How to Increase Your Positive Online Reviews

It’s important to take a proactive approach since unsatisfied customers are more likely to leave a review without any prompting than satisfied ones

How to Increase Your Positive Online Reviews

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So that Pipe Masters of Honolulu, Hawaii, can ensure customer satisfaction and improve quality control, every customer gets a call from the company’s office supervisor shortly after a job is completed.

Making sure customers are happy with the service they received also provides an opportunity to schedule any further work a technician may have recommended. And it’s a chance to ask if they’d be willing to leave an online review, an increasingly crucial aspect of business marketing these days. Even if people are initially turned onto a company by a positive word-of-mouth referral, many are still interested in the information they can glean from online reviews.

“If they agree, we make it easy by sending them a link to online review platforms like Yelp and Google,” says Jason Koran, owner of Pipe Masters, featured in the October 2021 issue.

The approach has been successful. In the past year, the number of online reviews on Google for Pipe Masters increased from none to 121, with all of them five-star ratings on a scale of one to five. The company also has garnered 147 reviews on Angi (formerly Angie’s List), with an average rating of 4.7 stars, and over 75 reviews on Yelp, with an average score of 4.5 stars.

To reap the benefits of online reviews, such a proactive approach is typically necessary.

“It’s an unfortunate reality that unprompted, people are far more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one, particularly in service industries like plumbing and drain cleaning,” says Chris Rossi, founder of Click Sluice Digital Marketing in Boise, Idaho, which specializes in digital marketing for plumbers and other local service businesses. “If you only have a few reviews, just one negative review can tank your rating and drive customers away. Having plenty of quality, positive reviews benefits you in two ways. First, positive reviews increase conversion rates (the number of prospective customers who turn into paying customers). Second, they signal to Google’s algorithm that your business is trustworthy and should be shown to searchers more often.”

Here are more tips from Rossi on how to increase your number of positive online reviews:

  • If you don’t have many reviews right now, the best place to start is with your loyal, repeat customers. Create a list of customers you’ve done work for more than once. Reach out to them and ask for a review, and be sure to include a link to write a review when you ask.
  • For all future clients, all you have to do is ask. If you email invoices, consider including the review request in the same email that you send, or shortly after. If you know a customer responds better to texts or phone calls instead of emails, send them a short text with a thank you and a request for a review. Ask your technicians to mention reviews in-person before they leave the customer’s home. Every satisfied customer you have should at some point be asked for a review. This significantly increases the chances that you will receive positive reviews.
  • To increase the overall quality of your online reviews, be sure to give your customers a good place to start. In your review request, ask them questions about the quality of their service or technician to help jog their memory. For example, when you send a request email or text, you can include a question such as: “What problem did we fix for you?” Google’s algorithm rewards businesses with more specific reviews, so more specificity can benefit your rankings. Additionally, reviews that mention the service that was performed can catch a customer’s eye and signals to them that you’ve dealt with their exact problem before, and you did it well.
  • As reviews come in, take some time to respond to them. Not only does this present you as friendly and engaged, it can also prompt other customers to leave reviews as well.
  • Finally, find the best way to consistently get reviews. Try emails first, then texting and calling. Experiment with having technicians ask for a review once the service is complete, then have your office follow up three days later with an email or a phone call. Test each technique for a few months, then switch to a different one. Continue trying new things until you find the process that has the best response rate from your customers. 


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