Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1049924
www.HartfordBusiness.com • November 12, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 29 TALKING POINTS Tips for getting more positive online reviews By Andrea Obston W ant to get more positive reviews? Ask. No, really. It's that simple. But most businesses simply don't do it. How many customers do you make happy every day? A lot, I'll bet. But here's the sad truth about that: Most people do not run to their screens to tell the world how great it was to get what they wanted when they wanted it. How about asking them to do just that? Heck, my dentist and my car repair shop do that. Why don't you? The funny thing is that people are often more than happy to leave a review. Who's going to do the ask? Requesting reviews has to be something that ev- eryone in the orga- nization sees as their responsibility. You want to ask for these reviews as soon as the product or service is delivered and any one of your employees could be the person who knows when that happens. Here's how to get everyone to jump on the request-a-review bandwagon: • Communicate the importance of getting these positive reviews by explaining the direct impact they have on the business. • Train key employees on how to ask for reviews. • Develop a scorecard that tracks reviews by locations. • Provide bonuses and awards for the locations and employees who have the best track record of ask- ing for reviews and who get the best online reviews. How to ask for a review There are a number of ways to ask for feedback. • Direct request — In this ap- proach you thank the customers for their business, ask them for feedback and send them to a private customer feedback landing page on your site. Should that feedback be positive on your site, you can then respond with: "We're pleased our services met your expectations. Our reputation is very important to us. Please take a moment to review us on Yelp by clicking here and for Google by clicking here." • Ratings-only request — In this approach you ask the customer to rate their experience on a 1 to 10 scale in response to this question: "How did we do?" For those who rate your company with an 8, 9 or 10, you then send the feedback request mentioned above. • Feedback request — This brings both approaches together, allowing for both positive and negative feed- back. The content could read: "If you were pleased with our services, please tell the world. Click here to leave an online review. If we did not meet your expectations, please tell us. Click here [your site's private customer feedback landing page] to tell us about your experience so we can make it right." When asking for a review, here's what you need to keep in mind: • Get permission before sending a review request. • Ask at the peak of your customer's happiness with your product or service. • Use casual language. • Make it clear you are interested in feedback; not just a rating. • Approach the customer in a way that asks for a favor. • Let the customer know how long doing the review will take. • Tell the customer how much it means to your company that they write a review. • Tell them that you're looking for- ward to reading their review. • Avoid offering incentives for leaving online reviews. Both Yelp and Google have taken aggressive stances against such practices. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has rules against such practices and can file a complaint against your com- pany for violating them. The bottom line is this: Customers check online reviews before they buy. According to a piece in Forbes, "74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more." In that same piece they said that "Every one star increase in a Yelp rating means a 5 to 9% increase in revenue." Andrea Obston is president of Bloomfield-based Andrea Obston Marketing Communications. HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM POLL LAST WEEK'S POLL RESULT: Should UConn build a $45 million ice rink in Storrs for its men's and women's hockey teams? NEXT WEEK'S POLL: Will hydrogen vehicles catch on in Connecticut? To vote, go online to hartfordbusiness.com BIZ BOOKS Powerful manager tools to build trust and teams By Jim Pawlak "The Manager's Answer Book" by Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gam- lem (Career Press $16.99). Most manager's answer books deal with answering questions posed by employees, bosses and other stakeholders. The authors flip the script by answering questions man- agers ask. Given that the development of management skills drives productiv- ity, I'm going to highlight three, "always seem to come up" topics from the skill- development section. Delegation maximizes a manager's productivity and provides employees with learning and s-t-r-e-t-c-h oppor- tunities. Before delegating a task, set a priority on its completion, identify the skills required and look at the priori- ties/workloads of your team. All delegation follows this format: Describe the task, its importance, its deadline, the need for timely updates and how success will be measured. Dis- cuss approaches to handling the task and resources the employee may need to use, and together with the employee create an action plan and time- table. Ensure the employee knows that questions are welcome anytime. Prioritization involves making "value" decisions by looking at deadlines, the consequences of not meeting them and the effect of the team. It also deals with recognizing the difference between "need to do" and "want to do." Needs come before wants. The authors suggest assigning a higher priority to "Don't want to do but need to do" tasks to ensure they don't slide down the list. Encouraging ideas — If you want to increase your productivity and that of your team, you must be open to do- ing different things and doing things differently. Every time you say: "We've always done it that way" or "Yes, but … (which means No)," you're closing creativity's door. Take a positive approach by saying, "Tell me more," or asking, "How would that work?" Their responses will show you how well they've done their home- work on the idea. 76.1% No 23.9% Yes READER COMMENTS: "I think the money could be well used elsewhere!" "Use the XL Center." "Should they? No. Will it be a fun environment? Most likely. I enjoy going to games in Hartford, but the arena is too big and can feel empty at times." Andrea Obston Jim Pawlak Book Review