This Review Campaign Took My Company to Almost 5 Stars on Google — Here’s How You Can Replicate It.

Like many industries, our shoppers depend on referrals and social proof for suggestions for services. Within the aggressive panorama of PropTech, any point out of your model is efficacious, whether or not it is in a assessment, article, comparability information or discussion board.

Excessive on the record of Google search outcomes for our business are PPL (pay per lead) assessment web sites, that do gather trustworthy opinions from customers, however show outcomes which might be curated by the positioning primarily based on bidding methods and those that wish to seem on the high of the record no matter score or variety of opinions. These websites might show outcomes for “most really helpful,” which mainly means in case you pay a premium, the positioning will record your product first and because of this “suggest” it essentially the most.

I’ve had profiles on these PPL websites for over 10 years, and I’ve grown more and more pissed off on the price versus worth. I would place a bid to get to the highest of the really helpful record, solely to be outbid the following day and drop to the underside, despite the fact that our product’s score by buyer opinions was nonetheless one of many highest on the platform. Fairly than proceed to compete with the promoting budgets of opponents, I select to shift our advertising funds in one other course.

I made a decision to reinvest our promoting {dollars} again to my workers within the type of assessment bonuses. The outcomes? In lower than a month, our Google rating has jumped to 4.9 out of 5 stars, which is greater than any of our high opponents. Here is the precise method I took to reward my workers for opinions, which gave impactful ends in only some weeks.

Associated: 5 Tips for Getting More Online Reviews for Your Small Business

1. Begin with a characteristic value bragging about

I’ve all the time recognized that my firm has great customer service; it is one of many key differentiators that makes our product stand out within the business. Our buyer success staff goes past being pleasant and useful; they supply further worth as a result of everybody has coaching and expertise in our business, to allow them to construct a private reference to our shoppers.

I do know that our shoppers cherished working with our customer support staff, I usually obtain private emails from shoppers telling me about their optimistic experiences. I’ve additionally seen emails between shoppers and our assist staff saying one thing like, “It has been a pleasure working with you, I would be joyful to refer you.”

2. Give your workers a motive to ask

It was clear that we had a characteristic value bragging about and that our shoppers would share their expertise given the precise alternative. I requested our staff to ask their clients to leave reviews after optimistic interactions.

However the suggestion to ask was not a motivating sufficient motive for my staff to comply with by means of. Maybe it was the concern of rejection or the fear of asking for help that prevented them from asking for opinions.

Overview solicitation campaigns are pretty widespread and historically contain an organization paying somebody to go away a assessment. I wasn’t against providing incentives to our shoppers to go away a assessment, I simply wished to see what would occur if we simply requested first.

I nonetheless wanted to determine the right way to encourage my staff to recover from their concern, so I developed the straightforward “Rewards for Critiques” marketing campaign for our customer support staff.

Rewards for opinions (this can be a copy of the precise undertaking proposal I shared with my staff)

We wish to reward glorious customer support and person expertise! If a shopper has a superb expertise with you or the software program, we wish to hear about it.

In line with BrightLocal, 85% of customers belief on-line opinions as a lot as private suggestions. Nice opinions enhance our model consciousness and result in extra shoppers utilizing our providers.

The way it works:

1. Present nice service
2. Ask for a assessment
3. Earn $20 per assessment you collect

Particulars

1. After a optimistic shopper interplay, ask for a assessment. A good time to do that is with a follow-up electronic mail to a service name. (see the instance beneath)
2. If a shopper leaves a Google assessment, and in case you have been the final particular person to talk with the shopper, we pays you $20.
3. After we obtain a brand new assessment, it’s going to get shared on the #opinions slack channel and Nathan will comply with up with the SSO staff to see who requested for the assessment

E-mail instance (we will add this as a saved reply):

It was my pleasure working with you in the present day. When you have time, would you thoughts writing a review on Google for us? This lets others study concerning the worth of software program for his or her rental enterprise and helps us a ton!

Associated: 5 Ways to Grow Your Startup With Online Reviews

3. Work as a staff

Whereas a program just like the one urged above awards a person, you may encourage the entire staff to work towards success collectively. If a person receives a optimistic assessment, share and rejoice the reward with everybody. This validates the work everyone seems to be doing to satisfy a mutual aim of a superb services or products. You may additionally think about providing an extra bonus if the entire staff hits a sure variety of opinions collectively.

4. Observe by means of with the rewards

In a couple of weeks, I’ve already paid over $500 in assessment bonuses to our customer support staff. This $500 may have gone in the direction of a PPL bidding technique that may have moved the needle on a software program rating web site for a day or two. As an alternative, this funding goes again to my workers and has positively impacted our Google score. Every fraction of a degree on Google is significant. As an added bonus, we get to see actual feedback from clients about their expertise with our firm.

You possibly can look in the direction of methods like this to bonus your workers, get perception into your shoppers’ experiences along with your product and, hopefully, earn new enterprise on account of your organization’s on-line status.

The underside line

Managing your social status, amassing opinions, offering a top-quality services or products and rewarding your workers — these ought to all be a excessive precedence in your skilled technique for fulfillment. If you wish to enhance your opinions, you may comply with the steps outlined above and see the extra return of rewarding your workers and collaborating on a mutual aim.