Written by Zach Hansen
Earning five-star reviews online is a critical component when it comes to running a successful business. These days, most customers refer to online reviews when determining whether or not they want to hire someone. Because of this, five-star reviews can bolster your business, and lack thereof can be detrimental. But earning five-star reviews consistently is often easier said than done. Here, we will go over some top tips for earning five-star reviews.
Always Be Professional
Professionalism in the face of all circumstances, at all times, is essential if you want to earn good reviews. It won’t pay off to only be a professional part of the time. Good reviews require a commitment to consistent and never faltering professionalism. Being professional will not only help you avoid negative reviews to begin with, but it’s also critical if you do receive negative feedback. Responding to upset or angry clients by being rude and unprofessional is a company death sentence. And it isn’t only you who needs to remain professional, it’s everyone who is associated with your business. Each person who works for, or with, you and your company have the power to affect reviews, both positively and negatively. Always acting professionally can help to secure your five-star reviews.
Stick To Promised Timelines
Think about what components of the way you conduct your business are most important to your customers when trying to secure five-star reviews. Timeliness tends to be very important to clients, who don’t want to be put out and inconvenienced for any longer than they need or expect. Providing your customers with an accurate timeline for a project, and then sticking to that timeline, is a great way to ensure they remain happy. But breaking timelines, particularly by a large amount, is guaranteed to make them unhappy.
Make Sure You Understand the Project
Listening is critical when running a successful contracting business. If you don’t listen to your customers and fully understand what they want out of a project, you’re going to run into some issues. A good way to ensure that you understood exactly what a customer wants is to always repeat back the details of the project and go over them with your client. This will help make sure you don’t make any unnecessary mistakes, and will also show your customer you were attentive and listened to their desires.
Turn a Negative Review into a Positive One
Oftentimes, you won’t know a client was unhappy until you get hit with a negative review online. This can be frustrating, but make sure you stay calm and professional and then work on turning the review around. Many times, the client just wants to feel heard and have the problem corrected. Often, fixing the issue is very simple. In fact, if you master the art of turning a negative experience around, you can actually gain customers for life. In many cases, once you have resolved the issue, you may be able to ask your client to change their review if they don’t do it of their own accord.
Practice Proactive Customer Service.
Reactive customer service is a thing of the past, and it won’t help you get five-star reviews. If you want to get the best ratings from your clients, proactive customer service is the approach to take. This involves nipping small issues and questions in the bud before they become a problem, or before a customer gets irritated at having to reach out just to get a question answered. Improvements in technology have made proactive customer service much easier to practice. You will be able to solve problems before they arise, which will prevent clients from feeling irritated and their concerns from going unanswered until it’s too late.
Ask For the Review
There’s nothing more annoying than nailing a job and knowing your customer was satisfied, only to receive no review at all when it’s all said and done. Unfortunately, customers often tend to leave reviews of their own accord only when they’re motivated by a bad experience. The best way to make sure you get a good review for a job well done is just to ask. Of course, do so politely and professionally, but if the client was satisfied they will usually be more than happy to leave you a glowing review.
Five-star reviews can make or break your business. You need them to run your company successfully. Fortunately, if you follow some simple steps and always conduct your business with professionalism, it’s definitely possible to receive plenty of five-star reviews for all your hard work.