we hope [product/service] is of value to [client’s company] for years to come.
We were very pleased to have helped you out with [specific client problem] and we hope that [specific pain point] will be prevented in the future through our service.
Customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance to us at [your company]. We would love to hear about your personal experience. First-person testimonials from satisfied customers are of great help to our business and we want your voice to be heard! If you could take a few minutes to leave us a review on Google [include the link to your review page] we would be very grateful.
Please click the link below to share your story:
[another link to the review page]
Thank you again for your business! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us [link to your contact page] if there is anything we can do to make your experience better!
Sincerely,
[Company rep’s name]
This is a general template you can use. However, don’t feel as though you must stick to this exclusively. Feel free to change it up to suit your industry and service more closely. And never hesitate to include specific stories or accounts of your business transaction with the client. This will help make the email feel warmer and more personal.
Of course, never hesitate to write an email from scratch either. This can be especially effective for big orders or clients you spent a significant amount of time with.
If you are having trouble personalizing your email, there are tools that can help. HubSpot’s personalization tokens for example. Experiment with a few and see if they make a difference.
The most important thing is that you keep it brief and to the point. It is also wise to include your reason for asking. People want to help other people, if you can make a customer feel a sense of obligation to help you, they usually will.
Positive Reviews Make Positive Business
If you are trying to drive sales to your business, then every positive review counts.
Even if your business is doing exceedingly well, improving your standing with Google will help even more.
If you want to improve your score on Google, then the best way is by asking your satisfied customers to leave reviews.
Start with long-time clients, then once you have had success with them, formulate a plan to request reviews from newer clients. If you are consistently meeting or exceeding customers' expectations and they are not leaving you glowing reviews, then you are losing out on future business.
Make sure you are asking for reviews in person whenever possible and that you have links to your Google Review page in multiple places on your site, on your receipts, and on social media.
If you are having trouble getting positive Google Reviews despite your best efforts, reach out to Legend Web Works. Our marketing team is highly experienced at turning high-quality customer service into a high-quality online reputation.
