Over half of the online consumers around the world check reviews before purchasing a product or service.
Yelp is among the foremost platforms for customer-generated reviews of businesses.
As a business owner or manager, you would be wary of the impact a single negative review can have on the prospects of your business. Therefore, the need of the hour is for you to be proactive and take preventive action that will enable you to keep the impact of any negative review to a minimum.
Luckily for you, there are some ways in which you can improve your Yelp reviews. Keep in mind that you cannot ask anyone to post a positive review on Yelp praising your products/services and business. This is why you have to be careful when treading this particular path. To help you out, here are 5 secret techniques you can apply for improving your Yelp reviews.
- Setup an automated email or text message campaign that is sent to your clients after they leave and urge them to leave a review. Setting up automated emails through Constant Contact, Get Response or MailChimp is easy as pie. Simply upload your list of customers (who have opted-in to receive advertising from you) then you can set it and forget it.
- Print business-sized cards with your Yelp info that you can give to clients before they who look like they’re had a good experience. Handing out thank you cards or reminder cards for their next appointment that also include your Yelp information is an easy way to increase the number of reviews you receive.
- Provide an amazing service & experience! No brainer. Sometimes you just need to go back to the basics. Give exceptional service and remind your customers that you’ll really appreciate a review. Remember: Asking for a good review is against Yelp’s terms of service.
- Use your phone/email list to create a custom audience on Facebook/Instagram. Create an ad that shows to ONLY these customers with a week after they’ve visited your business. Did you know that you can take your customer phone/email list and specifically advertise to them through Facebook and Instagram? You can also create a look-a-like audience of people similar to them. Look-a-like audiences are a great way to find new customers.
- Reply to ALL Yelp reviews – Good & Bad. Call bad reviewers if possible and try to convert them to happy ones. If you converted them to happy then ask them to update their Yelp review. Replying to good customers will encourage other customers to leave reviews. Remember to keep a level head with disgruntled customers. If you are reasonable and they reply in an unreasonable way then it’ll discredit their review. Remember to ask customers to update their review after you’ve spoken with them. Nothing looks better than a disgruntled customer who updated their review in a positive way.
Do you have any social media scheduling tips or questions? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
