If you’ve been running a small business for any length of time—especially a service-based business—you are probably aware of the impact that reviews have on your business. If you aren’t, here are a couple of stats for you:
- 91% of consumers read reviews before visiting a business.
- 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust reviews from people they know.
Did those stats surprise you? If they did, it’s probably because you are among the small percentage of people who don’t read online reviews. But the vast majority of your potential customers are reading them—and many are contacting businesses based on what they read.
Why Are Google Reviews Important for Small Businesses?
There are many places that customers can leave reviews for small businesses. There are sites like Yelp and Facebook, but probably the most important place to have a good number of positive reviews is on Google. Here’s another stat for you: 88% of customers read Google reviews prior to engaging with a business. That’s a huge percentage! If your small business doesn’t currently have any Google reviews, or if it only has a few, you could be losing out on a lot of business as potential customers turn to your competitors with more positive reviews.
In addition, having a good number of positive Google reviews for your small business can help give your website a boost in the search rankings. The number of reviews is one of the variables that Google looks at when determining which websites to present to people doing Google searches that are relevant to your small business.
How to Get Google Reviews for Your Small Business
If you want to get more Google reviews for your small business, the most important thing to do is ask for them! You might think that if you simply provide great service, your customers will be compelled to leave a rave review. They won’t. You need to ask.
Here’s the thing, though—you have to ask at the right time. Don’t ask while the customer is still in your store, or as you are wrapping up work in their home. They are likely to forget all about your request by the time they sit down at their computer or get on their smart phone. Instead, shortly after the business transaction is complete, send them an email. (Of course, this requires you to collect email addresses.) The email should allow your customer to easily leave a Google review from their phone or computer. The more convenient you make it for someone to leave a review, the more likely they are to do it.
Using an Automated Service to Get More Google Reviews and Help Filter Out Negative Reviews
If you don’t want to email each customer individually, there are services out there that will do it on your company’s behalf. One great service is Moxly, which completely automates the process of asking for Google reviews but doesn’t make your customers feel as if they are dealing with a bot. Moxly was created by a digital marketing company that knows how important Google reviews are for small businesses and the type of messaging to use to get the desired results from consumers.
When you sign up for Moxly’s service, you simply send them your email addresses, and they will send out a polite email to your customers asking for a review. If the customer fails to leave a review after the first email, they will get two polite reminders.
Here’s the best part about Moxly, the service is set up to help filter out negative reviews! How, you ask? It’s a simple, but very effective process.
When a customer opens up their email, they are presented with a question, such as “How was your experience with X company?” They are then given two options, such as “Great” and “Not so great.” (The exact wording may vary based on the company.) If the customer clicks “Great,” they will be taken directly to Google to leave a review. If they click “Not so great,” they are given the opportunity to share private feedback with your company. In this way, the dissatisfied customer is still able to express his or her frustration, but it won’t be made public on Google for other potential customers to see. Your company can take that negative feedback and respond as you see fit.
Getting Google reviews with Moxly requires almost no work on the part of a small business. It’s effective, and it’s also affordable!
Since the service launched, small businesses using Moxly have seen their number of Google reviews increase by 550%! As of this writing, every single review received by Moxly’s small business clients was positive. That’s right—every potentially negative review was filtered out, and businesses received only positive reviews on their Google profiles!
If Moxly sounds like a service your small business could benefit from, visit their website: https://moxly.us/
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