When dealing with reputation management – which is basically summed up as the quality of your online reviews – clients seem to get stuck on whether Google reviews are better or reviews emailed in from their customers are better. After all, a review is a review, right?
Wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong.
Although I understand that some of my clients customers may not be as tech savvy as we’d like them to be, and therefore they may be more comfortable with simply emailing my client their review for a job well done, there’s always a way to make it easier for them to leave my client a Google review.
Why the strong emphasis on Google reviews, you ask?
Instant credibility. That’s what it’s all about. Potential customers look your business up on Google. They see 5 or 20 reviews, most if not all 5 star reviews, and they are much more likely to contact that business than a business with no reviews at all. This isn’t a standard rule of thumb, as many potential customers will give someone a chance even with no reviews.
However in most cases, the 5 star reviews are what trigger the phone calls. It’s instant credibility as opposed to going on a fishing expedition of various websites and searching to see if they have reviews from satisfied clients. No one has time for that these days.
What we do is set up a testimonials or reviews page on our clients websites just to have something there. We post a number of their Google reviews, usually with a disclaimer that the reviews are REAL reviews from real people and they can be verified by clicking here. “Here” being a link back to the clients Google reviews on their My Business listing.
We also put a link on the same page encouraging the visitor to leave a Google review for the client by putting a direct link to the Leave a Review area on their Google My Business listing. This is useful for those customers that my client will ask to leave a Google review. My client simply directs them to the testimonials page on their website, and all they have to do is click that link and leave their review directly on Google.
This cuts down the confusion of “where do I go” for those who are not so tech savvy.
This simple procedure makes it easy to get more Google reviews. It also eliminates the email form which may or may not work, the email going into spam and my client never seeing it, and then passing it on over to me to post on their website. A clunky out of date process at best.
So, for efficient, quick and transparent reputation management we suggest Google Reviews vs emailed reviews. And, responding to all reviews – positive or negative – is always great PR for your business!