July 8, 2024 • 15 mins
In this episode, we dive into the world of Google reviews and explore how they can significantly benefit your business. Learn why Google reviews are a crucial element of social proof and how they can help you build trust with potential customers.
We discuss the importance of creating a Google listing for your business and optimizing it with detailed information and photos. Discover effective strategies for asking customers to leave reviews and the best times to request them to ensure a higher response rate.
Gain insights on how to handle both positive and negative reviews professionally, and why responding to reviews can enhance your company’s credibility. Finally, we emphasize the importance of consistency in gathering reviews and setting achievable goals to continuously improve your online reputation.
Tune in to learn practical tips and actionable advice on leveraging Google reviews to grow your business and stand out in a competitive market.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey, I'm just jumping on here just to chat today about reviews and how beneficial
they are to your business and can be to your business. So we're going to talk about that next.
Music.
So yeah, I'm going to mainly talk about Google reviews.
(00:23):
They are by far I feel the ones
that really create the most social proof
and that people who trust them probably
more people trust them more than maybe some
other types of refuse they're probably the ones that
are used that much or that the most obviously
a lot of people looking for anything now will will
(00:45):
click it into Google and search for gutter cleaning near me or plumber near
me or landscaper near me and when that page comes up it shows the results you
will have some sponsored ads so you'll have companies that are paying google
to have their name at the top of the list as such you will then have organic.
(01:06):
Results which are companies who their seo maybe
they've been established a while or they've got great keywords in
their in their sorry keywords
in their website that that help them to get up
quite high on the first page of Google but you
will also then have the Google Maps where people
will say maybe gutter cleaning companies near
(01:27):
me and you'll have all the listings and part of
that will be you will also have your reviews beside your listing and if you
are able to I would encourage you just to get on the Google and type in the
service that you provide type in your time that you you live in and let's just
see what results come up there.
(01:48):
And you will see that there'd be a number of companies come up and in the service
industry, you'll probably find that if there's a company there that has 20 or
30 Google reviews, that's probably quite a lot.
Some will have five or 10, some may have none.
I find that people will, I know if I'm looking for a service
and I'm doing up my own house at the minute and needing
(02:11):
some trades people and I've been googling you know plumbers or electricians
and when you do that and you see the say they have 30 or 40 reviews that come
up beside their name I will click into them and I will check to see what people
are saying about them now.
Of course no one's perfect no company's perfect
(02:32):
and you unlikely gonna have a
company with all five star reviews you may have lots of
five stars and you'll have one or two one star reviews
and I always then look at the one star if
you see what they say and more importantly see how the
company have responded so and there's
a few different things with reviews which we can talk about
(02:52):
first first of all is getting them and again I
would focus on trying to get
Google reviews for your company so where do we start well
firstly you have to be on Google so you need to create
a listing for your business so that you it
should be free I believe it's free when I don't so if you
go to Google and find somewhere where you can list your your business
(03:13):
and hopefully you have a website or a landing page which
you can use as a website and fill in all your details there
get as many photos as you can up on
on to that listing have your website have
a good well-written description you can use even ai
or whatever they have now for for helping you with that
if you need need to tell people your service try
(03:35):
and sell yourself through the description but i'm not
going to go too much in detail into that listing so i'm
probably talking more to people who already have that listing if you
don't let's get on that let's get on that as quickly
as possible and get on google it's it's really where most
people will search and find your business online there's other
sites like bing and there's other yelp and.
(03:57):
You know whatever all the other the listings
are but for now i want to focus on google because i believe it's the biggest
search engine so so get your listing sorted and then once you're starting to
do some jobs then you you want to ask for reviews it's it's plain and simple
if you have If you have a lot of Google reviews and your competitor doesn't,
(04:19):
I imagine and can suggest that through experience, people will click on you,
they'll read about you, they will have that trust factor built in then that
they start to trust your brand.
They can read and there's maybe names of your team members or yourself that
people continually read about that Johnny done a great job or whatever.
(04:39):
And, and then that builds up the proof and people just almost sell themselves
on you because you've done great work and you've got great reviews.
So how do you get reviews then? So one, I would,
suggest that when you're starting out you firstly
you don't want to ask for a review if you've not done a good job so
if you've done a bad job or you have the
(05:01):
customer doesn't seem overly happy i would try and get to the
bottom of well why are you not happy about the job
that i've done but i maybe skip on asking
a review there but if you have mrs jones and
she's delighted that you came and you done a
great job you came when you says you were going to come you the
gutters are looking fantastic you sweet swept
(05:23):
up all the debris that fell to the ground actually you
even cleaned more debris and leaves that were
around the property and maybe rinse it off with the hose
you went beyond what you said you were going to do she wasn't expecting that
you done it she's delighted she made you a cup of tea got a biscuit and and
she's keen to get you paid and she's going to tell all her friends about you
(05:45):
because she's told you that well that's a perfect opportunity to say,
look, I'm delighted that you're happy with the work that we've done.
We pride ourselves in doing a good job. We're trying to build our reputation.
We're trying to build our small business.
Would you mind, Mrs. Jones, taking two minutes to fill out or give us a Google
(06:07):
review? It would mean the world to us.
I can actually text you through or I can email you through the link.
And all you need to do is click on that. And ideally, hopefully
you will give us a five-star review and maybe just
write a sentence or two about how you
found us and and i imagine if you've done a
great job that she will very happily
(06:28):
write you a review and the time to ask
for the review is while she while the
the mrs jones is delighted and she's happy
and you know you've just done the job you've solved
her problem and she wants to she'll do
it there and then now don't leave it six months and then chase up
with people and see if they'll leave a review you know
(06:50):
their life was moved on from the sunny afternoon where
you you sorted out the guttering problem and forgot about it so you need to
strike while the iron is hot and and ask for that review I would also say after
every job and once the client has paid the invoice hopefully online through your CRM or what.
(07:13):
You then send an email or a text and say, look, I really appreciate the prompt
payment. Thank you for that.
Could I ask you to leave a Google review or click the link here and leave us a Google review?
It would really help with us building our business and our reputation.
And as a recent client, if you could do that, we'd be fantastic.
(07:33):
I would do that after every successful job. And you will, some will not do it at all.
Some will, some will do it in three months. and you don't know
who that review came from because it just appears and you've
got a five star review but i would focus on setting
a goal of okay we want 10 reviews a month
and and asking for the reviews you have to ask and
(07:54):
people in general will people are busy but
if you've done a good job you ask at the right time you
show gratitude you go above and beyond the
work that you've done or said you
would do and you've sent the invoice promptly you've sent photos before and
after photos of the job and you've been professional and you do all those things
(08:18):
you will start to get reviews so i'm coming up to two i think it was about 290 google reviews at the.
At recording of this podcast so my target
is 300 and i know for a
fact that when people type in gutter clean in belfast or
gutter repair belfast that when our listing
(08:39):
comes up and people see those reviews that
that it's a great social proof because people see that they'll start reading
them and they will say well this this sounds good this looks good these reviews
are good i'm keen to go with with these guys so google reviews are huge and
i would advise you to really push getting them If you don't have any,
(09:02):
if you have some, let's build it up.
Let's push to 20, then 50, then 100, 150.
Let's set those markers, those goals, and try and increase them.
I'll talk next just on Google reviews then. So you get a good review,
what do you do? Well, you immediately reply.
And I believe I've heard that Google like that when you reply,
and it must be their algorithms or what, but if you get a reply saying,
(09:26):
oh, such and such was great, done a great job and tidied up
and really efficient and professional and reasonably priced
all this well then thank the person for that they've
taken the time to give you the review click the five stars give you a positive
review and the least you can do is thank them for it people will read the reviews
but potential clients will also read the responses and what you write and well
(09:50):
worded response again gives a.
That trustworthiness to your company and would advise
you to do that so that's for a positive review so
say you have negative review which
will happen i think i have one one star review which i can't even see where
the customer we didn't service the customer so i don't know i don't know why
(10:14):
that happened or who left it but it's a one star negative review on that one
for example where it was more just,
oh, they didn't respond, something like that.
But I very nicely just wrote, thank you for leaving us feedback.
I couldn't find you on the system, but if you would like to get in touch with
us on this telephone number or this email address, we will happily call out
(10:37):
and have a look at your job or something like that.
So how you respond is very important.
I do read sometimes responses to reviews where they are very,
a lot of anger in them, but possibly because the client has left Google review
without approaching the company to say,
you know, there was a problem with their job or they weren't happy with something.
(11:01):
And instead of doing that they've bypassed the company and just went straight
to Google to leave a bad review and in that case that could be very frustrating
for a company and would be.
And saying that I think the response is I think you have to take it on the chin
that you've got a one-star review and people are most of the time probably unlikely
(11:22):
to remove that or change that,
unless you do a good response and
that I would again say look I thank you
for the feedback back but and we're very
sorry to hear that there's been an issue with the work
we haven't been notified of this
so if you could get in touch with us and
(11:43):
let us know what we can do to put this right they may well not get in touch
with you they may well leave the one star review but if you can do a response
to that bad review the next client potential client who reads it will say well
well, actually, something's went wrong here.
But the way that they've responded, they've shown integrity,
(12:03):
they've shown professionalism, they haven't started slating the person or calling
them out all over Google.
I believe that's the best out of a bad situation. So if it's a good review,
respond. If it's a bad review, respond.
But respond in a way that...
Isn't smart or isn't filled with anger or
(12:26):
unprofessional keep it professional you
know it is only google reviews after all they are
important but let's respond to them
and then let's get rid of that one star as the
most recent review by quickly getting
a lot of better better reviews and
if someone gives you a bad review and you know you've done
(12:46):
something wrong you didn't do the job right i would just
say hold your hands up and say look we apologize on
this occasion that we didn't meet your expectations i would
love to put it right now and please get in touch and something like that so
you have to turn bad into good at times but yeah let's let's go with the google
reviews facebook reviews are another one i don't think they're as important
(13:09):
but yes if someone will leave you a facebook review it's better having that
than having none on Instagram,
no, sorry, I don't think there is any on Instagram, things like Nextdoor or other platforms,
where people are leaving reviews and recommendations.
But I think it comes down to, in the end, how you do your job, do it right, do it well,
(13:30):
work like the client is looking over your shoulder constantly,
don't take shortcuts, take pride in your work and do it the best of your ability.
And you will grow in confidence, You'll grow in confidence for asking people
to leave your review, respond well to them, and rinse and repeat,
and keep going with it. Like everything, it's consistency.
(13:52):
The nearly 300 reviews that I have have been over a number of years,
and I know you could get them quicker by pushing them quicker and asking for more reviews.
But, you know, if you don't have any, then 10 is great.
10 is great, 20 is great, and 20 is probably more than most people have.
Have and keep building and once you get to 30 and 40
(14:14):
and 50 you just keep building them keep consistent with it
it'll be like everything in this business you
will reap what you sow and google reviews
and reviews in general are just that that next
step remember people will probably tell five people
about you if you're great if you're bad
(14:35):
and do a bad job they're going to tell 50 they'll tell absolutely everyone
so it's important to do a good job and when you do to
ask for those reviews and they will really stand by
you as you go on so that's all for today i
hope that's helpful regarding google reviews get out there and get asking people
(14:56):
at times you do a good turn for them they will definitely do a good turn for
you thanks again for listening and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already.
Hey, I'm just jumping on here just to chat today about reviews and how beneficial
they are to your business and can be to your business. So we're going to talk about that next.
Music.
So yeah, I'm going to mainly talk about Google reviews.
(00:23):
They are by far I feel the ones
that really create the most social proof
and that people who trust them probably
more people trust them more than maybe some
other types of refuse they're probably the ones that
are used that much or that the most obviously
a lot of people looking for anything now will will
(00:45):
click it into Google and search for gutter cleaning near me or plumber near
me or landscaper near me and when that page comes up it shows the results you
will have some sponsored ads so you'll have companies that are paying google
to have their name at the top of the list as such you will then have organic.
(01:06):
Results which are companies who their seo maybe
they've been established a while or they've got great keywords in
their in their sorry keywords
in their website that that help them to get up
quite high on the first page of Google but you
will also then have the Google Maps where people
will say maybe gutter cleaning companies near
(01:27):
me and you'll have all the listings and part of
that will be you will also have your reviews beside your listing and if you
are able to I would encourage you just to get on the Google and type in the
service that you provide type in your time that you you live in and let's just
see what results come up there.
(01:48):
And you will see that there'd be a number of companies come up and in the service
industry, you'll probably find that if there's a company there that has 20 or
30 Google reviews, that's probably quite a lot.
Some will have five or 10, some may have none.
I find that people will, I know if I'm looking for a service
and I'm doing up my own house at the minute and needing
(02:11):
some trades people and I've been googling you know plumbers or electricians
and when you do that and you see the say they have 30 or 40 reviews that come
up beside their name I will click into them and I will check to see what people
are saying about them now.
Of course no one's perfect no company's perfect
(02:32):
and you unlikely gonna have a
company with all five star reviews you may have lots of
five stars and you'll have one or two one star reviews
and I always then look at the one star if
you see what they say and more importantly see how the
company have responded so and there's
a few different things with reviews which we can talk about
(02:52):
first first of all is getting them and again I
would focus on trying to get
Google reviews for your company so where do we start well
firstly you have to be on Google so you need to create
a listing for your business so that you it
should be free I believe it's free when I don't so if you
go to Google and find somewhere where you can list your your business
(03:13):
and hopefully you have a website or a landing page which
you can use as a website and fill in all your details there
get as many photos as you can up on
on to that listing have your website have
a good well-written description you can use even ai
or whatever they have now for for helping you with that
if you need need to tell people your service try
(03:35):
and sell yourself through the description but i'm not
going to go too much in detail into that listing so i'm
probably talking more to people who already have that listing if you
don't let's get on that let's get on that as quickly
as possible and get on google it's it's really where most
people will search and find your business online there's other
sites like bing and there's other yelp and.
(03:57):
You know whatever all the other the listings
are but for now i want to focus on google because i believe it's the biggest
search engine so so get your listing sorted and then once you're starting to
do some jobs then you you want to ask for reviews it's it's plain and simple
if you have If you have a lot of Google reviews and your competitor doesn't,
(04:19):
I imagine and can suggest that through experience, people will click on you,
they'll read about you, they will have that trust factor built in then that
they start to trust your brand.
They can read and there's maybe names of your team members or yourself that
people continually read about that Johnny done a great job or whatever.
(04:39):
And, and then that builds up the proof and people just almost sell themselves
on you because you've done great work and you've got great reviews.
So how do you get reviews then? So one, I would,
suggest that when you're starting out you firstly
you don't want to ask for a review if you've not done a good job so
if you've done a bad job or you have the
(05:01):
customer doesn't seem overly happy i would try and get to the
bottom of well why are you not happy about the job
that i've done but i maybe skip on asking
a review there but if you have mrs jones and
she's delighted that you came and you done a
great job you came when you says you were going to come you the
gutters are looking fantastic you sweet swept
(05:23):
up all the debris that fell to the ground actually you
even cleaned more debris and leaves that were
around the property and maybe rinse it off with the hose
you went beyond what you said you were going to do she wasn't expecting that
you done it she's delighted she made you a cup of tea got a biscuit and and
she's keen to get you paid and she's going to tell all her friends about you
(05:45):
because she's told you that well that's a perfect opportunity to say,
look, I'm delighted that you're happy with the work that we've done.
We pride ourselves in doing a good job. We're trying to build our reputation.
We're trying to build our small business.
Would you mind, Mrs. Jones, taking two minutes to fill out or give us a Google
(06:07):
review? It would mean the world to us.
I can actually text you through or I can email you through the link.
And all you need to do is click on that. And ideally, hopefully
you will give us a five-star review and maybe just
write a sentence or two about how you
found us and and i imagine if you've done a
great job that she will very happily
(06:28):
write you a review and the time to ask
for the review is while she while the
the mrs jones is delighted and she's happy
and you know you've just done the job you've solved
her problem and she wants to she'll do
it there and then now don't leave it six months and then chase up
with people and see if they'll leave a review you know
(06:50):
their life was moved on from the sunny afternoon where
you you sorted out the guttering problem and forgot about it so you need to
strike while the iron is hot and and ask for that review I would also say after
every job and once the client has paid the invoice hopefully online through your CRM or what.
(07:13):
You then send an email or a text and say, look, I really appreciate the prompt
payment. Thank you for that.
Could I ask you to leave a Google review or click the link here and leave us a Google review?
It would really help with us building our business and our reputation.
And as a recent client, if you could do that, we'd be fantastic.
(07:33):
I would do that after every successful job. And you will, some will not do it at all.
Some will, some will do it in three months. and you don't know
who that review came from because it just appears and you've
got a five star review but i would focus on setting
a goal of okay we want 10 reviews a month
and and asking for the reviews you have to ask and
(07:54):
people in general will people are busy but
if you've done a good job you ask at the right time you
show gratitude you go above and beyond the
work that you've done or said you
would do and you've sent the invoice promptly you've sent photos before and
after photos of the job and you've been professional and you do all those things
(08:18):
you will start to get reviews so i'm coming up to two i think it was about 290 google reviews at the.
At recording of this podcast so my target
is 300 and i know for a
fact that when people type in gutter clean in belfast or
gutter repair belfast that when our listing
(08:39):
comes up and people see those reviews that
that it's a great social proof because people see that they'll start reading
them and they will say well this this sounds good this looks good these reviews
are good i'm keen to go with with these guys so google reviews are huge and
i would advise you to really push getting them If you don't have any,
(09:02):
if you have some, let's build it up.
Let's push to 20, then 50, then 100, 150.
Let's set those markers, those goals, and try and increase them.
I'll talk next just on Google reviews then. So you get a good review,
what do you do? Well, you immediately reply.
And I believe I've heard that Google like that when you reply,
and it must be their algorithms or what, but if you get a reply saying,
(09:26):
oh, such and such was great, done a great job and tidied up
and really efficient and professional and reasonably priced
all this well then thank the person for that they've
taken the time to give you the review click the five stars give you a positive
review and the least you can do is thank them for it people will read the reviews
but potential clients will also read the responses and what you write and well
(09:50):
worded response again gives a.
That trustworthiness to your company and would advise
you to do that so that's for a positive review so
say you have negative review which
will happen i think i have one one star review which i can't even see where
the customer we didn't service the customer so i don't know i don't know why
(10:14):
that happened or who left it but it's a one star negative review on that one
for example where it was more just,
oh, they didn't respond, something like that.
But I very nicely just wrote, thank you for leaving us feedback.
I couldn't find you on the system, but if you would like to get in touch with
us on this telephone number or this email address, we will happily call out
(10:37):
and have a look at your job or something like that.
So how you respond is very important.
I do read sometimes responses to reviews where they are very,
a lot of anger in them, but possibly because the client has left Google review
without approaching the company to say,
you know, there was a problem with their job or they weren't happy with something.
(11:01):
And instead of doing that they've bypassed the company and just went straight
to Google to leave a bad review and in that case that could be very frustrating
for a company and would be.
And saying that I think the response is I think you have to take it on the chin
that you've got a one-star review and people are most of the time probably unlikely
(11:22):
to remove that or change that,
unless you do a good response and
that I would again say look I thank you
for the feedback back but and we're very
sorry to hear that there's been an issue with the work
we haven't been notified of this
so if you could get in touch with us and
(11:43):
let us know what we can do to put this right they may well not get in touch
with you they may well leave the one star review but if you can do a response
to that bad review the next client potential client who reads it will say well
well, actually, something's went wrong here.
But the way that they've responded, they've shown integrity,
(12:03):
they've shown professionalism, they haven't started slating the person or calling
them out all over Google.
I believe that's the best out of a bad situation. So if it's a good review,
respond. If it's a bad review, respond.
But respond in a way that...
Isn't smart or isn't filled with anger or
(12:26):
unprofessional keep it professional you
know it is only google reviews after all they are
important but let's respond to them
and then let's get rid of that one star as the
most recent review by quickly getting
a lot of better better reviews and
if someone gives you a bad review and you know you've done
(12:46):
something wrong you didn't do the job right i would just
say hold your hands up and say look we apologize on
this occasion that we didn't meet your expectations i would
love to put it right now and please get in touch and something like that so
you have to turn bad into good at times but yeah let's let's go with the google
reviews facebook reviews are another one i don't think they're as important
(13:09):
but yes if someone will leave you a facebook review it's better having that
than having none on Instagram,
no, sorry, I don't think there is any on Instagram, things like Nextdoor or other platforms,
where people are leaving reviews and recommendations.
But I think it comes down to, in the end, how you do your job, do it right, do it well,
(13:30):
work like the client is looking over your shoulder constantly,
don't take shortcuts, take pride in your work and do it the best of your ability.
And you will grow in confidence, You'll grow in confidence for asking people
to leave your review, respond well to them, and rinse and repeat,
and keep going with it. Like everything, it's consistency.
(13:52):
The nearly 300 reviews that I have have been over a number of years,
and I know you could get them quicker by pushing them quicker and asking for more reviews.
But, you know, if you don't have any, then 10 is great.
10 is great, 20 is great, and 20 is probably more than most people have.
Have and keep building and once you get to 30 and 40
(14:14):
and 50 you just keep building them keep consistent with it
it'll be like everything in this business you
will reap what you sow and google reviews
and reviews in general are just that that next
step remember people will probably tell five people
about you if you're great if you're bad
(14:35):
and do a bad job they're going to tell 50 they'll tell absolutely everyone
so it's important to do a good job and when you do to
ask for those reviews and they will really stand by
you as you go on so that's all for today i
hope that's helpful regarding google reviews get out there and get asking people
(14:56):
at times you do a good turn for them they will definitely do a good turn for
you thanks again for listening and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already.
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