Getting a steady flow of Five Star reviews is nothing short of a necessity these days. Prospective customers use them to help decide whether or not to ring us for a quote based on other peoples’ experiences with us, even our Google ranking is dependent on them, but what do they really tell us about our business?
Bad reviews are bad for business, that goes without out saying. Any online review that isn’t five star or contains negative comments are to be avoided and so we only ask those customers that express delight with our service to do a review. Nothing wrong with that given the importance of 5* reviews.
The truth is, good reviews only provide us with a little welcome flattery and tell us what we are doing right, but what about what we are doing wrong? Okay, so we are doing some things right, but what about the things that we are doing wrong, or not doing at all? Shouldn’t those things be of the utmost concern to us? Here’s a question, of the customers that we didn’t ask for a review, how many of them for one reason or another decided at some point during their experience with you that they will never to use you again? We don’t know, do we? Why, because we never asked.
If the Holy Grail of a successful carpet cleaning business is repeat and referral work and the means of gaining that level of customer loyalty is providing what your customers consider to be a first class carpet cleaning experience, does that not make the techniques used in making that priceless source of business happen, a marketing strategy? Of course it is
Every successful carpet cleaning business is successful based almost exclusively on very high levels of customer loyalty and the ability to multiply customers at no extra cost to the business. This level of loyalty isn’t freely given, it is hard earned by providing exceptional levels of service to customers over years, even decades. Within the DNA of these highly successful businesses is an awareness on the part of the owner that providing a first class customer experience has its roots in the most basic notion of marketing. You get a customer - You keep that customer -That customer refers you to others. All of which adds up to a business with exceptionally low advertising costs, resulting in much higher profits.
In reality all that 5* reviews do is tell us what we are doing right, but not what we are doing wrong. And because positive reviews are all we ever see it is easy to think that we’ve got all our ducks in a row and therefore all we need to do is keep going. Okay, so you’ll keep doing all things you’re doing right AND at the same time all of the things you’re doing wrong? That’s fine if you don’t want to know what you’re doing wrong, provided you don’t mind throwing good customers away and paying out good money to find new ones to replace them.
That’s just not good business.
So here’s a marketing technique for you called, ‘Inviting the Negative Review.’
That’s right, stop shunning negative reviews and comments and instead ask for them, seek them out because within them is the most precious information you never knew you didn’t have.
Customer’s are turned off us for a whole variety of reasons, but they never tell us. So a few days after a job send out a letter to the clients you didn’t ask for review. You could say something like:
Dear Mrs…..
Thank you for choosing us to clean your carpets. Most companies will ask you to provide a positive review and tell them how good they were, but we don’t. We are different. We don’t just want to know what we did right, in fact, we’d rather you told us what we did wrong, the things that may put you off using our services again in the future.
If we have disappointed you in any way then we are truly sorry and by telling us what we did wrong will help us understand the parts of our service we need to improve in order to earn our customers loyalty. Please don’t hold back, tell us everything you didn’t like and in return we promise that everything you tell us will be worked upon and improved so that in the future we can serve you and all of our customers better.
Please complete the enclosed form and unless you want to, do not include your name or address.
Many thanks
You can frame this technique how ever you like but I think inviting people to remain anonymous adds an element of sincerity in that you can’t use the information they provide to serve just that particular customer better next time around and thus put a community feel to it so that if they do come back to you and the service is better then it must be better for all of your customers.
I know that one of my competitors has a serious problem with drying times. How do I know? Because his customer told me when I arrived to do the job he should have has had a repeat. Had he asked for a negative review, she would have told him and I wouldn’t be in the picture.
If marketing is in essence about winning over hearts and minds and having people to ‘want’ to do business with us then this is just as much a marketing technique as any other. Whether you ever serve any of the authors of any negative reviews again isn’t really the point. The point is they told you things about your business you couldn’t have learned without asking, information you then use to provide a truly Five Star service to customers in the future. Do that and the Holy Grail is just down the road.