When you are looking for a different restaurant to celebrate your wedding anniversary, an inn to rest on the long holiday or just buy some painting supplies for a small home renovation, how do you find it?
If it happens to you as a retailer, but in the role of a consumer, as it happens to the overwhelming majority, through a Google search.
With your customers – and those who are not yet – too!
But it’s not just about searching, clicking on the first occurrence of the results presented and going to the commercial establishment. Like almost everyone, you will look for some information and especially what they say and how they rate other users who have had consumption experiences at that establishment.
That’s what we’re going to talk about today. How to work so that such reviews result in more customers in your store.
What are Google reviews?
As a user, you you should know well the evaluation tool that Google has linked to the results displayed for each search – the SERPs – made.
For each visit to restaurants, stores and the most diverse commercial establishments you frequent, Google asks you for reviews, rating them from one to five stars, providing reviews based on your experiences and depending on how much you interact and provide ratings, it also asks you to answer certain questions.
The set of information provided – yours and everyone who responded – will integrate the data of the respective company when users do local searches and use Google Maps to locate companies in a certain region.
The giant of searches collects in different ways everything that is possible to gather about companies, p. so that, as in the search for anything, it delivers the results it deems most relevant.
In other words, the algorithm is designed to provide information that allows the user to make as safe a choice as possible. .
Why is it important to have reviews on Google?
While the answer is reasonably intuitive for most, there is an important list of reasons to work in the sense of having a lot of reviews:
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- The more reviews, especially the positive ones (four or five stars), the higher the chances of the algorithm to better position a company at the expense of others, even leaving geographic proximity in the background. That is, more visibility in relation to the competition;
- More reviews provide more subsidies for customers to make their decisions ;
- People tend to trust reviews from other consumers who have had consumer experiences more than advertising and as much as referrals from friends, relatives and acquaintances (Referral Marketing);
- Unconsciously, many evaluations suggest that the company in question also has many customers, has a wider range of operations, is in full activity, for longer and all this contributes to trust, especially when the company is not known;
- The insecurity that some people still have in online shopping (e-commerce) can be overcome when ratings and comments are positive;
- Currently a good number of positive ratings and high star rating help to build a good network. digital computing;
- Clarification of doubts and questions that sometimes an institutional website – or any other type – cannot answer.
How to get reviews on Google?
As obvious as it may seem to some, the first step is to include the company in Google My Business.
Although it is free, it is easy and quick to create an account and in practice produce many results, especially for local businesses, there is a large contingent of companies that are still outside.
Not everyone is an Internet “expert”, although it is not required to be. On the contrary.
Even though it is quite simple, it is important that you read our post about Google My Business carefully, as it contains important guidelines that are decisive for the return that is possible.
Once this initial and fundamental step is completed, let’s get down to business.
1. Customer service
What no one who deals with the subject says, but which is the basis of everything, is service.
Your customers will only be able to give good reviews – which are the ones that matter most – of your business, if their experience is positive and that includes the service they received, no matter how fantastic the associated product is. Even more so when it is not selling consumer goods, but providing a service.
Believe me, negative experiences produce a greater willingness to complain and act as a detractor of your brand, than the reverse. But even customers who don’t complain can be a big problem.
Contrary to this trend, it is necessary to produce a very good consumer experience so that people are willing to recommend it to a friend , a relative or other consumers, raising the so-called Net Promoter Score (NPS).
However, the reality of retail has shown the opposite of what is defended and even the non-fulfillment of basic requirements . We are not even talking about good quality in service and even less about personalized service.
When was the last time a salesperson, when performing a face-to-face service, asked you your name, as well as other questions to identify the consumption scenario and the needs and desires that the product should meet?
It has not been uncommon to receive impersonal, distant, hurried and even impatient care. They seem to want to get it over with and get rid of the customers. Very unlikely to have any evaluation and that it is good.
2. Evaluation Request
Once the service has been provided as expected and you have confirmed the level of satisfaction obtained, ask him directly how he heard about the store and if he has the habit of evaluating the places he frequents.
Tell him about the importance of leaving your testimonial, both for the benefit of the commercial establishment and for other consumers who, like him, even so, they still don’t know the company.
When the company maintains a register and/or uses web tools to send promotions, such as through WhatsApp and which has been growing in retail or e-mail Marketing , an opportunity opens to send the link for evaluation.
3. Keep information up-to-date
In addition to assessments, business information needs to be as complete and up-to-date as possible.
Who wants to go to an establishment, wants at least to know the address and days and hours of operation. The first part – the address – is simple, because Maps already provides it based on registration. However, when there is more than one company operating at the location, details such as the store number are essential.
Also provide the website address and telephone numbers and other possible forms of contact, too. It is not uncommon for customers to want to confirm some information, such as the availability of a product, before going to the location. Therefore, keeping the site updated is essential.
External and internal photos, well produced, clear and that help both to identify the place for those who have never been, and to make the consumer have an idea of the that you will find, help a lot. If there have been changes to the facade, a renovation or some kind of alteration, update the images with the new ones.
All this makes a lot of difference when choosing between your company and a competitor of yours. And if the customer chooses the competitor, in addition to having lost a sale, he also lost an evaluation.
4. Respond to reviews
Respond to all reviews – the good and the bad – and always as quickly as possible.
First that this values the client’s willingness to dedicate their time to the evaluation. Second, because it demonstrates that the company cares about your opinion. Third, and especially in cases of few stars and/or in which the experience report is negative, there is an opportunity to try to reverse the situation.
In this case, remember that telephone service is still very important, being more dynamic, interactive and allows better communication. Therefore, in the response, ask the customer to get in touch to better understand the reason for the dissatisfaction and to ask for a new chance to produce a positive experience.
Know that every user can either eliminate a criticism, how can you change it, changing the number of stars that was originally given, as your experience report. Therefore, it is possible to reverse a bad rating, but for that and having made sure that you managed to resolve the reason for the dissatisfaction, please kindly request that the rating be changed.
And if that wasn’t enough, keep in mind that some rare negative evaluations even contribute to credibility, after all there is no perfect company. The supposedly ideal and desired scenario of having only 5 stars and mountains of praise, generates suspicion as to the veracity and authenticity of the reviews, even if Google surrounds itself with mechanisms to avoid fraud.
In all In some cases, those who are not yet customers when they observe these interactions, will be more likely to visit you.
5. Use the testimonials
When it is possible to have contact with the customer, ask for authorization and use the customer testimonials on the website and social networks.
For the same reasons that we have seen so far, the use of testimonials will help those who come to the company by other means, to also feel more secure and confident in trying it.
It works as social proof, it helps to enhance the qualities, shows transparency and humanized service and sometimes even favors advancing in the sales funnel for those who had resistance in the early stages.
Conclusion
The evaluations that Google users make when visiting companies that appear in local searches are decisive to bring new customers to your store.
