Reviews can often make or break a business. Positive reviews are integral for developing a loyal customer base and relationships with clients, while negative reviews can easily deter future customers from using your services.
If you’re a new business owner, you might be wondering:
- Are Google reviews worth it?
- How hard is it to get Google reviews from my customers?
- How many Google reviews do I need to stand out from my competitors?
- How do I encourage my customers to leave a positive review?
Whether you’re new to the game or if you’ve had your business for decades, here is why getting Google reviews is so important.
Are Google Reviews Worth it?
To put it bluntly, yes – Google reviews are worth it.
Over the past few years, Google reviews have quickly overtaken all other online review sites. Google simply dominates the review landscape.
Not only this, but Google reviews are typically the first thing to pop up when you do a Google search for a business or service.
The minute potential new customers see how many reviews your business has, and the average star rating of those reviews, they will already have an immediate idea of whether they want to use your services or not.
After all, 80% of customers trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends and family.
From a customer viewpoint, Google reviews are a quick way to tell whether a business is reputable, trustworthy, worth the money, and provides top quality services. Let’s be real, nobody is going to spend hours researching each business.
Customers simply want an average rating (shown out of 5 stars) and a handful of recent reviews to get an idea of what they’re looking into.
More often than not, customers will trust reviews more than what a business is advertising. Whether you’re selling gaming devices or promoting a plumbing service, customers rely on reviews to get an idea of whether your business is worth spending their money on.
Positive Google Reviews
All businesses want positive reviews. Positive reviews are a great way to encourage new customers to use your services and encourage previous customers to return.
These reviews can be used as quotes on your business website, in social media posts, and can be a brilliant source of praise for employees and teams within the business.
Of course, positive Google reviews encourage customers to use your services. Within seconds, customers can get an idea of the quality of your service by how many stars other customers have given your business.
If they see four or five stars, they will immediately be interested.
The only issue is that you can’t always rely on customers to leave positive reviews on their own. Some customers just aren’t inclined to ever post a review.
Negative Google Reviews
Sometimes, 2-star or 3-star ratings can be genuinely helpful for a business if they are accompanied by a useful review. Businesses can learn to apologize, grow, and progress from negative reviews with constructive criticism.
However, this isn’t always achievable, because some customers won’t leave constructive criticism.
If customers have had a particularly bad experience with your services (or perhaps they’re just not great at leaving reviews), they have every right to leave a potentially damaging negative review.
In the same way potential new customers will be intrigued by positive reviews, they will immediately be discouraged when they see a low rating. To put it simply, negative reviews can be a cause for concern for a lot of potential new customers.
While customers have the freedom to give whatever feedback they like, the main problem with Google reviews is that the service doesn’t automatically send negative reviews back to the business.
Instead, negative reviews are immediately posted to Google, lowering the average star rating and not giving businesses a chance to amend any issues.
How To Consistently Get Positive Reviews
So, we know that positive reviews are undoubtedly worth it – but how do you consistently get positive Google reviews? After all, not all customers are going to feel inclined to leave a positive review on their own. This is where ReputationStacker comes in.
ReputationStacker is a service designed to get more Google reviews. It is an automated system that businesses use to invite customers (via email or text message) to leave a quick review of their experience.
All you have to do is enter your customer’s email address or phone number, and wait for the reviews to come in.
Customers then answer a single-question feedback survey that takes a second to complete. The system then directs them to your profile on your chosen review sites, wherein they can write a review.
In addition, it makes it easy to identify your unhappy customers so you can work with them to resolve any issues privately.
Conclusion
Getting Google reviews is essential for any business. Using a service like ReputationStacker is a great way to increase Google reviews, as well as boost the overall reputation of your business.