On an almost monthly basis I refer current and potential clients to this blog post from a few years back about asking for reviews. We all know that reviews are an important part of your business. You want those gold stars next to your business on Google! You want people to sing your praises so that other awesome clients will find you! But, how do you go about asking for a review? It can feel awkward to reach out to someone and ask them for a review, so here’s 5 things I recommend:
- Ask at the end of a Project – Did you just complete a big piece of work together and they’re happy? Now’s a great time to ask! “Hey would you mind writing a review or testimonial for me?” Make sure to include links to where you’d like them to review (and give them options, we all know I’ll never write a review for you on Facebook!)
- When They Say Something You Want to Frame – If your client responds to a project with a really nice note about it – ask them if you can use it as a testimonial – or ask if they’d mind posting that on a review site for you. That’s often how I handle review requests – when they’ve already said something!
- At a Specific Interval in Your Work Together – I have one client where we setup a review system to email new patients about a month after their first visit. We created an automated email that goes out asking how it went – if they like it, we ask for a review. If it didn’t go well, we send them to a survey monkey survey to find out what went wrong. You may find that for ongoing clients specific intervals are a good timeline for requesting reviews.
- In Your Newsletter – If the majority of people who subscribe to your newsletter are clients (current or past) then adding a review request to your newsletter is a great way to ask. Just a little box near the bottom of the newsletter may be all it takes to remind folks they should say nice things about you.
- Annually – You might want to setup a system so that at the end of the year you reach out to your clients from the past year and ask for reviews. Or maybe in the summer when business can be a little more quiet for some folks. Find a time of year when business is quiet for you and reach out and ask!
What other intervals do you find are the right time to request reviews and testimonials from clients?
As a service provider my job is to make my clients happy and to not stress them out or overwhelm them. As a business owner, my biggest pet peeve are service providers who waste my time and make unnecessary busy work for me.
I had a massage the other day (#winning) and her payment app gave me an option to leave a tip – which is new. She’s always been a non-tipping massage therapist – so I asked if I could tip her. She said no – and that it’s part of the app and she asked how to remove it but they aren’t having it. So we started talking about it – and I really liked her reasoning for not having tipping.