5 Painless Ways to Ask for Reviews
Reviews are important; we get it.
Without reviews, you see less website traffic (reviews are a huge ranking factor and are good for SEO), have less engagement with your customers, and probably sell fewer vehicles.
But how do you ask customers for reviews? Everybody is busy, and if someone just finished buying a car, the last thing you want to do is pester them for a dealer review.
You need to ease them into the process. Here are a few tactics to make asking for reviews painless for both you and your customers:
1. Smooth Criminal
It’s easy to ask customers for a positive review by putting a brief message and a link to your review page in your email signature. This way no one can “forget” to ask for the review either. Remember, subtlety is the key to seduction.
2. Social Butterfly
Build a very simple and friendly page on your website that links to all of your preferred review sites. Check out the page that Pacific Motors just built for this: http://www.pacificmotors.ca/dcm/review-us.
You can also purchase an easy-to-remember domain to advertise your review sites (www.reviewdealershipname.com, for example) and then put that link in your email signature or include it in a “Thank you” email you send each customer after they have made a purchase.
3. Don’t Ask
Get someone else to ask for you! Your salespeople or front-facing staff can politely ask a customer to leave a review.
Just make sure your staff know your dealership’s preferred review websites so they can steer customers in the right direction.
4. Give Incentives
While you can’t buy reviews from customers with cash, gift certificates, or prizes, you can give incentives to your employees to ask for positive reviews.
I’ve seen dealerships offer cash or an entry into a draw for every positive review they received. It was so successful that they could only run the program for a few months—if you’re looking for a quick pay off, then this may be your best bet.
5. Thank Them!
If you send a “Thank you” letter to customers a week or two after their purchase, you could ask for a positive review at the same time.
Whether you’ve decided to set up a separate page or URL for your review sites, or to include review icons and a brief sentence requesting a review, adding it to your sales process is an effective way to remind customers to review your business.
For more on reviews, don’t forget to check out our post on 4 places to get dealer reviews!
