A Guide to Online Reviews by Tier Level

It’s a known fact that businesses have always benefitted from reviews, word of mouth, and referrals. Customer experiences help build or break your businesses reputation. As the internet has become more of a staple in the American household, (or addiction, some may say) reviews have become even more prevalent when it comes to choosing a business to use or buying a product. In this blog, we’re going to dive deeper into how to get more reviews for your business, but first, let’s look into why reviews are so important.

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Why are reviews important?

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Reviews help you get noticed, lead to more sales, improve search engine rankings, inform your business, and convince customers to pick up the phone and call you. Let’s look into some statistics on how customers are swayed by online reviews. 

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• 91% of consumers regularly read online reviews
• 84% of people trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation
• 87% of people say that a business needs a 3-5 star rating before they will use them
• 74% of people say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 59% of customers look at 2-3 review sites before making a decision about a business
  

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Online reviews help bring visibility to your business, both positive and negative. If you have several 5 star reviews coming in each month, that tells future customers and search engines that your business is well used and liked. On the other hand, if you have several negative reviews coming in each month, that tells future customers that previous customers have used your business and had a negative experience. Both offer feedback, but obviously the positive reviews coming in will have a better outcome overall and lead to more visibility. 

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How do I ask customers for reviews? 

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JUST ASK! I know you’re thinking, “It’s not that simple.” While getting reviews does take consistency and effort, you have much higher chances of receiving more reviews if each and every satisfied customer is asked to leave a review. Read that last sentence again.. Key word here is satisfied! We want to start off by asking people who are already happy to leave a great review. Not every customer is going to be a candidate when asking for reviews. As you probably know, some people really love to take out their anger online when writing out a review. 

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Tip: If the responsibility of asking customers for reviews is landing on one person in your company, try rotating the responsibility around to ensure consistency is there. Different people asking could help in receiving a different response from customers. 

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Which platforms do I need reviews on? 

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We get this question a lot at Tier Level. Business owners wonder which platform is the best to focus on when asking customers to leave a review. The short answer is Google, but there’s a long answer too. Google continues to be the king of search. We want Google to continually feed our customers with business, and reviews play a huge role in that. When Google sees customers frequenting your business listing and providing feedback in the form of a review, they will reward that business listing by providing more consumers with that listing in search results. 

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Here’s the long answer: Some customers have preference when it comes to choosing a platform to leave a review. The preference can be regional as well. We’ve noticed more consumers are active on Yelp on the west coast and specific regions on the east coast as well. We also run into the hurdle of customers not having an account associated with some review platforms. For example, we may choose Google as our first option but the customer being asked may not have a Gmail account. Any review from a happy customer on a public, well used platform is a great review in our book. 

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How can Tier Level help with review strategy? 

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Tier Level currently offers 2 solutions for review solutions. Our custom Were You Happy link, and QR Codes. 

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Wereyouhappy.com was created by Tier Level years ago when we noticed our clients struggling to get reviews from customers, and also struggling with the negativity that comes in with reviews. When customers are sent the Were You Happy link, they will see a screen asking them if they were happy with the service provided. If they select thumbs up, it will then prompt them to select a platform to leave the review on. We realize not every customer will have the accounts associated with the platforms, so we also added a direct email option to send in their testimonial. If the customer selects thumbs down, it does not prompt them to leave a review. It only allows them to fill out a form describing their experience, which will then be sent to the owner of the business or designated email. This allows our clients to handle negative reviews before they go public. 

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QR codes or “quick response” codes have become something we see in our everyday lives. Using our smartphones, we scan these codes to be taken to either a website, a source of information like a business card or even an app to name a few. During 2020, QR codes became even more prevalent as restaurants and businesses wanted to utilize a touch-free way to convey information. It’s an instantaneous, incredibly easy and efficient way to share a direct link to a website - like your review platform! Utilizing your unique QR code as a way to share your direct review link takes the awkward link sharing moment out of the equation. Sharing your QR code with your customers in any way you choose (think business cards, stickers on your iPads at job sites, and even your email signature) takes the guesswork out of asking for reviews. It’s an uncomplicated way to ask for a quick favor onsite or an easy thing to send via email after the job is complete. Everyone with a smartphone can use a QR code, and you certainly don’t need to be smart to see the benefit in utilizing them to garner more reviews! We have the ability to create QR codes for you, and if you haven’t been using this method - we highly recommend it.‍

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Still not convinced? 

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Here’s a challenge - aim to get one new review a week for the next quarter and see for yourself the increase in business. We’re here to cheer you on!