How to Ask Your Customers for Reviews (and Why It Matters)

Why do reviews matter?

According to a BrightLocal report, 77% of consumers read reviews before choosing a business to patronize. At the same time, Google Review and other review sites have recently increased traffic.

These positive reviews can be critical for local auto mechanic shops. Many consumers are unfamiliar with auto repair and depend on existing reviews to help them decide on a reputable business.

This reputation research shows that a few negative reviews significantly affect the average rating of your company website. Therefore, it’s up to you to manage your online reputation or risk losing potential customers.

Here are five reasons why you should care about collecting reviews:

They help you get more customers!

Positive reviews are essential if you want to attract new customers. Did you know that people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family? So, having plenty of recent customer feedback will help your business’s credibility on review sites like Yelp.

This visibility also increases traffic to a company website and social media platforms. Next, it makes sure potential clients see what they’re interested in before the customer’s visit.

They help you establish a reputation in your community

Local businesses with good customer reviews are considered more trustworthy. Your online reputation:

• boosts customer acquisition
• markets your business name
• builds long-term relationships with existing customers

Customer reviews can help you identify areas for improvement

In addition to the positive effects of customer feedback, they help you identify areas where your business needs to improve. If you see customers frequently mentioning the same issue in reviews, it’s likely something you need to work on.

Consider negative feedback as an opportunity to improve your business and make changes that will enhance the auto repair customer experience.

They can help you retain more customers

Customers are more likely to return and use your services again in the future if they have had a good experience. Positive customer reviews can help you improve retention rates.

They also make it easier for potential customers who might be interested in our services but haven’t acted yet. Such excellent service will help your auto shop establish customer relationships.

They boost your SEO, so more customers are likely to find you

Google Reviews and other sites use customer reviews as a ranking factor in their algorithms. This means that any business name with more positive customer reviews is more likely to appear higher in search results.

Therefore, your online marketing strategy should include actively working on getting positive reviews, as this social proof will improve your conversion rates and help you rank higher on business listings.

How to ask customers for reviews

As you can see, online customer reviews are essential for businesses in the auto repair industry. If you want to grow your local business, you must direct your marketing efforts to review sites. That starts with you asking for reviews from satisfied customers.

Collecting reviews isn’t as difficult as you may think. Most customers will be happy to comment if you follow these helpful tips on how to request more customer feedback.

First, pick the right time to ask a customer for a review

You want to avoid coming across as pushy or desperate, so it’s critical to:

• Request reviews in a timely manner, preferably after happy customers have paid.
• Avoid waiting too long. A recent purchase is easier to remember.

Explain how reviews support your business

When asking customers for reviews, it’s helpful to explain how new customer reviews can benefit local businesses. This will help inform customers, making them more likely to leave reviews.

Email or text is the best

When requesting a review, it’s best to do so via email or text. A direct message with a personalized subject line will get their attention.

Always streamline the customer experience to encourage them to write reviews. Feel free to include links to:

• your business’s review page on Google
• business listings
• Facebook
• or another review site

These actions will achieve high response rates.

Use a template message

Are you unsure what to say when you ask for a review in your email? If so, construct a review request email template with all the necessary links to the appropriate sites. Here are some free tools and examples you can use.

Shop-Ware + Broadly = A Winning Combo For Your Shop

To succeed, it’s essential that your auto shop has an online presence and gets positive feedback on top review sites. But this isn’t the only thing we should focus on!

If efficiency or customer service aren’t up to par with expectations from a company, they won’t leave positive reviews.

As any business owner knows, efficiency is key to success. The more streamlined your operations are, the less time and money you’ll waste on reputation management with automotive shop software and online tools allow you, the owner, more time to run and grow your repair shop business without taking time away from customers.

By keeping track of your auto parts inventory management, automotive repair orders and customer feedback in one central location, you’ll quickly and easily see what’s working well and what needs to be improved. You can also attract new customers with email campaigns and respond promptly with customizable reply templates.

You don’t need to hire additional staff to provide a great customer experience. Through these tools offered by Shop-Ware and Broadly, you’ll be able to free up your time and focus on giving great service.