Today’s customers don’t like to spend their money without researching their purchases first. While some people prefer to ask their family members and friends, a majority trust reviews from other consumers when making their purchasing decisions. In fact, 9 out of 10 people will read reviews to help them decide to visit a business or not!
What does this mean for business owners? That if you don’t have positive online reviews for your overall company (think Yelp) or for individual products or services (think Amazon product reviews), you are losing out on potential sales! Read on to find out to how capture customer reviews after each sale.
Make it Easy for Them
Most people are always on the go – at work or balancing personal responsibilities, so leaving a review is likely last on their minds. However, a lot of them may be more inclined to take a minute to do so if the process is made extremely easy for them.
Visiting a website, searching for a product and then reviewing it is a lengthy process; however, having a link to be able to leave a review right at your fingertips can make all the difference.
Implementing a customer relationship management system (CRM) can allow you to store your customers’ shopping history and their contact information, emailing them a link to review the individual purchase they made.
Stress the Importance of Their Feedback
People feel good about doing things that matter and can potentially help others. Business owners can utilize this to their benefit by stressing the importance of their customers’ feedback to the business and other clients.
Email a client after they have completed a purchase stating that your company is always looking for ways to improve your products and services, and you can’t do it without input from your customers. Additionally, use the same strategy to encourage shoppers to leave reviews to let others know about their experiences.
Reward Them
What can get people to leave a review when they are busy or simply don’t want to? A reward! There are many different ways to incentivize your customers, such as:
- Discounts
- Coupons
- Invitations to exclusive shopping events
- Gift certificates
Use Caution
A word of caution is that while trying to capture client reviews can grow your business, you need to be cautious when doing so. Some companies penalize business owners for soliciting reviews. Yelp goes so far as to prevent business owners from paying for “good” reviews by alerting Yelp users with a banner on the company’s Yelp profile if this activity is suspected.
Google and TripAdvisor prohibit review incentivization; TripAdvisor will flag an account with a red badge if its owner is suspected of paying people for reviews.
The bottom line is that you are free to ask and reward people for reviews on your own website, but should take caution when doing so on other websites.
For monetary help in setting up a review system or to offer incentives to clients, turn to IOU Financial! We offer small business loans of up to $300,000 in under 48 hours.
