Online reviews are becoming just as prominent and important in gaining business as actually asking someone outright for their business is.
You task your employees with setting an appointment to finalize a sale. So why wouldn’t you give yourself the goal to ask customers for a review to help with future sales?
In an age of ever-increasing technology with review sites, platforms and Apps, online reviews are becoming just as important as word of mouth referrals. Yet, not all businesses are quite on board with online reviews. When studies find that 74% of people trust local businesses more after reading positive reviews on them, I’m telling you that reviews are that important.
Most of CallSource’s clients use our reports, scored by human analysts, to determine their overall call-to-appointment conversion rates and receive feedback on call handler performance. One of the factors looked at when scoring employees on their appointment setting skills, is to see if the call taker asked for the caller’s commitment.
So, if you know it is important to ask for the appointment, let me ask—are you asking for your customers’ feedback after the sale? It is becoming more and more important to not only have an online reputation, but you need to manage your online reputation to gain new business. It is important to regularly and continuously receive reviews from your customers. One way to ensure that you are receiving reviews is, just like when gaining the appointment via telephone, simply to ask.
A study by BrightLocal found that 70% of consumers will leave a review for a business when asked. That is a number that needs repeating—70%!
While yes, this may require an additional step for management, the salesperson, or whoever is taking care of the customer at the appointment, it is worth the efforts to steadily maintain your online reputation. There are many easy ways to do this, including but not limited to:
- Verbally asking
- Leaving a business card, magnet or sticker including The Ask
- Sending a follow-up email after the appointment
- Including a review link widget on your website
While it is considered unethical to incentivize customers to leave reviews, simply asking will more often than not do the trick. Sure, it is unlikely that 100% of your reviews will end up being strictly positive, but no matter the outcome, reviews are more and more becoming a useful and essential tool for business to have. Address and learn from the negative (more on how to respond to negative reviews coming next week – subscribe here to get notified when that posts), and reap the benefits from the positive.
