#ReviewDosandDontsDiana HerzanFounder, PresidentThe Service Guide

Even though marketing has changed a lot over the years, the real reasons a customer will choose YOU are the same. Trust in your quality, confidence in their decision, and comfort in the risk they will take if they hire you are all the final reasons a customer chooses YOU.

You can affect this timeless reality in consumer behavior and ensure your future customers get what they need to move in your direction. Taking smart steps to make sure access to Reviews about your business is easy for consumers can make a transforming difference to both of you.

I invite you to take a look at some important Review Do’s and Don’ts that will help you determine how to get the best performance from enlisting Customer Reviews on your behalf in the right places, the right ways.

Diana Herzan The Service GuideFounder, President

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Thank you for taking time to learn about some important Review Do’s and Don’ts that will help you enable Customer Reviews to do their best work for you!

Table of Contents Page

About the author 3

First reality check 4

Review Do’s 7

Review Don’ts 22

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About The Author

Diana HerzanFounder and President, The Service Guide

Diana Herzan founded The Service Guide is 2004, a marketing and public relations company located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Diana, a long-time marketing enthusiast, has created the perfect marriage between marketing and journalism, a combination that has been instrumental in shaping the focus of The Service Guide over the past decade plus. One of Diana’s most significant contributions to her company is the development of The Service Guide’s Customer Reviews model. Local businesses that implement this model confirm how impactful it is to their business when they are trusted and transparent. They learn quickly how both these traits can easily transform their customers into giving them their YES.

Diana and her team are also known for their development of successful content campaigns that facilitate a local business’ participation in the search dialogues of their interested and inquiring customers. The campaigns focus on delivering value to the searchers, building trust in the businesses, which spawn relationships and return leads and new customers as a result.

Diana has also written a Consumer Column for Examiner.com since 2010. Her articles are also published on other news websites including wn.com; news360.com; and huffingtonpost.com. She has also contributed articles as a guest contributor to several industry publications and websites.

Follow Diana on Twitter (@theserviceguide), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/theserviceguide), and connect with her on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/theserviceguide) for additional helpful tips.

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The Internet has provided consumers with overwhelming opportunities to learn; and businesses with incredible possibilities to educate their customers.

The art of connecting the two is fascinating, exhilarating, and rewarding. That sums up my mission and my days work.

When the two “click,” the relationships that form, and the positive touchpoints that transpire will direct the future of a customer experience from that point forward.

First reality check:

The Internet has fundamentally changed the path customers take to conversion, as well as how they obtain the information they need to “get comfortable.”

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Today, your customer needs both education and confirmation of your quality to be propelled into purchasing. Customer Reviews play a very large role in this influencing process, in fact, they are the strongest influencer in this process, transforming your customers into giving you their YES.

Because of this reality, many Review Services have evolved trying to capitalize on this consumer behavior; each with their own individual twist. The truth is that YOU should very much be in on the capitalization of this consumer behavior, as well!

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Take a look through this short tutorial to learn some important Review Do’s and Don’ts that you really need to know as you explore your Review options. Hopefully, these insights will help you determine which path is best for you and why.

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94% of consumers will begin their hiring process with research.This means that 93% of those people will go to Google first to start their research!

DO acknowledge that:

Let’s start with the Do’s! There are 14 total!

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DO make sure they will find Reviews about your business on Google’s first page:

9 out of 10 researchers will look for Ratings and Reviews until they find an average of 12 to evaluate. If they don’t find enough about YOU, there is little chance you will hear from them.

More than 55% of those that click onto your Reviews from Google have the potential to convert quickly to your customers!

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This is actually not negotiable anymore for businesses who want leads to come to them, and to come to them qualified and excited

Help your website visitors that are there trying to learn about YOU be able to confirm your quality FAST and

EASILY! Of the two Review Service links you see, only The Service Guide’s link sends your visitors straight to

your Reviews. No need to sign up for anything to access them.

Definitely DO add clear links on your website to Reviews about your business!

Linking to your Reviews directly from your website is a critical step you will definitely want to make sure you DO! This is where your strongest potential customers are trying to learn about you.

Most website visitors will leave without any engagement with your company or your website. When you are lucky enough to draw visitors to your site, these are your strongest potential customers! You have the ability to dramatically increase their purchase or hiring conversion with a simple link to your Reviews! In fact, you can expect to convert 65% of inquiring visitors to your website if they have clicked onto your Reviews!

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Do try to understand what you have with Review Services whose revenue stream comes from ads on YOUR Reviews Page

Although this model is a sure-fire way for you to obtain Reviews on these services at no cost to you; in return, you need to accept that these Review Services will also publish ads about other companies, your competitors, on your Reviews Page, distracting people away from the real information they came for about YOU!

In some cases the no-cost to you scenario also reflects a parallel level of service available to you. Before you start directing your customers to Review you on these sites, DO, at least, try and find out how responsive a Review service will be to you should you discover a questionable Review on your business. Will you be able to speak to someone? Will they listen? Will they be supportive?

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By clicking on this image, visitors to this company’s website receive

ONE-CLICK access to their Reviews.

DO make sure that you are providing ONE-CLICK access to your Reviews!

Anything more than that, sadly, but truly, frustrates and annoys people. The expectation is for fast, easy, immediate information!

When you can “bring it” to those customers who are sincerely in the midst of a research process about your company or your services, you have the ability to, again, transform your customers’ YES, and ultimately your conversions!

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While you’re at it, DO include more links to your Reviews on estimates / bids you send to customers, as well as when you confirm sales appointments

Not too different than a great buffet of food, if you “put it out there in front of people,” and you make it easy to grab, trust me, the people you want to grab it, will!

Your Reviews are the best, strongest, most influential sales tool that you have. Adding ONE-CLICK access to them wherever you can add a link is smart. Each click has the potential to turn an interested customer-to-be into a purchasing customer that is.

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Do take the liberty to add a special link to your Reviews in your email signature, as well

This is simple to do and remains selling for you every time you send out an email. You never know when someone is close to a ready-to-buy stage in their buying journey. “Bring it” in your email signature and those that are curious will click onto your Reviews because they can!

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DO your best to keep your Reviews current and recent!

In this day of technology and fast, changing, up-to-date information, consumers don’t care much about information that is old. In fact, they expect to find more recent information, and they expect to find it quickly!

Current Reviews helps readers confirm you are still in business, doing business, and enables them to better compare apples to apples in real time!

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DO appreciate when you receive Reviews from your customers!

It is very nice of your customers when they take time to provide their feedback for you.

In a very large way, they are rallying for you and serving as an invaluable virtual sales force on your behalf.

Where you can, give time back and respond with a “thank you” or to any sort of negative Review you may end up receiving, as well.

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DO enlist a Review Service that offers and delivers support to you!

For the simple reason that every business is different, every business needs to be worked with and supported differently.

Some businesses find it easy to obtain Reviews. Others may run into obstacles. Make a concerted point to enlist a Review Service for you that wants to see you succeed and will assist you wherever you may need support.

Bottom line, a Review Service without Reviews cannot do its job for you. A professional Review Service understands you need to do your job and see it as theirs to help you succeed with their Service!

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DO consider the benefits of working with a Review Service that verifies their Reviews!As harsh as this sounds, there will always be people who try to buck a system. Because of a universal “anything goes” Review arena that has previously existed online, enough consumers AND businesses try to help themselves and hurt others by fabricating or falsifying Reviews.

The ones who suffer from this is everyone! Customers online have become hardened to this and are “on to” suspect Reviews. They are savvy to them and very good at spotting them. More and more, consumers are dismissing the validity of Reviews on sites that do not have any kind of verification system in place.

The best thing you can do for your business is to enlist a Reviews Service who painstakingly verifies their Reviews.

Verified Reviews protect you from the consequences of fake or false Reviews. They also allow consumers to make safer, better decisions when they, too, can rely on an integrity factor of the information they read in Reviews.

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DO enlist a Review Service that believes in transparency

Discovering the real interest in your Reviews will be a telling factor to you in evaluating the effectiveness of your Reviews Program.

Enlist a Reviews Service that provides you with data about the traffic and visitation to your Reviews. It’s interesting for you to learn, also, where your traffic is coming from.

You will discover there is a strong influence from your Reviews found on the first page of Google. There is another amazing impact from those who find your Reviews on your website.

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DO share Review information you receive with your whole team!Reviews totally help sell YOU, without a doubt. But, they also help with all kinds of great things internally with your team!

✓ Your team members will really love being mentioned positively in Reviews!

✓ Sharing this information serves as a great motivator to your whole team, as no one wants to be the only one who doesn’t receive accolades

✓ As great as you are, there could be some areas you can improve. Sharing Review information is a great tool to help your company realize and address these areas

✓ Some companies we work with tell us they have experienced “Review bonding” with their team. It truly takes a team to get the whole job done from start to finish. It’s invaluable to recognize the whole teams’ contributions to the big picture.

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DO make it easy for your customers to provide Reviews for you!

Your customers are all busy people and come with a myriad of communication preferences.

Most of your customers will be open and happy to providing their feedback for you, as long as you make it easy for them!

Make sure you are hiring a Review Service who allows your customer to provide their Review for you any way they want to.

Do make sure your customers can provide Reviews for you: > Online > By email > Over the phone > By fax > On paper > Through the mail

Some Review Services will provide you with assistance, as well, in obtaining Reviews if you need it.

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Ratings and Reviews represent consumers’ strongest decision-making criteria!

Confident customers will:✓ Hire you faster✓ Pay you more✓ Be likely to be more cooperative ✓ Be quicker to spread the good word

about you to others✓ Cost you less to acquire

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Now, let’s get into the Don’ts! (There are 6 total!) There are some things you should watch out for, as well as some that can help you achieve better success if you stick to these suggestions!

Don’t duplicate your Reviews across multiple Review SitesYou may have received some advice to ask your customers to put Reviews up for you on multiple Review sites with the thinking this will create better online presence for you. Or, you may be or have someone else actually duplicating Reviews you receive from one site to other sites.

Don’t do this, or stop doing it if you already are. You could be creating a black cloud around yourself and not realize it. Customers doing their due diligence online will search for an average of 12 Reviews on a business or product in order to establish their comfort zone. They want 12 different Reviews and will look for them. When they stumble across the same ones, they get annoyed and turned off.

Many consumers assume the business has manipulated these Reviews and prefer to look for someone else where doubts do not exist.

Your best bet is to ask your customers do a Review for you in

one place. If you can receive Reviews in more than one place, use a rotation system with your

customers!

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Don’t overpost your Reviews on Facebook

Everything in moderation holds true here for you, as well. Some businesses have been misguided into thinking they should be posting every Review they get on their Facebook page as part of their “public communication.”

Here’s why this is not a good idea. The truth is that consumers typically don’t go to Facebook to look for services. They will “fan” and “follow” you as long as your posts remain helpful, interesting, useful, educational, or entertaining to them. Too many Review posts quickly translates into a brag board that your Facebook fans will not see a lot of value in. Instead, choose a favorite or two each month to post on your Facebook page and include a link for interested or curious fans and friends to click onto more of your Reviews.

There are some Review services whose bill of goods include automated Review posting onto your business’s Facebook page. Although they certainly may not intend to be doing you a disservice with this feature, this feature is hurting you more than helping. Continue >>

You may discover that you will get better mileage from Facebook if your customers post something positive about having hired you on their Facebook pages. This kind of post gets more attention than over posting your Reviews on your own Facebook page.

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Don’t confuse Reviews with testimonials

As sad as this is, the reality is that the credibility that online testimonials used to have, (yup, we are referring to the ones proudly posted on company websites), is diminishing.

Everyone knows a business is only going to post good things. Too many business owners have created their own testimonials which sadly has played a role in the disintegration of credibility.

Often it is hard to determine old or new. Many testimonials are published and left up on a website for eternity.

Reviews that provide stronger credibility are ones verified through a third party Review Service. Review services that verify and automatically provide date information help legitimize your Reviews for your inquiring customers!

I say, the best compromise is to use them both where you can! Reviews, by far, hold a stronger weight for you, but it’s hard not to boast about your fun notes and letters, as well. My best advice is to keep it real! Don’t post fake testimonials!

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Seriously, there is no need to worry if you receive a negative Review. Although it may be hard not to take things personally, the reality is that every business will eventually receive their token negative Reviews.

You should listen, try to take something positive from them where you can. Sometimes responding to them can put a more complete spin on the information, but be cautious to do so with professionalism, not emotion.

Keep in perspective that consumers are savvy with their research process and know how to look for patterns. Even with a negative Review, if you have many others that are positive, consumers definitely see the positives a stand out difference. Some also recognize you may have worked for a hard-to-please customer. Another odd positive of receiving a negative Review is that in its own strange way, it legitimizes all of your Reviews which adds a dose of credibility to you. There is something about everything appearing absolutely perfect that actually gets people thinking...

The best things you can do if you receive a negative Review are:

✓ Address anything with the customer, if need be, offline and professionally✓ Make it a goal to go and get additional Reviews so that ultimately the

negative one goes further down the timeline✓ Address anything merit worthy with your team that may come out of a

negative Review for the sake of improvement✓ Realize that it is NOT the end of the world. Don’t focus on the Review as

ruining your business. Instead, focus on going to get more positive Reviews.

Unless, of course, this becomes a pattern for you!

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Don’t fabricate your own Reviews!!!!!!Don’t write fake Reviews about your competition, either!

Take note of all the exclamation points we added to this Don’t! It’s a biggy!

This is one of the fastest ways to alienate your customers and to blacklist yourself from some Review sites.

It’s also the fastest way to lose trust, which, by the way, takes a lot longer to build back than it did to write a fake Review!

Don’t hire people to write Reviews for you for the sake of gaining online presence if they never hired you. This is a form of fraud on both sides. You have likely come across freelance services who offer testimonials and Review Videos inexpensively, but the kicker is they don’t know you or have never hired you. So, what, again, would they write about? Think about it! Shame on them for trying to make money from being dishonest. Shame on you if you hire them! If you truly understand that customers’ choice to hire you will come first from trusting you, then allow real Review information about your business to do its real job! You will see, first-hand, that it is amazing!

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Don’t bribe customers to write Reviews for you!

Actually, there is no need to incent or reward them to, either!

Believe it or not, there is no need to pay for or reward for Reviews! Reviews have been a staple of our online conversations for long enough that your customers “get it.”

Keep in mind that not everyone is a “Reviewer.” But enough of your customers are. The good news is that you don’t need all of them to write Reviews, just some to help keep them current.

The Service Guide has been involved in the Review Universe since 2009 and see every day that Reviews flow into us without ever having been prodded, bribed, or incented. In fact, we receive Reviews in the mail daily where the customers use their own envelope and their own stamp.

We have had businesses try it both ways and inevitably, they discover Reviews for them come in on their own. Providing incentive didn’t produce any better results.

The truth is that those who are “Reviewers” will take the time for you because they want to. Your job is simply just to ask everyone and understand that when you ask, you will receive enough of what you need to be super successful.

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Thank you for your interest!

When you are ready to begin routinely transforming your ability to acquire new and higher quality customers, we’d like to be the ones you choose to help you! Give us a call today to explore your options and what the best ways are to put Customer Reviews to work for you. Start making a business-changing difference tomorrow!

Make it easier for customers to say “YES” to you! Acquire customers regularly who are:

✓ Confident in their choice to call on you!

✓ Excited about you!

✓ Ready to hire you!

✓ Eager to get in touch with you!

✓ Appreciative of your quality!

✓ Willing to pay you more for your services!

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See also: What kind of additional revenue can you realistically expect to gain when you work with The Service Guide?