The Value of Asking for Reviews
For some business owners, the idea of asking for reviews spells stress and anxiety. They think asking for reviews is just inviting trouble, complaining customers and negative reviews. However, if done correctly, asking for online reviews can make your customers feel heard, serve as another touchpoint after a sale and serve as a proactive way to actually mitigate bad reviews.
If you’ve ever read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, you’re familiar with the power of making people feel appreciated and listened to. And that’s exactly what asking for reviews achieves. Inviting feedback and showing it’s valuable to you makes to your customers feel trusted and important. Imagine a neighbor coming to you to ask for your guidance on their new car or next vacation and the connection that creates between you. It’s the same for your customers!
Sending follow up communications and marketing emails to customers to thank them or advertise a product is a helpful practice. Sometimes, however, you simply run out of reasons to reach out! Inviting customer reviews serves as another touchpoint and interaction with a customer, another reason to be in contact. Fortunately, not all businesses have caught on to the importance of reviews, so you may be the only email in their inbox asking to hear from them, making you extra memorable.
Of course, negative reviews do happen. And if you have several one or two-star reviews right now, it is affecting you in ways you may not realize such as search results and losing potential customers. Inviting reviews helps attract more five-star reviews, offsetting the poor scores that are hurting your company. As some business owners have experienced, the majority of their happy customers don’t say much—but the two or three customers who claimed a bad experience can spell major trouble in online reviews, even if their “complaint” was that your gyro shop didn’t sell sushi and hand luggage. It’s best to offset their feedback by inviting reviews from the vast majority of your very happy clients.