Google reviews serve as the modern-day word of mouth for painting contractors. While many painting contractors understand how important reviews are, very few of them ask customers for reviews in a way that can provide the biggest benefit to their business. That provides a big opportunity for you if you are willing to consistently and thoroughly ask your happy customers for reviews.
On The Sharp Edge Podcast we highlighted how to ask for Google reviews and what to ask for. We’ll dive deeper in this blog post, highlighting the five most important review factors and how they should impact your efforts to get reviews.
A very well put together survey by Brightlocal from the end of 2020 – the Local Consumer Review Study 2020 – provides data and insight to serve as strong guidance when it comes to reviews. The five most important review factors identified in the survey are #1 star rating, #2 legitimacy, #3 recency, #4 sentiment and #5 quantity.
Star rating
It’s probably no surprise that the most important factor for consumers is your average star rating.
What to do:
Keep asking happy customers for reviews to keep that star rating high. Not only will that help you increase your star rating now, but it also provides you with some padding for when you get a not-so-good review. Most painting contractors don’t think about getting lots of good reviews until the bad one comes in and then it’s too late.
The good news is that most consumers don’t expect businesses to be perfect, no matter the industry. If they see a couple one or two star reviews among a large number of four and five star reviews, it won’t likely stop them from calling you. But if you only have 10 reviews and two of them are bad, you probably just lost a potential customer.
Legitimacy
Consumers like to see proof that reviews are legit.
What to do:
If you have a bunch of five star reviews without any comments consumers are going to question their validity. So when you ask for a review, ask your customer to specifically mention the services you provided to them and the experience they had working with you. These details demonstrate that the review is legitimate. Reviews that mention specific services can also help you show up higher in the Local Pack when consumers in your area search for those services.
Recency
If you need any further incentive to consistently ask for reviews, you should know that according to the survey 73% of consumers only pay attention to reviews written in the last month.
What to do:
You know the answer to this one – consistently ask happy customers for reviews. If you are doing that, this one should take care of itself.
If you are having trouble figuring out who to ask, ask your loyal customers, the ones who have come back to you multiples times. Another good group to ask would be customers who referred somebody to you.
Sentiment
The official definition of sentiment is a view of, or attitude toward, a situation or event; an opinion. So for consumers reading reviews, they want to know how the customer felt during the process of doing business with you.
What to do:
This is where those reviews in which a customer shares their experience make a big impact. People want to be comforted. They want to know that they won’t be making a mistake by choosing you to paint their house. Reading about others’ positive experiences will help to set their mind at ease.
When you know you’ve gone over and above to accommodate a customer and they show great appreciation for it, be sure to tell them that it would really mean a lot to you if they would leave a review on Google. In most cases they will be happy to do so.
Quantity
The number of reviews you have does matter, but note that in this survey it is the fifth most important factor.
What to do:
Did we mention you should consistently ask for reviews?
It can be difficult to ask for reviews when you are hustling to wrap up a job on somebody’s property. But, if you make it part of your closing process and do it consistently it will absolutely help you to keep an excellent online reputation and encourage more consumers to reach out to you when they are looking for the services you provide.
Our Integrated Reviews platform helps our customers get more online reviews. To learn how we can help do that for your painting business, call us at 919-424-6121 or schedule a meeting with us at a time that’s convenient for you!