@tjrobertson52

Reviews are incredibly important for almost every business, much more important than most business owners realize. And it's one of the few things that a marketing agency can't handle for you.

Whether a potential customer is doing research on their own or they're using an AI to get recommendations. Reviews are almost always one of the major factors, but they're also notoriously difficult to acquire. And this is why the majority of businesses don't put nearly enough resources towards getting more reviews.

You've probably put efforts towards getting more reviews in the past, and it just feels like you're spinning your wheel. The good news is you're not alone. Your competitors have the same difficulty.

However, I think if the average business owner understood how much a review is really worth, they would put more resources towards it. Some really rough math that I think is useful is that one review is typically worth about what you get from one customer in profit. And this is because for the average business, you'll get about one extra customer for each positive review you have.

So how do you get more reviews? Well, the number one thing you can do is just ask. Make it part of your standard process.

Identify the part of your process where the customer is most satisfied, and use that as an opportunity to ask for the review. But of course, 90% of them still aren't gonna leave a review even when they tell you they're gonna leave a review.

So here are a few things you can do to increase the percentage they do. One is just to tell them you're going to ask for a review. Before you ask for a review, before you do any work, before you give them the product, tell them, we intend to give you five star service.

We're gonna come back and ask you if we provided that five star service. And if we did, we're gonna ask you leave us a five star review.

What this does is turn something that was a favor to you into a favor for your customer. You're giving them all the leverage. Now that they know you need this five star review from them, it shows them that you're incentivized to provide a five star product or service.

And then, of course, you follow up and say, did we provide a five star product or service?

If they say yes, you ask for the review. And if they say no, you're getting some really valuable feedback from your customer. But still, most people who say they're gonna leave your review are not gonna leave a review.

So you need to follow up.

And this is where business owners get shy. They're worried they're bothering their customers, or they're gonna push customers into leaving them a negative review. Neither of those things are true.

Happy customers want to help you. They want to leave a positive review, they don't mind you following up. And unhappy customers, the ones that might leave you a negative review, are gonna leave you a negative review anyways.

They don't need the reminder.

So in practice, the more annoying you are, the more positive reviews you get. But where do you ask the customer to leave you a review? For some businesses, this is obvious.

If people are mostly finding you through Google Maps, it's gonna be your Google Business Profile. If you're an e commerce business, it's probably gonna be on your own website or on Amazon.

But if you're unsure, I recommend going to Google's AI mode. Ask for reviews for the type of product or service you offer, and see which websites Google sites most often.