The days of simply relying on word of mouth to spread the good word of your business's great service and reputation are gone! The r...
The reasons that you can not depend on chance, (or even asking happy satisfied clients to please leave you a 5 star review), are plentiful. But let's discuss a few of the more glaring ones...
Human Nature; Let's start here. Unfortunately people are considerably more likely to leave a review if they are upset with their experience, (by about 100 to 1). I don't think this is necessarily an indictment on society, so much as the natural tendency to react if upset, yet feel as though good service is merely getting what you expected or should have gotten in the first place.
It's really just a motivational issue if you think about it. You have, what you believe to be a bad experience. Whether justified on your part, or a complete misunderstanding of expectations... On your part. You may feel the need to warn others if you feel you didn't get the proper value for your money. Maybe it's more visceral, you fell wronged and want to strike back. Again it may be justified, or it may be a complete misunderstanding on the part of the customer. I think everyone has a desire to strike back if they feel wronged. And what easier outlet is there than a quick, scathing one star review?
I really don't think most people realize what damage can be done to a business, therefore the income and livelihood not only of the business owner, but also their employees, by posting negative reviews. When you consider that around 9 out of 10 people not only read reviews, but put as much weight in them as advice from family and friends, the damage can be considerable. But to the customer they are likely just reacting, and will completely forget about it in short order.
So merely asking clients for a good review, whether it be the business owner, or front line workers asking, will almost always yield close to 100% saying they will. Less than a few percent will actually follow through. It simply isn't as important to them as it is to you.
Sabotage & Other Dishonesty; Maybe someday review sites will learn how to keep reviews honest. Up until now, just about all the attention to honest reviews has been placed on keeping businesses from adding to or incentivizing positive reviews. This is important obviously, but there are two sides to that coin. A very good indication of this comes from ABC News who discovered, according to this report that the most brutal reviews, were written by people that had never bought nor used the service or company they were reviewing. Let's face it, although the vast majority of people are good, there are those that act maliciously. This could be competitors, ex employees, or simply random acts of ... Meanness.
Whatever the source or cause it apparent that businesses must get ahead of their reviews and work to totally overwhelm the negative with a constant flow of positive 5 star reviews.
It Really Isn't That Easy; Let's face it, reading reviews is far easier than leaving reviews. If you consider it this way, the whole review concept is somewhat stacked against you. A couple clicks of a mouse and you can read reviews on virtually any business. It takes literally seconds to access and compare. The ease is likely why virtually everyone reads reviews. However leaving a review? Quite a different story. You need to first locate the review site for the business, find the leave reviews link, create an account if you don't already have one, confirm your email... It is quite daunting for the average person, whose knowledge of the internet is possibly sending and receiving emails and searching with Google.
You or your workers ask a happy client to leave a review, they say they will and fully intend to in that moment. But if you were to poll 100 people, likely less than 1 to 5 have ever left a review. So although I believe most people want to feel like they are helping, they really don't know where or how to do it. Which leads us to...
Life Gets In The Way; The best of intentions... In the moment of being asked to leave a review, I believe that yes response that pretty much everyone will give you, really is honest. They fully intend to... "as soon as..."
And therein lies the rub... As we discussed a little earlier, this is vastly more important to you than it is to your happy clients. As soon as they leave, or you leave if your business brings you to your clients, their life kicks back in and if they didn't leave the review in the moment they said they would do it. They are simply going to forget.
Since we know that people that feel wronged, at any level are more motivated to act, than people that simply got what they intended. You and your business reputation are at a distinct disadvantage. This is why depending on the merely asking is a strategy that is destined to fail.
I believe that taking a strong proactive approach to your business's reviews is absolutely necessary in today's world.
This cannot however, be limited to what most services offer. Although sending an email, and/or a text with links to your review sites is a better strategy than asking and hoping. It will generally result in an improvement from a few percent leaving reviews, to about 30% or maybe more. That is respectable, but I believe the base goal should be at least 75% and shoot for 100 - 125% of your happy clients leaving positive, (5 Star) reviews.
More reviews than customers? Absolutely!
I didn't stop at merely developing a review app and monitoring dashboard. After we saw that that did in fact move the needle significantly. We still weren't happy with the numbers, so we looked at how to ensure that those saying yes would definitely leave the 5 star review(s) they promised.
That's when real world use resulted in the GooViewZ Reviews System! This includes an app of course as well as a desktop monitoring platform, but it is the use of these in conjunction with our system which has seen as high as over 125% reviews.
If your business's goal is to completely overwhelm the negative reviews, which simply cn't be avoided, I believe over 100% positive reviews should be you goal. So if you have 100 transactions in a month you should be striving for over 125 5 star reviews
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