Torben Baumdick – Founder & CEO of BAUMDICK GmbH
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Most people prefer to buy from online stores with numerous good reviews. But while it’s relatively easy for customers on Amazon to rate a product, that’s not the case with many other online stores. If prospective customers look for reviews on Google, for instance, they may only find a single two-star review posted six months ago.
Good reviews are essential if you want to sell something online. But how do you get reviews, and how do you place them correctly? Here are five tips for online store owners who are looking to get good reviews on Google.
1. Change your mindset.
Most online store owners focus on making more sales. They look for new products to sell to their existing customers and handle marketing by launching advertising campaigns on social media or updating their website. Most store owners don’t think about removing friction points that might prevent potential new customers from ordering from them.
Online reviews can be a major friction point. If an online store doesn’t have a Google My Business account or has one with bad reviews, that’s a reason for many people not to order there. Take the first step in the right direction by becoming aware of this problem and working on fixing it.
2. Pick up the phone.
As a general rule, you might say that online store owners prefer to work in the background. That’s fine in principle; however, sometimes you have to pick up the phone. Direct customer contact is a good way to get reviews. In general, customers are positively surprised when asked for their feedback over the phone.
The door opener for such a call is quite simple. You call a customer, thank them for their last order and say something like, “I just wanted to check in and see how satisfied you were with your last order.” If the customer replies that they were satisfied, you respond with pleased surprise and, “Have you written us a review yet?” Most customers will say that they haven’t done it yet. At this point, you can simply refer to your business’s Google account and mention that it only takes a few seconds to write a review. You can easily send the customer the link to the account via SMS or email. On average, ten phone calls should result in four Google reviews and many happy customers.
3. Send out free articles.
It’s a good idea to send free articles to product testers. For this to work, of course, the target group has to be right. If you have a store for household appliances, try looking for a group on Facebook or an Instagram account that matches the articles you sell and ask people there if they would consider making themselves available as product testers. Have them first send you the test report by mail. If the result is good, you can then refer that person to your business’s Google account to leave a review.
4. Ask for ratings digitally.
Set up an automated process to generate Google reviews: Send an email to the customer seven days after a sale inquiring about their satisfaction and asking for feedback. There should be two links in the email, one for “satisfied” and one for “dissatisfied.” If the customer clicks on the link for “dissatisfied,” a form opens where they can enter the reasons why they feel that way. If they click “satisfied,” they will be redirected to the Google review site.
5. Place a card in the package with the product.
Another variant of this method involves placing a card in the package when you send out the product. The card is red on one side for dissatisfied and green on the other for satisfied. A QR code is placed on both sides. When the code on the red side is scanned, it leads to the already mentioned form; when the code on the green side is scanned, it leads again directly to the Google review site.
Conclusion
Google Reviews can have a major impact on the overall success of your business’s SEO. There are many ways for you to start collecting more Google Reviews, but I’ve provided some tips on how to get the most out of your review collection.
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