Getting Reviews – How soon can I expect results?

The best way to gather reviews is slow and steady. You do not want a large number of reviews pouring in all within a short time.

Building your online reputation is a long term play. You want more than your competitors, but not enough to make Google suspicious. Every industry has a natural review rate and you don’t want to exceed that. That said, very few customers will make the effort to give you an online review. You will have to be proactive and keep asking...

Tips and Best Practice:

1. The most valuable function of TrustBuilder is catching unhappy customers that might leave you a reputation damaging negative online review. Our system allows you find and fix your service quality issues without damaging your online reputation. Fixing service quality problems is the best insurance against getting a bad review (next to TrustBuilder!).
2. Getting reviews is a numbers game. The more customers you have, more times you ask them, the more likely you are to get a review.
3. Depending on your business type and relationship you have with your customers, expect about 10% to 30% of your customers to leave feedback, and about 1% to leave an online review.
   
   Remember that approximately 80% of your customers have never left a review, anywhere, or do so very rarely, and have no interest in leaving you or anyone else a review. And most people find posting an online review very difficult and frustrating. Some websites make leaving a review a challenge: they require a user account and some (i.e. Yelp) will not display a review from someone that hasn’t already left a minimum number of reviews. To get more reviews you need to show your customers just how easy it is to post a review with TrustBuilder. And of the customers that do leave reviews, they may have their own preference where they will leave a review. Make it easy for them!
4. Asking for a review at Yelp is often a waste of time... Yelp filters their reviews and unless your customer is a frequent Yelp user their review won't be displayed. Yelp only shows reviews from those people that have left at least 10 reviews. You can quickly find out which review sites your customers prefer by just asking them if they have ever posted a review and which website they prefer.
5. People like choice, but not too much... Limit your review site options to just 2 or 3. Google, Facebook and one other where you already have reviews. Once you get some fresh reviews on those websites you can change the suggested review sites in an effort to spread your reviews across the web.
6. There is a strong relationship between Net Promoter Scale (NPS) and the number of reviews posted. Very happy customers (your Promoters) are more willing to speak out about you! NPS score is the best predictor of business success. Work on raising your NPS number and customer satisfaction will raise, and the number of positive reviews will jump.
7. Business clients are more likely to post reviews for you than than individual customers. I speculate that business people understand the need for testimonials better than individuals and if pleased with your service they are more willing to post a review.
8. Our system only sends two feedback requests automatically. If people do not respond on the second request the response rate usually does not improve with further requests. You can do a manual resend to your clients but is best to wait about 30-60 days before resending a request to anyone that didn’t reply to an earlier message.
9. Email open rates average about 35% to 50%. That indicates that a large percentage of your customers never even open your email. These customers may be more willing to respond to a Text Message or personal, face-to-face request. Text Message open rates are close to 99%. An 'unopened email' report can allow you to resend as a Text Message or speak to those customers in person.

Remember the best approach to building your online reputation is slow and steady. Don't pester your customers or abuse the privilege of communicating to them.