One of the best ways to get new customers is to get great reviews from ones you’ve already served. This makes it very important that you make getting those reviews from your customers as easy as possible for both you and them.
The more good reviews you get, the better chances you’ll have to attract new customers looking for your services and comparing to others.
In JobNimbus, you can automate the process of review acquisition using our Automation system in order to send review requests automatically when the job is completed, or at any point during or after the process.
Automating Review Acquisition with JobNimbus
Step 1: Decide Where You Want Your Reviews
The first thing you need to do to get started is determine what sites you want your customers to review you on. For local businesses, there are a ton of options out there to choose from:
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Google Local
- Angie’s List
- Etc.
All of these provide simple, straightforward review submission processes and usually your customers will already have an account (especially in the case of Facebook), which makes it even easier for your customers to submit their reviews.
There are a few factors you should consider when making your decision:
- What are your best lead sources?
- What has the potential of becoming a great lead source?
- Where is your audience? Where will you find more?
- Who has the simplest review process?
You should focus on the avenues that are providing you the best leads, as well as allocate some resources to try new avenues in case you find great new lead sources.
Step 2: Build Your Review Request Email
Now that you’ve chosen where you want your customers to submit their reviews, you can start building your message to them in JobNimbus.
1. Go to your name at the top right and choose “Settings”
2. Go to the Templates tab
3. Use the “Add Template” button at the top right to choose “Email”
4. Name this template “Review Request”.
5. Here you can create your email template. Try creating something like this:
Hi [ContactFirstName]!
We wanted to thank you for doing business with us! We’re always looking for ways to improve and would love to hear your feedback on how we did. Please take a few minutes to review us using the button below.
If you fill submit a review, we’ll send you a coupon for 20% off your next service with us as a token of our appreciation!
REVIEW US BUTTON
Thank you for your feedback and please let us know if we can assist you with anything further!
SIGNATURE
Tip: You can upload images, including a review button, and link it directly to the new review page to make it ultra-easy for your users to submit their reviews.
7. Be sure to add the link to the review page either as a clickable link in the email or you can add a link to a button graphic as well.
8. Then click “Save”
With this, your template is ready to go, but remember: you can always change this template going forward to make it better. Try testing the wording, color, the review site, and more to get more engagement from your customers.
Step 3: Create Automation Rule
Having the template set up, you’re ready to set up the automation rule. This will be slightly different for everyone, but we’ll try going through a normal setup. Let’s assume you’re running things from the Contact (Jobs disabled) and the last status in your workflow is “Paid & Closed”.
1. Head to the Automation tab in your settings.
2. Click the Add Rule button at the top right.3. Name this rule “Review Request”
4. For the initial setup, choose “When a CONTACT is MODIFIED”
5. Click Add Condition and choose “If STATUS is equal to PAID & CLOSED” and save the condition. This will mean the automation will fire for all contacts that reach the Paid & Closed status, but you can add more conditions
6. Click Add Action and choose Send Notification.
7. Choose the “Review Request” email template and save.
8. Then save the rule.
You can try it out by creating a contact with your own email address (choose a different one than what you use to log into your JobNimbus account) and then put your test contact in to the “Paid & Closed” status (or whatever status you have set for this. The email should arrive
Step 4: Collect and Incentivize
Now that you have review request emails sending out automatically based on your process, you should start seeing reviews trickling in.
You’ll notice that not all of the contacts that receive this email will submit a review. In fact, a pretty small minority will probably follow through. That’s normal, so don’t take it personally, but definitely take the initiative to figure out how you can improve your success rate.
Try providing different incentives. You could offer a discount on future services, but sometimes this isn’t enticing enough, especially if the next time they will need your services could be a year in advance.
I recommend trying something more immediate, like a gift card to Amazon or Starbucks. Make it more than $5 so it really gets your customers wanting it. Think about how much a review is worth to you. If one 5-star review can get you 1 new customer, wouldn’t that be worth at least $25? How about $50? What about $100?
If you want new customers from positive reviews, put aside some cash to invest in getting those reviews from your previous customers. The more you incentivize, the more you invest in achieving your marketing goals.
Try It
Give this review process a try. Start small and make your way up as you gather data.
And don’t stop here. Now that you know how to set up this automation, what others can you come up with to further your marketing and sales goals?
Share your ideas in the comments!
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