A Customer Review Ninja Tells How its Done
Mike Blumenthal’s blog has a great article, Asking For Reviews – UMoveFree Finds The Groove, describing UMoveFree Nick Barber’s approach to building reviews online. The full article is recommended reading, but here are a couple main takeaways:
- “We have changed the culture so that everyone is aware this is a major goal for the company. When we encounter an extremely happy customer (which happens often if you’re running a good business) we simply take the time to point that customer in the right direction.”
- “Picking sites that are easy to post a review on is the best strategy. If it takes 10 steps and a double email confirmation the customer is likely to give up. We’ve had the best success with Google Local, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, JudysBook, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, and InsiderPages.
- “Every employee has to be aware of the project and empowered to get involved; not just the marketing and management departments who rarely interact with customers on the ground. For instance, if the receptionist has a chance phone call with an overly appreciative customer their immediate response should be “we really appreciate your positive comments…would you mind if I send you an email with a link to our XXXX business review profile…it would mean a lot to us if you take just a moment to share those thoughts with other potential customers”.
- Do you incent clients in any way to provide reviews? No. We decided this could potentially destroy our credibility. The last thing you want is a customer you thought was happy that turned out to be not so happy posting a comment like “don’t believe any of these positive reviews, this company offered me a bribe to post a positive comment on this site”.
Check out the full article for more…
