1. Look at current reviews

For some businesses, good reviews come naturally and with minimal effort. For many of us, it takes a little work. The first step is to look at reviews you already have. Do customers love your business? Is there any negative reviews?

If you look at what customers are saying, you can and should resolve any old complaints, while using them to improve where you may be lacking

2. Have an online presence

You should make sure you’re available for reviews in more than one way. Some customers get turned off when you ask them for reviews on specific sites, because they either are too busy or don’t even have an online account.

Chances are most of your customers use some form of social network. A customer who doesn’t want to give a ‘Yelp’ review is more likely to casually post a positive experience on their Twitter or Instagram for their friends to see. If your business has an account on these sites, your customer’s friends will have a convenient place to see your business. Sites like Facebook and Google+ are great places for businesses to set up pages.

3. Ask customers for honest reviews

Here comes the part many business owners feel uncomfortable about: asking customers to review you online. See those businesses with top-notch Yelp pages and favorable reviews? Chances are some of those companies asked customers to review them. It’s perfectly fine to do this, in fact some businesses find it is the only way to get reviews. Just remember a couple things.

First, never ask for a “good” review. Just ask for a review. If you’ve satisfied your customer, then you will probably be fine. Asking for a positive review can come off as threatening to people, and an honest review will allow you to see how people view your business.

Second, ask for a review AFTER you’ve done business with a customer. If you ask any earlier, it can sour the customer’s experience. But remember that customers are more likely to follow through if you ask sooner rather than later.

4. Respond to bad reviews

Negative reviews can happen, it’s part of doing business. But you should always try to respond to negative reviews. Whether or not a customer honestly had a bad experience is where you should decide how to respond.

If a customer was dissatisfied for a good reason, thank them for the honesty and personally reach out to resolve the issue. Maybe offer them a discount on their next visit.

But just as businesses can be ‘bad’, so can customers. If your reviewer is one of these, address the complaint politely in a way that will not make you look bad to potential customers.

5. Don’t expect to have a perfect slate

This has to be one of the most important things to remember about online reviews. As you get more reviews, you can’t expect every last one to be positive. It’s a numbers game. The best you can realistically hope for is to get a good majority of great reviews.

And naturally, a business page with 200 five-star reviews just looks fishy. Consumers aren’t expecting to find businesses with absolutely flawless pages because it’s simply not realistic.

Pink Payroll is a San Diego payroll service. We aim to provide affordable, easy payroll to our clients throughout the 50 states. If you would like to learn more, visit our services page or request a free payroll quote.