Episode 16

3 Tips to Get More Reviews for Window Treatment & Awning Companies with Will Hanke

In This Episode

  • Why company reviews are important for social proof
  • How to ask for a company review in the customer’s living room
  • Automating the company review request process

Other Notes/Links:

Watch this training for more info on Google My Business and reviews

Read this post on Google optimization tips

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

Listen to other episodes

Video

Alright, hey everyone! Hope you are doing well and having a great day. My name is Will Hanke. I am the owner of Window Treatment Marketing Pros

I’m also the author of Triple Your Window Treatment And Awning Leads. If you don’t have a copy of this book makes sure that you visit our website wtmarketingpros.com/book and fill out the form and let me get one in the mail to you! 

If you are here watching this today, chances are you are a window treatment company owner or an awning company owner. I really want to thank you first of all for jumping on and listening to today’s tips. 

I also want to encourage you to take notes because there’s a lot of really good information about getting company reviews. Getting reviews from your clients is never easy. But having some sort of system in place that helps you get those reviews can really help you grow your business. 

Now, earlier today, I did a webinar on building and optimizing your Google My Business profile. And a big piece of that is all about getting service or company reviews. 

What Is Social Proof

In marketing, the use of social proof takes an important role in boosting your marketing efforts. An example of how social proof works is this: take for example a Facebook post. If you see a Facebook post with no comments on it, you’re less likely to leave a comment on your own. On the other hand, if you see another post with 30 comments on it, you’re more likely to leave a comment on that one. That’s what you call social proof

The same thing happens when it comes to reviews. Say for example there are three companies in front of you and one company has 55 star reviews, another one has three five star reviews, and one with no reviews. Even though all three of those companies could be equally fantastic in what they’re doing, most likely, you’re going to choose the one that has the 50 reviews, just because of that social proof. 

So considering customer psychology and how customer mindset usually works — how they kind of think through things, it’s very important that you have those service or company reviews — the positive ones of course, and that you have a process to get those reviews. 

Three Different Ways To Get Company Reviews For Social Proof 

#1. Ask For The Review At The Time Of Installation 

This is by far the best opportunity, you’re gonna have to get a five star review, right? You’re standing there in their living room, or on their back deck, looking at their awning, and saying ‘Isn’t it awesome?’ And they’re like, ‘yeah, this is so great…’ Why not take this chance to ask for your service review! Easy, you can go ‘Hey would you mind if I send you a text message real quick and leave us a review?’ This would be the best case scenario:  getting a low-star review while you’re standing there will probably be pretty low. The customer most likely won’t be leaving a one star review while you’re around. And if you upset them don’t even ask since they’re not going to put five stars anyway. But definitely, the best time to ask for a review is right at the time of your installation service. 

Now if you don’t have a mechanism in place where you can text them a link to leave you a review, I highly encourage you to check out our lead Boomerang system that has that functionality in it. It’s super easy to use. This sends them a link straight to your Google My Business profile. Once they click the link, it pops up with the five stars then just click the five stars. And they’re done! Super easy. If they want to leave some sort of comment they can but they don’t necessarily have to. So it’s a really cool system and an easy way to get that review.

Now another way to get a review in person, if you don’t have that kind of system in place, is printing a QR code on a business card. And engaging them in a conversation. What a lot of our clients do is they’ll say, ‘Hey, I see you have a phone there. Is that an iPhone or an Android?’ And you know, people love to talk about their phones. So it’s an awesome conversation starter. ‘Oh, I’ve got the iPhone 12 it’s the latest blah, blah, blah’. ‘Hey, that’s a pretty cool phone. If I send you a link, would you mind leaving us a review?’ 

You can also pull out your business card with the QR code. Just have your customer take a picture of it then once they do, you may ask them to leave a review while they’re at it. And that’s a pretty cool way to get it right there while you’re standing in front of them. 

The other nice thing about the QR code on the business card is that sometimes you have installers who are not super technical, and they don’t know how to send a link to somebody and do all that stuff. The QR code is super easy, right? They just hold it up, person takes a picture of it, and off they go. So that’s a nice little way to start getting those company reviews quickly. 

#2. Use A Follow Up System 

Now if you don’t have that luxury of asking your customer for review during installation, or have that QR code on your business card in place, number two way is to use some sort of a follow up system. So after you get back to the office, and you plug in their invoice, have some sort of system in place that emails them or texts them a link that asks for a review. 

Now the chances of you getting that positive review are tumbling the longer it goes from the time of installation to the time you send them that message. And for some customers, that’s okay. For some of our clients, they just email us a list of clients that they did installs for that week, (they email us every Friday afternoon). We plug them into an automated system that asks those clients for those customers for reviews, though their chances of getting them are a lot lower. But if that’s the way that you want to do it, it’s still great to have that system in place. It beats not getting any reviews, by far! 

So again, use a follow up system. We suggest you choose Boomerang that gets those leads and gets those reviews through the system. If they don’t leave a review after a couple days, we send them a second reminder. And if they do click on the link to leave a review, it pulls them out of that automation sequence so they don’t keep getting asked to leave your review when they already did. If you want to learn more about lead Boomerang, schedule a meeting with me. We offer a free 30 day trial. All of our clients use it and love that system!  

#3. Send A Real Letter In The Real Mail

A third tip to get that company review is to send a snail mail. We have clients that still do this. Though it takes a little bit longer to create, still, it’s a nice way and feels a little more personalized. You could create some sort of a formal letter that still sounds like it’s coming from the owners, something that sounds pretty authentic. Some people just prefer that old school style. You could even put a little letter in there and then maybe a second sheet that says How did we do? Let them fill that out, stick it in the mail back to you, fax it or scan it and email it to you. Whatever works to get that review. Yes, it’s not as great as tips #1 and #2 because you can’t publish those sorts of things online. You can’t log into that person’s Google account and leave that review. But it’s still a testimonial for your business. And there’s no reason you couldn’t put that on your website as an additional trust factor. 

So definitely think of those different ways to increase the amount of reviews that you’re getting. And you know, the great thing about reviews is it’s great social proof — people start leaving those reviews, it really fuels the top of your sales funnel and just gets more people raising their hand for potential work with you. 

Hey, if you don’t have a copy of my book, Triple Your Window Treatment and Awning Leads, make sure you get one by clicking wtmarketingpros.com/book. I’ve got a case of them sitting here. I’ll get one in the mail to you right away. 

I hope you have a great rest of your day. Take care.

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