Stop Asking for Reviews (Do This Instead)

Reviews can make or break a small business, especially local service based businesses. And you’re not going to be able to harness the power getting one a month. You need almost every single order to leave a review, yes even the bad ones. Hear me out.

On average only 5%-10% of people will go out of there way to leave a review for a business. But 50%-60% will if explicitly asked to. That’s 12-10 times more! But how do you get there?

You need a machine.

The secret isn’t to hound the client or customer until they give a review, the trick is to make it part of the process. Something that occurs so naturally in the client journey that it is not attached to you as a provider. Especially if you are a solepreneur that is very hands on, it can feel like you are asking them to rate you as a person, not necessarily the work. But making it part of the package removes that.

You will need an automation platform that can handle If/Then logic. A lot of industry specific CRM and communication platforms have this, or you can piece together something like Zapier. Once an order or service is fulfilled, you trigger one of two options. IF they had a good experience based on your judgement, then they get an email requesting a review to your favorite platform. IF they had a less than steller experience, you shoot them a link to a feedback form that looks like a review. This let’s them feel that the places of failure were heard, you get valuable insight, and the reviews stays off the public channels.

In 60 days, you'll have 10x more reviews and actual insight into where your service is breaking down. That's not just better optics. That's competitive advantage.