I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Google reviews on this blog over the past couple of months – and it’s not because I’m short on material. It’s because Google Reviews matter. The days of putting your head in the sand and ignoring your reviews are over. Stagnant doesn’t exist – your attention, or lack of it, will either help or hurt your business. There’s no in-between.
If you’ve already read through and now find yourself thinking “when am I going to have time to do all of this?” you’re not alone. There’s always a learning curve with learning a new strategy, but managing your reviews is a constant process that you can’t just ignore for a couple of months when your showroom gets busy. Remember, algorithms change over time, so there will always be something new to learn.
This post will wrap up my thoughts on Google Reviews (for now) – and I’m going to use it to tell you what happened when I started focusing on reviews, and how it has helped my business.
Like most showroom owners, for quite a while after purchasing Hansen Lighting I managed our Google Reviews on my own. But as the online world grew, and it became more and more apparent how important Google Reviews are, I got to a point where I realized I needed to make a change to the way we did things.
I realized I had a couple of options:
- Continue to manage reviews on my own – running the risk that I’d miss something
- Hand off managing reviews to an employee – freeing up my time but in the process handing over the voice of my company to someone not necessarily trained in this
- Seek out the experts in the field – rather than wasting my time trying to reinvent the wheel, I could entrust my reviews to a company that understands my business and is great at keeping up with the ever-changing world of Google.
There was a clear and obvious winner – so I got to work setting up a better Google Reviews system with Lit Living. When we started a year and a half ago, I had around 20 reviews at our main location, and less than 10 at our second location. Now, at last count, both locations have over 100 reviews and a 4.9/5 star rating. Could I have done that on my own? Possibly. But it would have taken a monumental amount of focused time to make those kinds of results happen – and I’d rather use my time to find other ways to grow my business.
I have to tell you, there is a direct link between the quantity and quality of my business’s Google Reviews and the amount of traffic I get at my sales counter. Getting Google Reviews right isn’t just about pride of ownership, it’s about the bottom line.
Google Reviews: A Better Way
Lit Living’s Google Reviews service pushes a request for feedback out to each customer after they make a purchase. Customers that have issues or concerns are directed to write a message, which I then take up and handle immediately. Customers that are thrilled with their experience are forwarded to Google, where they can leave a review.
Getting customers to leave reviews is a numbers game – it’s only a small percentage that will actually follow through to the end, so automating those requests is a game changer. They’ll go out to the customer using whichever contact method we collect at payment, and includes follow-up requests that go out again later if there’s no response. We have seen around a 5% response rate, which really adds up over time.
Lit Living’s service also has an option to set up a bounceback coupon, where the request for a review is coupled with a coupon they can use if they come back to your showroom. (Leaving a review is not mandatory – we don’t mess around with paid reviews.)
In Summary
I have encountered many business owners over the years that think they can just ignore their Google Reviews and carry on, business as usual – but frankly, that’s an ignorant view. It’s like saying “I was active and healthy in my 20s, so I don’t need to eat well or exercise anymore.” What worked for you then won’t work for you now – the world, and your business in it, is different. And what’s more – just like ignoring an injury could result in fatal complications, ignoring your customers’ public feedback could have brutal consequences for your business.
If ignoring your reviews isn’t an option, and you don’t have the time to manage them yourself, then you need to find someone who can. Finding a company you can trust with something as important as your business’s Google reviews isn’t easy – especially since most marketing agencies are generalists that know next to nothing about the lighting industry. Lit Living is unique in their approach – they cater specifically to the lighting industry, so you won’t have to worry about an intern using the same marketing strategy for you that he used for his summer lawnmowing business.
You know I would never recommend something to you that I don’t fully believe in. But I also don’t expect you to just take my word for it. Check them out, schedule a demo. Ask them the hard questions, and make sure they’re right for you. But I can almost guarantee that if you’re running a lighting showroom in North America, they will be.
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I want to take a second to say thank you to my readers – this blog started as quick 60-second business tips, and while I still share those too, it’s great to have a platform where I can occasionally do a deep dive and share some of the best things that have worked for my showroom with so many of you across the country. Thanks for being here!
