Customer Review Acquisition Strategy for Local Business Online

Customer reviews have been and still are the greatest assets for any online business owner. This is where your ingenuity, perseverance, and creativity all come into play, developing the online reputation.

Different strategies work for different business models online, you need to try, test and implement your own things to find out your niche client review strategy. Now we can’t pen down each and every possible scenario so what we have done is outlined a generic set of tips and tricks you should be doing and not doing to acquire reviews from your customers.

Well, let’s get started then!

What you should totally avoid to get customer reviews online?

• Don’t pay customers for reviews and don’t pay any third party to post reviews.
• Don’t play dummy customer games. Do not buy reviews from anyone whom you propose to pose as customers.
• Don’t review your own business or prompt your staff to review it.
• Don’t ask for reviews from a single IP address in your place of business. Remember the web is smarter than you.
• Don’t post negative reviews for your competitors or ask others to do on your behalf.
• Don’t create a sudden influx of reviews. This could be labelled as spam.
• Don’t focus on single platform or source of reviews. Diversify your client review acquisition strategy aligned with your marketing plan.
• Don’t unprofessionally respond to negative reviews. Always assure customers of your professionalism.
• Don't directly ask customers for reviews. Abide by the guidelines of the review platforms.
• Don’t avoid the guidelines of specific review platforms.
• Don’t ignore your personal website. Show honest reviews and testimonials of real time customers in a readable format.

What you should do to get customer reviews online?

• Deliver the best customer experience possible.
• Your customer service policies, staff training, quality control measures, and the culture of your business are all vitally important to earn positive reviews.
• Consider banners, business cards, brochures, receipts, menus, and flyers for communicating with your clients.
• Make maximum use of in-store apps, QR codes, interactive media displays & social media platforms to connect with your clients.
• Collect email addresses of customers and follow up them to review their experience with your business.
• Always mention how much a review would be appreciated while attempting an online phone support.
• You can also try sending rate my business newsletters with links to write an honest review about your business.
• Engineer a simple mechanism for customers to write a review for your business.
• Complex form filling processes would do more damage than help.
• Create a separate page on your website to acquire & showcase client reviews if possible.
• Employ social media platforms to ask reviews in an unoffendable way.
• Respond to every customer review immaterial of negative or positive one.

Above mentioned do’s and don’ts are applicable for all size of business online but not only limited to the above ones. Overtime you will find a combination of different strategies that will cater to the needs of your business and marketing plans.