Welcome to number three. The final post of our three part series. In part one, we looked at confirmation. In part two we looked at the most common mistakes site owners make with the CTA, and how to avoid them. Here in part three, we’re going to look at social proof.
3. Not enough social proof
What is social proof
Social proof is the newest way of saying ‘customer feedback’. It’s the ratings and reviews your customers have published about their experiences with your business. These ratings and reviews have been uploaded to Google or other social sites.
What makes it important
For cleaning businesses, social proof is the key to survival, especially considering that 82% of consumers read online reviews before hiring local businesses.
Gone are the days when you could tell customers you are the best, and be believed. With social proof, people can know how good (or bad) a business truly is at delivering its services. Any claims a business makes about itself are backed up (or discredited) by real people and their experiences.
It’s no longer enough to have old school written testimonials on your website. Businesses have been faking these for years, and consumers have become wise. To be trusted you need social proof.
How to get social proof
Getting reviews and ratings is tough, in fact most cleaning businesses struggle with it. But it is possible to get hundreds or thousands of great 5-star customer reviews and ratings, even if you’re a smaller local company.
The secret is to be consistent with how you ask your customers for feedback. That means asking every single customer to leave you a review. You’ll need to make it as easy as possible for them to do by sending them both a text and an email with links to your review sites. It also helps to give them multiple options to choose from including: Google; Facebook; LinkedIn; and Yelp.
If after a few days they haven’t left you a review, follow up with them by dropping them a reminder by email or text. Again, make it easy to leave a review by including links to your review sites. Hopefully after this nudge they will leave a review. If they don’t, repeat this process.
I’ve seen great success with this strategy. In fact by reminding people to review, responses have increased by up to 100%.
Lastly, you’ll want to display the new reviews on your website. There are many site plugins that do this fantastically though pop–ups.
An easy option
We help our clients get more reviews by using a software that automates the process. Using a simple online dashboard, they fill in their customer details and then the system sends out a carefully selected series of emails, complete with review links. When a customer leaves a review, the emails stop.
Because the process is fully automated, it makes things far easier and saves heaps of admin time. Plus more reviews are pretty much guaranteed. Find out more here
Alternatively, the Digitool team are here to answer any questions you may have. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help.
Another easy option
An alternative is using a software called Nicejob. It’s easy to use and can completely automate how you get reviews from your customers. Find out more about Nicejob