As a business owner, you work hard to provide great service because you care about your customers, and may be surprised that you don’t receive more positive Google reviews. You’re not alone. Many studies show that around 90% of consumers look to online reviews to decide where to shop (with Google as the review site of choice), however, only half of customers leave reviews. Why could that be? Let’s put ourselves in their shoes to come up with some reasons why your customers aren’t leaving more reviews.
1. Your customers don’t know you want reviews
They don’t know you want them! If you want reviews, you have to explicitly ask for them. This could be through verbal requests, a visual reminder at checkout, and an app like Tribely that literally puts the request in their hands on their mobile phones. Collecting reviews has to be part of your business marketing strategy, and part of your business culture. That means all of your employees are aware that collecting reviews is part of their job, and are trained to ask for them.
2. Your customers simply forget to leave reviews
Think about how busy you are, and how many small tasks you have to complete throughout the day. Your customers are no different. As much as they enjoy your service or product, they can easily forget about you once they’ve moved on. That’s why timing is crucial when asking for a request for review. Ask for a review soon after service or sale so that they remember to do it. For local service providers, that means as soon as you’ve said “thank you” and “good bye”, the request for review is sent. It’s likely they’ll respond when your service and your smile is still fresh in their minds. Tribely enables you to click send when you know they’ve just left your store or made that purchase.
3. Your customers don’t know where to leave you a review
Not everyone is online savvy. As a business owner, you’ve likely put in a lot of effort to learn how Google search and Google Maps works, and hopefully you have a website and use social media platforms to reach your customers. Maybe you link to your reviews page online, but not all your customers know where to reach you and how to leave you a review online. Tribely makes it easy for them by providing one custom, direct link to your review so now it’s only two taps from their mobile device to get that 5-star review you’ve been wanting from them.
4. Your customers don’t care enough to leave you a review
The last reason is the hardest to hear, but it’s important to consider that if you’ve been making consistent attempts to collect reviews and still not receiving them, then maybe you haven’t crossed into the zone of excellence that customers expect in order to leave a positive review. As quick an act as it is to review (especially with an app like Tribely!), it does still require customers to put their names out there and vouch for you when they leave a review. They may still require that extra special service to know you care about them and that you’re grateful for their business. You might want to try more consistent contact (like thank-you emails and promotions), customer appreciation events, free perks, and just more time chatting and getting to know them. It’s loyal customers who feel appreciated that are more likely to leave reviews.