Whether your business provides a product or a service, you will crumble without a loyal, consistent customer base. There are plenty of ways to get customers in the door, but it is the quality of your work that will keep them coming back. How can you get more customers to trust your business? The fact of the matter is this; customers trust other customers. Word of mouth is crucial for expanding your client base, and positive feedback from past customers is what they will look to when it comes to deciding if they want to purchase from your company. Let’s take a look at why customer reviews are so important, and ways to get more of them.

Why Are Customer Reviews Important?

As we said, customers trust other customers.Think about all of the times you have been online shopping and stumbled on a product that looked promising. If you haven’t tried the product before, or you aren’t familiar with the brand, have you checked the customer reviews? The product description will always promise high-quality, superior performance, and so on and so forth. Why don’t you take the company at their word? Why do you turn to the reviews before you buy? If you’re like most people, you want to know if the company is being truthful about their product. Customer reviews let you know if the item does its job and is worth the money.

If customer reviews are saying that your product or service was not good, potential customers will not waste their time and will take their business elsewhere. On the flip side, if you get rave reviews, new customers will see less risk in their purchase, and you’ll have yourself some new clients in no time. A real issue plaguing businesses is the absence of reviews between the two extremes. It’s easy to find one star and five star reviews, but how many three star reviews do you see? Customers tend to leave a review only if they have an exceptionally good or bad experience.

For example, let’s say you own a restaurant. A customer, we’ll call her Sandra, comes in and orders a steak cooked medium with a side of cooked veggies. When it gets to the table, the steak is well done and the veggies are soggy. When Sandra complains, the server is rude and not accommodating. You can assume Sandra will be so angry that she will leave a one star review.

Now let’s say you own the same restaurant on a different day. Sandra walks in, is seated immediately by a friendly host, and orders a steak cooked medium with a side of cooked veggies. When it gets to the table, the server asks Sandra to cut into the steak to make it was prepared properly. Sure enough, the steak is perfectly medium, and the cooked veggies have a great snap to them. During the meal, the server comes back regularly to refill water and ask if Sandra needs anything else. At one point, a baby starts crying at the table next to Sandra, so the server offered to move her to the outdoor patio. Since Sandra is a new mother and hears crying all day at home, she thanks your server repeatedly and relocates. After a meal like this, odds are you get a great customer review.

But what happens with all of the other customers? What about all of the times Sandra has come to your restaurant and had a typical experience? Most days, Sandra can walk into your business and wait five to ten minutes for a table. She can order her medium steak and cooked veggies as she always does. They are delivered to the table and are a little bit overcooked, but nothing to write home about. The server is friendly and does her job well. After this visit, Sandra probably won’t leave a review. Why? She had a good experience but it was nothing special. She could write that the food and service was good, but she sees this fact as more of an expectation than an achievement. It’s only when businesses fail or go above and beyond that people really take notice and feel compelled to complain or compliment.

How to Get More (Positive) Reviews

The easiest way to get more positive customer reviews is to go above and beyond for each and every customer. Okay, we know that isn’t realistic. BUT, that should be your goal with every customer. Don’t treat lower paying clients any differently than you treat your top customer. Don’t get complacent with long-term customers - fight for them as much as you fight for new customers. Going out of your way for someone is a simple way to be remembered. The best part is that if you consistently give your clients 150%, if you ever slip up or drop the ball they will be more likely to forgive you. Long story short, if you want more customer reviews, you need to produce work worthy of praise.

There are ways to encourage reviews from clients. Sometimes people are perfectly happy with the services you are providing, but they don’t think to leave a review for you. They may not ever need to look you up on Yelp! or Google because they already know who you are. An effective (and non-sneaky) way to get more of your clients to leave a customer review is to offer an incentive. It doesn’t need to be anything big. You can offer a gift card, discounted service for a month, a discount on the next purchase, etc. An incentive can go a long way when it comes to getting real customer reviews. It isn’t a trick because if they aren’t happy they can always choose to pass on the offer. Why do incentives work? A) People love to get prizes, gifts, and free or discounted stuff, and B) in its own way, it is going above and beyond to give your clients a reason to write a customer review.

Now that you have a better understanding of customer reviews and why they are so important, we hope you consider actively working towards getting more positive reviews online. If you’re unsure of where to start, call BusySeed at (888) 353-1484. We are a team of digital marketing experts who manage the online reputation of over 30 clients at a time! Whether you own a restaurant, apparel store, car dealership, or anything else, we can help you grow your business. Our clients see great success in their online reputation management, and receive more customer reviews on Facebook, Yelp, Google My Business, and more from one of the Best Digital Marketing Agenciesin RI! We can’t wait to work with you.