Why people don't believe your MSP's reviews

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Welcome to Episode 313 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…

• Why people don’t believe your MSP’s reviews: People trust what other people say about you more than what you say about yourself. But if all your reviews sound the same they lose their power.
• Why your technicians won’t sell (even to help the client): One of the most frustrating things for MSPs is when your technicians won’t recommend a service you offer when talking to clients, for fear of appearing salesy. Here’s what to do…
• How ordinary business owners feel about AI: Let’s talk about AI attitudes of the people that MSPs want to reach. My special guest today is an expert in AI and he’s going to tell you how ordinary business owners and managers feel about it.
• The Marketing Minute: Don’t miss these tips to maximise your hard work in generating new leads.

Why people don’t believe your MSP’s reviews

People are so skeptical these days and when they’re looking at your MSP’s reviews, if they see certain words and phrases they might not believe the reviews are true. I know this sounds crazy because it’s not like you’re selling a product on Amazon and paying for fake reviews, but the reality is not all social proof is equal. You’ve got to make sure that people say the right things about your MSP. Let’s explore how to do that, how to collect social proof that always works, and the best way to guide people on what to say without your reviews ever seeming fake.

Social proof is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolkit. People trust what other people say about you more than what you say about yourself. But here’s the catch, if your reviews all sound the same, they lose their power. Think about it, how many times have you seen a review that says great service or would recommend or very professional, and that’s all it says? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with those comments, but when every review looks like that, they stop feeling real.

“Samey” kills sales and it’s the same as social proof, because these sound like copy and paste praise and prospects just ignore them.

That’s what I mean by cliches in social proof. It’s those generic lines that don’t give your potential future clients any real reason to trust you. So what works better? Detailed, story-driven reviews. And I’m going to give you an example. Instead of great IT support five stars, you want something more like, Our server went down late on a Friday afternoon. We thought the whole weekend would be lost, but within 30 minutes the IT team had us back online and they even followed up on Monday morning to make sure everything was stable. That level of care is why we’ll never use anyone else. Do you see the difference between those two reviews?

The second review tells a story. It shows the problem, it shows what you did to save your client and the end result, and that’s what makes it believable and therefore powerful. So how do you actually get this kind of social proof? Well, the trick is to guide your clients. Don’t just say to them, please, can you leave us a review. Instead ask them specific questions and I’m going to give you a few examples that you can use:

Number 1: What was going on in your business before you came to us?

Number 2: What made you decide to reach out to us instead of someone else?

Number 3: Can you tell me about a specific problem that we’ve solved for you?

Number 4: How did that make a...