6 Tactics to Get Great Customer Reviews Online

Customer reviews have never been so important and worthwhile for businesses. In an age where we rely on technology for the simplest of things, the majority of people who are looking to take up a service or buy a product, no matter what it might be, will look at customer reviews online before purchasing or committing. 

If your reviews are non-existent or if there aren’t many of them, it may well put people off choosing you over your competitors. According to Luisa Zhou, 89% of global consumers say that checking online reviews is part of their buying journey. With that in mind, it’s in your best interest, as a business owner, to encourage your customers and clients to leave reviews on your goods and services. So without further adieu, ere are six tactics to get great customers reviews online:

1. Ask for reviews on several different platforms

You need to get into the headspace of your customers to work out which platforms need to have reviews displayed on them. From Facebook and Trustpilot to Google and Tripadvisor, there are plenty of different websites and platforms upon which customers can leave reviews. Most of the time, it depends on the industry you’re working in. 

Where hospitality can rely on, essentially, all four of the aforementioned platforms, you’re unlikely to find the reviews of a law firm on Tripadvisor, for example. However, places like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn might be better for that particular industry. It’s worth finding out how your clients found out about you to know which platforms would be most worthwhile displaying your reviews on.

2. Use your website to its full potential

Your website has the potential to host all of your reviews. Most business owners will opt for a carousel feature, which is a banner that runs across the top or the bottom of the page that displays, one by one, all of your customer reviews. Usually, a company will only pick the positive reviews, leaving the more negative ones on platforms like Google and Facebook. 

You need to use your positive reviews to your advantage, seeing them more as an advertisement for your goods and services, rather than as a way of earning your bragging rights. Your website should be working for you in order to get the most out of it. So if you’re looking to enhance and upgrade your site to that advantage, then look to us here at Kumo to redesign your website and catapult your company into the spotlight.

3. Incentivise leaving reviews

Whether you work in a shop or are delivering exceptional services to your customers, you need to make sure you’re asking your customers to leave reviews for you. However, simply asking someone to do it isn’t effective enough, especially as most of us lead busy lives. Therefore, incentivise the act of leaving reviews online. 

You can do this in multiple ways, from offering money off their next purchase to giving them a free gift, you’ll be sure to reel in the great online reviews because you have given someone a reward for doing so. As an age-old rule, you can’t always expect something for nothing, so to speak.

4. Make sure you get your timings right

It’s all about timings when it comes to asking your customers to leave you a review online. You don’t want to be asking a customer who seems to be in a hurry, for example, but nor do you want to ask someone to leave you a review who might not have the means to do it online. Where this isn’t always obvious, something that will help you is to get the timings just right. What you should do is look to ask a customer to leave you a review at the following times for maximum effect:

• When they’ve ordered or bought a product
• When they’ve received a product
• When using a social media tag
• When a comment is left on a blog post or article
• When someone has downloaded a resource 
• When you’ve received a customer referral
• Whenever you get the vibe that your customer feels satisfied or fulfilled

5. Promote your reviews

We’ve already touched on this briefly, but you need to make sure that you’re showcasing your best reviews in order to advertise how great your services and/or goods are. It’s one of the best ways to generate additional customers via the online world. This is because 9 in 10 consumers will decide to make a purchase based on the positive reviews they have read online, states Exploding Topics. 

You can showcase your best reviews in multiple ways, including featuring them at the top of Google, pinning them on Twitter or adding them to your website in a way that is easy to find and quick to read. Again, the carousel feature on the top or bottom of a website is the best way of getting those positive reviews out there for your online visitors to see. 

6. Respond to the views you receive, good & bad

Something that is a great way of making sure people keep leaving you reviews online is to respond to them all, even the negative ones. Luisa Zhou claims that, of those people who leave reviews, whether they be good or bad, 55% of them feel good about it if the business responds to them. Another interesting statistic which backs up the fact that you can use this tip to your advantage is that, according to the same source, 89% of consumers are highly likely to use a business if they can see that it responds to all of their online reviews. 

So what are you waiting for? Get online and start responding to all of your customer reviews. If you’re unsure about how to tackle responding to negative reviews online, take a look at our article here for the ultimate guide to dealing with bad reviews that are in the public domain.

Kumo is a highly-experienced, dedicated digital marketing agency with a wealth of different services available. From SEO and PPC to content creation and website design, no project is too big or small for our team of knowledgeable specialists. If you would like further information about how we can help your business today, get in touch with a member of our friendly, professional team – we’re always pleased to hear from you.