Have you looked at any online reviews lately?
How about your own?
I was looking at plumbing reviews here locally. Most are bad reviews. And the good ones are very vague and say something like, “They do the job right the first time.” Which I’m skeptical that someone within the company wrote something like that.
And auto repair shops…yikes! There are some nasty reviews out there for these guys.
So many of these companies want advertising to help them attract new customers, but they’re failing to understand a few things. First, you have to be a good company. Second, you should get your bad reviews online taken care of first. They can sabotage any advertising you do. I know that a lot of bad reviews are just one bad experience out of many good ones, but the people who are satisfied or even happy with your service don’t go online and write a stellar review for you. They just don’t.
Make sure you don’t have a bad review hanging over your head. Then, get started on getting some good reviews up there for you. If you know you have a few happy customers, ask them if they’d write a review for you. Tell them, “We’re always looking for some new nice customers just like you, would you take a couple minutes to write an online review for us?”
Many people would. But you usually have to ask. If they’re familiar with a computer, you can just email them the link to your Google Places page to make it really easy for them. Here’s mine if you’d like to take a look…
A lot of times, advertising will help someone decide to maybe do business with you. But then, they’ll search online for your website or contact info. Make sure your online presence and bad reviews don’t cause them to do business with someone else. You could be minutes away from getting a call from a new customer (because of your great advertising), but they get uncomfortable and fearful of a bad experience when they see your sub-par online presence and a few bad reviews. And how many times is that happening every day or every week? You could be missing out on a lot of business.
If your bad reviews online are TRUE…fix your business. If your bad reviews are just a couple of people who can never be satisfied, then get those reviews off of the page.
And if you need help with this kind of stuff, just give me a holler!
Have a great day!
Duane Christensen
Non-Fat Advertising blog
