Nifty Tip: Ask your customers for Google reviews

[Texas_Signmaker]

Over the last 4-5 months I've worked with about 30 different sign companies all over the country. I wanted to give you some quick hints on how you can boost your image online.

The main thing I look for are GOOGLE REVIEWS. I read them, good and bad ones, to get a sense of how well a company is handling orders. I pass up quite a few because of bad reviews. You may want to take the time to e-mail your customer and ask them for a 5-star review. The typical e-mail I send out is as follows:

Glad everything worked well with the signs and I appreciate the business. Would you mind leaving a quick 5-star Google review for me? Those reviews help my ranking on there and lets others know about how I do business. You can leave a review here: (Insert link to your Google Maps location here)

Again, I appreciate the business and any feedback, let me know if you guys need anything else.

I usually gravitate to the companies that have the best reviews. I usually avoid companies with low rankings and NO REVIEWS.

To get the URL of your business listing, open http://maps.google.com and search for your company name. Once you find it, click the "Share" icon and copy the URL from there

Just a nifty tip I thought I'd share.

 

[Greg Kelm]

I like it, not that I'd trust a google review (much like yelp), but I'm sure it helps bring your site closer to the top.

 

[Andy D]

I agree with everything except asking for 5 stars, that seems tacky.
This is my Outlook signature for my follow up emails, when I let customers know their signs are ready to be picked up...
which I always try to do & none of my vendors ever do for me & it pisses me off.

Your sign is ready to be picked up.
Our hours are 8am-5pm Monday – Friday, but if needed, I might be able to arrange a pick-up outside of those times.
Your total is xxxxx

If you are not 100% happy with your signs, please let me know & I will resolve the issue.

If you are 100% happy, please let the world know, with signs & graphics being a newer service that we provide, we would really appreciate your review.
A link to our Google review is: HERE

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

I agree with everything except asking for 5 stars, that seems tacky.
This is my Outlook signature for my follow up emails, when I let customers know their signs are ready to be picked up...
which I always try to do & none of my vendors ever do for me & it pisses me off.

Your sign is ready to be picked up.
Our hours are 8am-5pm Monday – Friday, but if needed, I might be able to arrange a pick-up outside of those times.
Your total is xxxxx

If you are not 100% happy with your signs, please let me know & I will resolve the issue.

If you are 100% happy, please let the world know, with signs & graphics being a newer service that we provide, we would really appreciate your review.
A link to our Google review is: HERE

Yep. This reminds me of a sign I see posted at a local restaurant. "If you enjoyed your food please tell others. If you didn't please tell us."

 

[Andy D]

Yep. This reminds me of a sign I see posted at a local restaurant. "If you enjoyed your food please tell others. If you didn't please tell us."

Thiefs! They stole that from me!!!!

 

[FireSprint.com]

Tell us about your experience!

We use this link everywhere for feedback. If you rate us 5 stars on the form, it offers links to a few review sites, anything else is sent to the owners of FireSprint and the customer service team. We then share that feedback everyday, good and bad with our whole team during our morning meeting. I believe it's important to ask for feedback.

The tool we used for this is called JotForm, but there are many out there that you can configure conditional fields to only show after the customer picks 5 stars.

 

[Johnny Best]

Again, I appreciate the business and any feedback, let me know if you guys need anything else.

Using the word "guys" makes you sound like Sloth and Chunk. You could just leave off that word

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Tell us about your experience!

We use this link everywhere for feedback. If you rate us 5 stars on the form, it offers links to a few review sites, anything else is sent to the owners of FireSprint and the customer service team. We then share that feedback everyday, good and bad with our whole team during our morning meeting. I believe it's important to ask for feedback.

The tool we used for this is called JotForm, but there are many out there that you can configure conditional fields to only show after the customer picks 5 stars.

Why don't you post the lower than 5 star reviews? I ask because this is a debate we are currently having, I believe we should address it but we should always post them... Our marketing team says only post 5 stars if we can. I feel your company is real when you have less than perfect reviews, it gives you an opportunity to address them ultimately to show how you handle less than stellar situations. This will let potential clients see you don't hide from problems.

My mantra for my vendor relationships is "we all make mistakes, it's how we handle them that matter." I feel it's more important to address mistakes then to appear as if you don't make them.

 

[HecklnDecalr]

We started working with a social media company about a year and a half ago. They told us that while a google review is great, there's more to it than that. Having 5 star reviews is fantastic, but if you're not at the top of the list, most people will never get far enough to read them. The trick is to use tags on different search sites to identify what you do and to make sure all your information on said search sites is consistent and correct.
We didn't show up at the top when googling signs or decals. We were actually on the second page . After syncing our info we are at the top for most sign and graphic related searches. At the same time we were doing this, we also were asking all of our customers to rate us. Out of all the people we asked, we got about 20, which is still way more than most other sign shops in our area.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Why don't you post the lower than 5 star reviews? I ask because this is a debate we are currently having, I believe we should address it but we should always post them... Our marketing team says only post 5 stars if we can. I feel your company is real when you have less than perfect reviews, it gives you an opportunity to address them ultimately to show how you handle less than stellar situations. This will let potential clients see you don't hide from problems.

My mantra for my vendor relationships is "we all make mistakes, it's how we handle them that matter." I feel it's more important to address mistakes then to appear as if you don't make them.

Why would anyone want to have lower then 5 stars? Lol

Seriously though, I've made mistakes before (usually overlooking something in the proofing process) and I always quickly correct what I did wrong. I have 2, five-star reviews where a customer mentioned there was an issue that was quickly resolved and they were happy. If a customer has an issue and is taking to leaving a bad or neutral review, then they most likely already tried to get you to correct it and it wasn't handled to their satisfaction.

---AS A SIDE NOTE---

I read an article years ago in the WSJ that talked about the loyalty of a customer. The customers with the highest loyalty are not ones that have never had a problem with a company, but ones that DID have a problem and it was fully and quickly resolved... those types are the most loyal.

So if a customer has an issue with something you did, you have an "opportunity" to make them a hyper-loyal customer by making things right. Those two reviews I mentioned where I messed up and fixed it... those customers were MORE then happy to share their good reviews online. One of the customers that had an issue with an install I did was so impressed with how I handled it, I ended up getting their national account... Ya never know how things turn out.

 

[FireSprint.com]

Why don't you post the lower than 5 star reviews?

We don't "post" any reviews from our customers, they choose to do that. They can leave us reviews wherever they like for whatever they think we deserve.

This form is something our customers proactively arrived at because they wanted to provide us feedback. First and foremost we share that feedback with our entire team daily - internally - where it can actually be addressed. Good and bad.

If a customer just so happened to want to tell us we are doing a great job, we offer convenient links to leave those comments publicly, if they choose.

I don't see the point in asking a customer who just had a negative experience to also go share that negative experience somewhere else? I think that would just piss them off even more. We need to address that issue internally, and make it right. Why would it take a Google Review to fix a problem? We'll do it with an email or a phone call.

---

We make mistakes. Every. SIngle. Day. We're a printer and sign maker that processes 1000 custom jobs a week. Our 5 star ratings are a reflection of how we handle mistakes. We work diligently with customers when there is an issue so they don't need to go out of their way - to an outside source - to give us feedback. Anyone can send all 3 owners a note right here: Tell us about your experience!

 

[FireSprint.com]

Why would anyone want to have lower then 5 stars? Lol

Seriously though, I've made mistakes before (usually overlooking something in the proofing process) and I always quickly correct what I did wrong. I have 2, five-star reviews where a customer mentioned there was an issue that was quickly resolved and they were happy. If a customer has an issue and is taking to leaving a bad or neutral review, then they most likely already tried to get you to correct it and it wasn't handled to their satisfaction.

---AS A SIDE NOTE---

I read an article years ago in the WSJ that talked about the loyalty of a customer. The customers with the highest loyalty are not ones that have never had a problem with a company, but ones that DID have a problem and it was fully and quickly resolved... those types are the most loyal.

So if a customer has an issue with something you did, you have an "opportunity" to make them a hyper-loyal customer by making things right. Those two reviews I mentioned where I messed up and fixed it... those customers were MORE then happy to share their good reviews online. One of the customers that had an issue with an install I did was so impressed with how I handled it, I ended up getting their national account... Ya never know how things turn out.

This is absolutely true. You never know how much you can count on a vendor until they show you what they will do to fix a mistake. This is when a partnership of trust is built.

We welcome feedback for improvement here at FireSprint. It's critical. The customers that take the time to tell us there was an issue are GEMS!!

What scares me the most are the customers that just decide to take their business elsewhere and never let us know there was a problem. (Or even more shameful, they try to let us know and we miss the call). That's what kills a business.

Feedback for improvement is so so so valuable when a customer takes the time to share it. Make it as easy as you can for them to do so.

 

[Andy D]

I read an article years ago in the WSJ that talked about the loyalty of a customer. The customers with the highest loyalty are not ones that have never had a problem with a company, but ones that DID have a problem and it was fully and quickly resolved... those types are the most loyal.

So if a customer has an issue with something you did, you have an "opportunity" to make them a hyper-loyal customer by making things right. Those two reviews I mentioned where I messed up and fixed it... those customers were MORE then happy to share their good reviews online. One of the customers that had an issue with an install I did was so impressed with how I handled it, I ended up getting their national account... Ya never know how things turn out.

That is good to know & to keep in mind when issues come up, thanks!