The Power of Business Reviews

5-Star Bounce House Google Review

We all try to do a great job in our business, but it’s equally important to get your customers to leave reviews.   Reviews help potential customers understand the quality of service you offer and build trust before they even reach out.  

My company has been in business almost 10 years now, and we have never really pushed hard to get reviews, until recently.  Don’t get me wrong, we always try to provide service that is worthy of a 5-star Google Review, but we never put any effort into seeking those reviews. 

Considering we only had 100 reviews in 10 years, that means we are averaging 10 reviews per year.  We also average around 800 events each year, so 10 reviews per year is just not acceptable.  We could do much better.

My biggest concern about asking customers to leave reviews was that I was always worried about the customer leaving a bad review.  I didn’t want to provide an opportunity for the customer to leave a review talking about any bad experience they may have had.  We always try to provide excellent service, but sometimes things just go wrong.  Sometimes our drivers get a little behind schedule.  Sometimes a piece of equipment gets picked up late the night before and then goes back out the next morning a little dirtier than normal. 

But we always try our best to be very transparent with our customers and keep them in the loop of what’s going on.  If a driver is running late, we reach out and let the customer know.  If a unit just got picked up and isn’t cleaned yet, we give the customer the option to change out the unit for a different one, or we clean the dirty unit on site when we arrive.  The key is that the customer is always updated on what’s going on. 

I recently went to the Inflatable Operators Association (IOA) in Nashville, Tennessee. This was an amazing expo that offered a ton of valuable educational opportunities.  At this conference, I was able to attend an educational session by Dustin Lunde, who is the owner of BestLyfe Group.  He had an amazing presentation that talked about when your marketing is hurting your brand and bottom line.   What he talked about in his presentation really changed the way I was thinking about reviews.  He mentioned that there are so many companies that have 1000’s of 5-star reviews.  And that is definitely something I have noticed as well.  He talked about how customers actually want to see businesses with 1-star and 2-star reviews.  And how it’s a great opportunity for a business to address those poor reviews and really shed some light on what you are doing to fix the problem.

I don’t know about you, but when I personally read reviews online for a product or service, I don’t just look at the 5-star reviews, but I tend to filter through all of them to see the 1-star and 2-star reviews.  It’s a great way to see how a company responds and addresses problems within their organization.

Recently, my Party Rental company has adopted a new approach on business reviews. 

This is how we do it:

1.      After we set up an event, we go over the safety rules and have them sign the contract.

2.      We hand them a business card that has our company phone number and email address and tell them to reach out if they have any questions.

3.      On the back of the business card, it says: “Please leave us a 5-star review”, and it includes a QR code to take them directly to leave a Google Review.

4.      We have a box under the QR code that shows “Team Member Name”.  This is where our delivery driver writes their name down so the customer knows who setup their event.

5.      Note that we always ask for a 5-star review and leave the card with the customer when we set up the event.  This is important because the customer isn’t always around at the time we come back and pick everything up.

Driver Incentives to get reviews

Our drivers are all eligible for a $100 bonus at the end of the month.  Only one person will get this bonus.  Their bonus is based off of a point system. 

This is how it works:

1.      A driver gets a point if they set up an event or pick up an event, and that customer leaves a 5-star google review.

2.      The Driver could get another point if the customer mentions their name in the review.

3.      The Driver could get even another point if the customer includes a picture of their event in the review.

Whoever has the most points for the month gets a $100 bonus.

So far, this method has had GREAT results.  Within one week of launching this review/bonus opportunity, we already have 5 new, 5-star reviews.  This means we are already halfway to our yearly average.

In conclusion, I would definitely take a page out of Dustin Lunde’s book, and say don’t be afraid of the bad reviews, but embrace them.  Of course, we all should do whatever we can to earn a 5-star review, but sometimes things just happen, and your customer experiences poor service.  But be sure to respond to those bad reviews and let them know you are a real, caring person that is working on improving.

Best practices for responding to bad reviews:

1.      Stay calm and professional

2.      Acknowledge their feelings

3.      Take responsibility

4.      Don’t make excuses

5.      Offer to make it right

6.      Thank them for the feedback and ask them for the chance to earn back their trust

I want to close with this quote: “Effort is never wasted, even when it leads to disappointment. It builds strength, character, and resilience.”