Understand the Review Process
One of the hurdles to getting reviews for most businesses is how complicated it is for their customers to actually give them reviews. Even if they remember to do it, and go to the location you wanted to leave you a review (2 big hurdles right there), they still need to figure out what they need to click to leave a review. Some websites require you to be logged in, some don’t, and getting reviews on any other review site besides Google, Facebook, and Yelp is almost impossible. Industry-based review sites are often very important for generating new leads, so how do you get happy customers to leave reviews on those websites?
If you are on our website and reading this, you know that 5StarsFast! software solves all of these problems. Let’s talk about how.
When someone either shoots the QR code with their phone, clicks the link we provide you, or uses the kiosk mode at your location, they are presented with a VERY SIMPLE feedback form – 1 through 5, 5 being highest, how satisfied are you with your interaction with our business? This 1 – 5 score roughly correlates with the 1 to 10 score of finding the NPS or Net Promoter Score (more info here) that has been used in customer satisfaction surveys for many years.
If they select 1 – 3, then clearly something is wrong and instant customer service is required. The software takes them to a short form that allows them to let you know what went wrong with their interaction with your company. This message is sent directly to your company, where someone should immediately reach out to them to make the situation right.
We consider this function to be just as important as leaving reviews. If you take an unhappy customer and spend the extra effort to make them a happy customer, often you have created a customer for life who will enthusiastically refer you company to their friends and family.
If they select a 4 or 5, we give them a link to the review platform you want more reviews at to leave a review. They can choose to leave a review or not leave a review. Some people assume that getting a feedback rating from a customer automatically means you will also get a review. Enthusiasm for your product or service has an effect on what percentage of feedback turns into reviews. The best way to get more reviews in any review management system is to ASK more frequently for reviews.
Even though our system can send your customers to ANY review platform that you have a review link available for, we recommend you start with Google for the first 30 days or until you get 60 reviews, whichever comes second. Getting a solid review number on Google is extremely helpful for Local SEO and prospective clients looking for your products and services. Once that is in good shape, you will want to work on creating good review profiles on the big review sites – Yelp, Facebook – then on the largest review site that is specific for your industry, such as Trip Advisor, The Knot, Avvo, etc.
Having a strong rating on these sites is counted by Google in the search engine placement for your company, but also the star rating on many of these sites is actually shown in search results. Like this:
Do you think this place has pretty damn good pizza? Google is giving you plenty of evidence to assume so.