6 Simple Ways You Can Generate Great Customer Reviews

This one is on you. If your business is able to provide a product or service to the satisfaction of your customers, it is highly likely you will get a great positive review. However, it is still vital to ask for feedback from customers who are less than pleased.

Unsatisfied customers will be direct and honest about their experience with your business. This can give you food for thought about how you create customer experiences and where you may want to make improvements in your business.

The flip side to this type of customer experience is that you have the opportunity to make things right. Negative feedback can lead to the best positive customer reviews if you are willing to make things right and go beyond the highest level of customer expectations.

This should be obvious. The odds of your business gaining great customer reviews is extremely low if you are not asking for them. Customers tend to move on to other priorities quickly and won't give your business another thought until the next time they need it. That is why it is critical to know when and how to ask for a customer review. This is typically at the end of a transaction, after product or services have been delivered/completed, or when you have the opportunity to follow-up with a satisfied customer.

Have you ever heard the saying "Fortune is in the follow-up!" - it is a sales concept that is straight forward to understand. You have to be willing to connect with your prospects multiple times in order to create an opportunity for a sale. The same is true when it comes to getting customer reviews. Persistence will pay dividends in sales and customer reviews, but you have to have tact and be willing to keep going until you get what you want.

Sometimes it can be difficult to ask, but ask you must if you want to generate great customer reviews. Having ask for reviews email templates can be really handy when you want to send an email to a customer.

Processes allow businesses to forget about the minutia of routine tasks, at least for most days. A process is your order of operations, knowing when and how tasks need to be completed. Without a process, remembering to ask for a review can be extremely tedious. It can also vary wildly from customer to customer with a mix of effort and performance. These situations can be exhausting for your business and your customers. That is why a customer review process works well for both your ask and the customer to deliver.

When you know when and how to ask for a customer review as a process, you can fit that process into the system of your business. A simple process for asking for the review, follow-up, giving the customer a clear path and instructions, and thanking the customer for the review should be the major tasks in your customer review process.

Your customer left an amazing review for your business! Time to celebrate and look forward to the next customer review. Except, you are forgetting one important detail. You should always thank your customers. Simply responding to your customer reviews shows how much you appreciate feedback and your commitment to customer satisfaction.

Be thankful and show gratitude for the review your customer has given. This doesn't mean you need to reward your customer, but it shows your sincerity to take a moment to be thankful and appreciate the extra step the customer has taken at your request that will also benefit your business.

You can get all of the above right and still not land a great review. Why? Because customers need direct, simple, and specific instructions in order to leave a review for your small business. This is why it is important to tell your customers where the best place to leave a review will be (e.g. Google Business Profile, Facebook Business Page, Yelp, and others). You can also take it another step and show them! Once your customer can see right where the review should go, it is time to stand back and let them leave the review.