Google Plus Reviews

[Mike.NW]

Hi,

I am working with a brick and motor store and trying to figure out the best ways to obtain Google plus reviews. Personally speaking I think the best way to receive a review is at checkout. Checkout can take about 10-15 min and would be a great time to ask for a review. However, I run into a problem with logistics in obtaining the review and needed help deciding which option to choose or if another option existed?

Option:

1. Ask the customer to give a review on our companies Google account? However, this leads to multiple reviews from a single entity, which I would only assume is not a correct way to obtain reviews.

2. Ask the customer to sign in to their Google account. This can be a little invasive and I do not want to turn the customer away from a sale.

Am I missing another alternative? Any help would be great, thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael!

Glad you asked! You definitely do not want your customers using your company's Google account or using a review kiosk in your store as both will likely result in your listing falling under suspicion and your reviews being removed. Yikes - don't want that!

The customer must always use his or her own account to leave you a review and you must never post reviews on behalf of a customer, or you will be violating Google's own guidelines about this.

The best place to start in formulating your company's review acquisition strategy will be with a quick study of Google's review policies:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en&topic=1656880&ctx=topic&rd=1

I then highly recommend Phil Rozek's exhaustive post on review acquisition:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/04/the-complete-guide-to-google-pluslocal-reviews-and-especially-how-to-get-them/

And then go through all of the resources linked to at the end of his post.

Once you've gotten through all of that, you are going to know a TON about this area of marketing and should be creating your store's strategy from an extremely educated basis. Hope this helps!

[Mike.NW]

Hi Miriam,

Thank you for the response and links that helped a ton!

[TheFruitCompany]

Offer an incentive. A percentage off coupon, discount at register etc...  Give them a card with your promotion and page info to connect and review.  that way your CS doesn't have to make it awkward asking about it and they can read and decide if that percentage off is worth it.

Card Copy Example- "Show us your review on our Google+ page and receive 5% off your next purchase."

[Ron_McCabe]

Michael,

A technique we have used with success is to do a follow up call to see how things went for the customer. what is great about this is that you also find out about anyone who is unhappy so you can deal with any issues they may have. If you run into happy customers validate them and ask them if they would mind writing a quick review.  Find out what review sites they are comfortable with and send over the link. People are usually happy to do this if they are happy. overall customers feel lie your company cares and this enhances their overall experience.

If you are on word press there are several review and testimonial plug ins to keep this easier. optimally you would put in a review plug in that would link to external review sites as well as a testimonial plug in so that people who are not comfortable with external review sites.  The plug in should preferably do automatic schema mark up on testimonials so that these are properly indexed.

Ron

[TheZenAgency]

If you have a current database of clients emails we have found that a simple e-mail campaign asking for a review if the customer is satisfied is effective

[WhiteboardCreations]

Michael,

Another avenue you could consider is to create and print out a simple business card sized instruction note (cheap from VistaPrint). You keep these at your counter/front desk and when a customer is checking out, you can simply provide that to them and ask after they check out. We have worked with dentists and a party rental shop with 4 locations who had some decent success with this strategy.

_EDIT: You can also create the same card and offer an incentive on there for their next trip into the store or office, sort of what Jed was getting at above. _

You are merely asking them for a review and handing them a card with some simple instructions to follow at their leisure from the phone or computer. You also avoid any potential "red flags" which a large email blast could generate with lots of people simultaneously leaving reviews on a given day or week. Google sees this as "solicitation" in their terms for receiving reviews. Google wants you to EARN reviews, so stick with more natural approaches to this process and you'll see results and steer clear of any Google mishaps

Hope this was helpful!! - Patrick