The MONDAY MINUTE: On track to double, despite COVID!

Massage and acupuncture therapy spas operate with customers in very close proximity. But even with the mandatory/voluntary stay at home coronavirus brought us, Live Oak Health in Oak Creek Wisconsin is on track to double their business in 2020.

Did they use Google Ad-Words, SEO, magazine ads? Nope. They simply focused on their digital reputation. They already had a great reputation after 8 years but this year decided to be intentional and take an active role in their digital reputation.

Anyone can do it!

The dirty little secret is that anyone can do it, but intentional and active are the key words here. When things got really ugly with COVID-19 they had a realization: Many of their customers may not come back, no matter what safety measures Live Oak took. So they would have to focus on getting new customers. They signed up with MOZA Digital to work on reputation, and focused on getting good Google reviews from their existing customers. As of this August, they were receiving more than 5 times the reviews they were before and overwhelmingly their new customers tell them that they came to Live Oak because of Google. While they did use MOZA to make things easier and faster, it can still be done on your own. Either way, it comes down to a few simple fundamentals.

Ask, don't blind-side

This may be a crazy idea but just ask your customers for a review? It doesn't have to be a big deal, but just ask them:

"Hey Stan, I really appreciate your business and wondered if I could ask a favor? We're working on building up our digital reputation. Would you mind helping us out and giving us a Google review?"

Another part of the dirty little secret is that most customers would be happy to give a good review, but they were never asked. This is effective! Yes I know you're busy and don't have the time to talk to every customer. How about 50 per day? 30? 10? Even 10 a day gives you over 200 per month if you take weekends off right? There are a hundred different variants for when, how, who, etc. but be intentional about it!

Send them an invite (and text it!!!)

I know I said that "most customers would be happy to give a good review..." so why would you need to send them anything? Because life gets in the way of good intentions. They mean to write you a good review but they had a flat tire that day. And the dog got sick on the new rug. And your son's pinewood derby is tonight and... So after "Stan" agrees that he would love to rate you on Google, send him a prompt with your Google review link (easy to get from Google My Business).

"Stan, thanks so much for helping us out with our digital reputation. Here is the link to our Google review site:

https://g.page/mozadigital/review?gm"

But how do you send the invite? Sending an email is better than nothing, but emails have to get through spam & rules filters, plus not get buried under tons of other emails. SMS or text messages on the other hand have a near 100% open rate compared to email's 20% average. Remember, you want them to actually see your invite and then act on it. This is why our system uses text messaging to send out requests on behalf of our customers. If you don't use MOZA and you don't want to use your phone to text out the messages, email is definitely better than not sending anything...

Pay attention here: Do not just send out an invite without talking to the customer first. That is called spam and will not get you the results you want. The whole point is to get good reviews, not have them ignored or worse, get bad reviews.

Don't ignore the bad

You may end up with some bad reviews. While it can take over ten 5-star reviews to offset a 1-star review depending on how may reviews you have, don't ignore it. Respond to it as though a mediator is watching to see how you handle it. Do not get into a flame-war over who's right if it escalates, but try to keep the tone that you are genuinely glad they brought this to your attention so that you can address it.

"Stan I am genuinely sorry that this was a problem but glad you have brought it to my attention. If there is any way I can talk with you in person to make sure I fully understand the situation, it would be greatly appreciated. We do want to avoid this type of problem in the future."

Pro tip: If you are more of a hot-head type (be honest!), let someone else respond for the business.

MOZA does provide a mechanism to help divert negative responses so that they go to the owner rather than appear online (Chris Voss, the FBI's former lead hostage negotiator would call this "draining the swamp"), but if anything does show up online, the idea is that you don't just ignore it.

A few last tips

Pay for reviews? Don't!!! If you're unsure, go talk to some of the guys who were instrumental in the Amazon fiasco and see how they like their new orange jump-suits. The FTC has been and will continue to crack down on companies who provide or facilitate fake reviews. And it's crazy to go that route when your own customers can and will build up your reviews!

Pay to remove reviews? If a review is fake, inappropriate, or promotes a competitor, you can flag it with Google to see if they will remove it. If anyone guarantees they can remove a bad Google review, they are either lying or work on Google's database and are likely to get fired...

There are dozens of review platforms out there but Google pays particular attention to, well..., Google. Their reviews are from users logged into a Google account. Their algorithms change all the time to determine what search results get to the top, but the quantity, freshness (how recent) and quality (actual reviews rather than just clicking 5-stars) play a very big role and that is exactly what helped put Live Oak Health on track to 2X sales, despite COVID!

Visit https://mozadigital.com for more information.