Are you encouraging your customers to leave Google Reviews?

If not, you’re missing a real opportunity to reach new customers and tell them about your business.

It’s not just that people like to read reviews; it’s that Google uses reviews to help decide where to place you in their search results. It boosts businesses that have lots of review activity and plenty of four- or five-star ratings.

How Google Reviews improve your tire shop’s visibility

So, if you have no reviews, or very few reviews, a potential customer in your area who is looking for a tire shop using Google will probably be directed towards a competitor who has lots of positive reviews.

In other words, Google rewards you when your customers leave Google Reviews. And the ultimate reward is finding your business in the Google Local Pack — which means ranking you in the top three shops in the area. You’ll have seen this in search results before. It looks like this:

Note the large numbers of reviews and the high star ratings of these three tire shops. Lots of happy customers. No wonder Google recommends them.

How reviews influence potential customers

Of course, it’s not just Google that’s influenced by reviews. A 2017 study by Podium found:

93% of consumers said online reviews influence their purchase decisions
82% of consumers said the content of a review had convinced them to make a purchase
3.3 was the minimum star rating of a business that consumers would consider engaging with.

But more than that, customers are actually willing to pay more to do business with a company that receives consistently good reviews.

Podium’s study found 68% of consumers were willing to pay a premium of up to 15% on the same product or service “if assured they’ll have a better experience.”

Good reviews don’t just happen on their own

So, how do you leverage the power of positive reviews?

For a start, you don’t just rely on customers being so over the moon with the service you gave them that they go online to sing your praises. However, if you ask them to leave a review, 77% of customers (according to Podium’s study) are very happy to leave one.

Ask every single happy customer if they could leave you a five-star review.

Not every customer will leave one, but you will radically improve your chances of getting one if you take the time to ask.

Here are some practical tips for encouraging reviews:

Ask them directly when they pick up their vehicle
Send a follow-up email (later that day or the next day) asking them if they were happy with your service and inviting them to leave a review. Include the link to your business on Google!
Leave a leaflet or flyer in the customer’s car thanking them for their business and inviting them to leave a review. Make sure the instructions on where to leave the review are clear and easy to read!
Add a review link on your website, to make it easy for customers to leave reviews
Always respond to your reviews. Both consumers and Google like to see businesses taking the time to respond to reviews (you need to register to be able to do this). It’s a courtesy on positive reviews, but on negative reviews it’s also an opportunity to show your professionalism and impress review readers (your potential customers) with your response.

Get an expert to do the hard work for you

If you’re running a busy tire store, you might not have a lot of time available to spend chasing up reviews. But if you’re keen to leverage the power of reviews, there are services that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.

Tireweb Marketing (publisher of Traction News) has a reviews syndication service designed specifically for tire dealers. Managing Director Matthew Walker said Ezytire collects reviews from verified purchases by sending a follow-up email to your customers.

“The store and product reviews appear in Google Search, product ads, and on the tire dealer’s website and product pages,” Walker said.

“The reviews also are syndicated to other platforms and can appear in Google and on social media sites.”

“Our customers can also opt-in to our central review library. It allows dealers to share product reviews, meaning dealers can immediately get access to a range of product reviews to show on their website.”

The service is based on an annual subscription fee and is a simple way to supercharge the power of reviews.

“We’ve had good success with our dealers’ customers providing reviews, and we’ve seen good benefits with rankings from the additional user-generated content dealers get with review content,” Walker said.

“It’s also a great way for our dealers to stay engaged with their customers, share positive review experience, deal with any negative feedback and improve their services.”

Find out more about Ezytire's review syndication service by emailing sales@tirewebmarketing.com.

Tagged: Online reviews

Ask customers for Google Reviews and supercharge your business