 Do you want more product reviews? We have eight ways to make that happen today on The Journey. If you want to get people interested in your products and attract more customers, there's something you got to learn to do and that's generate reviews. And the reason why, in today's world, 91% of people go online and they read reviews about businesses like yours before they make a buying decision. All right, so number one, highlighting current product reviews. If you appreciate your customers leaving you some reviews, make sure you just take a little snippet of what they said, highlighted on some of your social channels or on your website and give that person credit. That lets other people know that, hey, you really do care about what these people are doing and taking the time out to tell you what they think about your products. Yeah, I love that one. I'm just like scrolling on Facebook or Instagram and I see a business posting about a review they received on Yelp from a happy customer. Also on the website, that's a great place. A lot of times websites, they just act as a billboard to say exactly what the business wants you to think, whereas if you're throwing testimonials on there, reviews from Yelp and Google, now your website, transform into word of mouth. Unbiased opinions. All right, so number two, you wanna make it easy for your customers to leave reviews. Now this can depend on your business. Sometimes Google is easier than Yelp, but it's all about what your consumers enjoy. For instance, say you had a good interaction with one of your clients and you are a massage therapist. Well, you can, after they're nice and relaxed and they enjoy what you just did for them, you say, hey, we appreciate you being a loyal customer. We would love your feedback because it's through loyal customers like you that allows us to continue to serve the community because everyone knows how important these reviews are. Which leads in nicely to number three, asking your customers to leave reviews. And I get asked about this all the time in my seminars because I know business owners are a little, I guess nervous, right? Because they're like, oh, I don't want to solicit them, which don't, that's unethical. Or maybe they're just a little insecure about what are my customers gonna say? I'm nervous to ask, but have confidence in some great ways to do it that are super effective is get your team on board with this for sure. I know I went zip lining last year and Costa Rica was super rad. And right afterwards, I'm like, just totally high off the experience of zip lining and they ask how it went and I'm just glowing and I can't even know, we really get a lot of our business from Yelp. So we love your feedback there. Other ways that have been pretty effective, email. So email follow up, maybe with the receipt that you send them. And that encourages them to leave a review. I've also seen businesses send postcards to do it as well. Oh, and then even just on the door of your business or the window. Yeah, you've seen it when you go in to grab a coffee. When we grabbed one this morning at that little local spot in Seattle, it was like right there, our customers love us on Yelp. And it's really important as the business owner, just like Emma was saying, when she was zip lining and she enjoyed the services at the end of that service, that is the perfect time to ask your customer for that feedback. And number four, which really leads into this perfectly great segues, follow up with your customers, right? Because you know, it is after you go somewhere and get your hair done or get a massage, even if someone does ask about your experience. And it was awesome. When you leave that business, you got a million other things you're doing. It's pretty easy to forget, like, oh, I should go and leave a review somewhere, right? So it's okay for you as the business to go ahead and just follow up a little gentle nudge. And I would strongly encourage when you follow up to include a link to the platform you want them to go to. Oh, that's definitely good. Make it easy, one click away. They're already online if they're checking their email or scrolling through your Facebook posts. So one click away, boom, they're on your review site, just making it that much easier for them to just share how happy and stoked they are about your business. So number five, you can offer incentives and rewards for customers who leave reviews. And be careful about that though. And I would definitely make sure as a business that you're up to date on the guidelines of whatever platform you're trying to get more reviews on. Yeah, those platforms, they change those guidelines from time to time. So it's really important to make sure you consult those. Yeah, whether that's Yelp or Google, but some ways that I've seen businesses leverage this, the idea of how can we incentivize our customers without being unethical, we're not paying for reviews, but do some creative things. Like, if you leave a review, you get to enter into a contest or maybe you receive a discount, right? So these are some ways they're creative, they're fun. And again, you're not buying that review from that customer. All right, that leads us to number six, responding to bad reviews. Earlier, we mentioned the importance of responding to reviews and responding publicly, but I wanna hone in here specifically on that negative review, which at some point every business gets a bad review. A human, fallible. Yeah, and especially if you're out there trying to generate more reviews, even more likely that you're gonna get a bad one in the mix, but do not ignore the review. Please, it will actually hurt you more to ignore it, because remember, majority of people are reading reviews. So what you wanna do is neutralize that. And oftentimes it's just really a great opportunity for you to show how great your customer service is, right? I like that. I remember a former coworker, he was saying, you know, I like when we have problems, that you would think, why do we wanna have problems? It was a service-based business. But when you have a problem, that's the opportunity to really show your customer how well your service and the value that your service brings. Totally, which is again, why you wanna respond publicly. And if you wanna know more about this, we did do a video on this. Just click over here. And number seven, engage with good reviews. Now, a lot of business owners think, oh, it's a five-star, it's good. I don't need to say anything. It says it's a five-star, right? Yes, but remember as we said earlier, you responding to reviews, no matter good or bad, is another extension of your customer service. Remember, it's all about the time, right? I heard a saying, I'm free with my love, but not with my time. Because once you spend your time, it's gone forever. Love, I can always get more of that. You have to think about that. People take their time out of their busy schedule to leave you some kind of feedback, whether good or bad. So for you as the business owner, to take the time to leave a conscious thought of what you think about what they said, it shows that you do care. You respect their time. All right, and that leads us to the final one. Number eight, work with bloggers to review your products. Kind of like a brand ambassador, right? And it will help give them that incentive to potentially leave you more feedback. I know I got sent some cool socks from a brand, that's like a skate brand in Southern California. And it was actually really fun because they had cool patterns and stuff. And I got like a gentle nudge like, hey, maybe take a picture with all these free socks we sent you, but it was in a cool way. And I went out with a skateboard and like did a couple of shoots with my friend who's a photographer. And then I simply posted on my Instagram and tagged them. And sure enough, like we started a conversation. Next thing you know, I'm reviewing their product and giving them a testimonial. So I like that the bloggers, the brand ambassadors, there's a ton of fun ways to do that. And again, by sending them your product or maybe even before your product is on the market. Like this one time Z-Flex skateboard, they were getting ready to launch this new cruiser board. So we're in Venice, they brought a few boards out. They had a skate for the day and just like document a skating. So they got some good footage and then we got to try it out and really give them our feedback firsthand. Like, yeah, you know, the board's all right or the board's awesome. And then it helped to lead that pathway to a review and incentive, because we had to keep the board. And it was before the product was out. So it was like good timing with it too. So get people stoked and think about who can help you to spread more word of mouth like a blogger. And just be careful, there are some FTC guidelines that you do have to follow. So just make sure that you are up to speed on those. So you just learn eight ways of getting more product reviews. Be sure to like and comment and subscribe. Ring that bell so you're the first to know when the next video comes out. This is The Journey.