Frank Terlap also shares his knowledge through the Automotive Management Institute (AMi), where he has been a trainer for more than a year.
While old-fashioned “word of mouth” referrals are still an important component of an auto body repair shop’s consumer marketing strategy, shop owners and managers must quickly learn to embrace today’s “electronic word of mouth” solution: online reviews.
Auto body repair shops must consider an online review marketing strategy because consumers use and trust them. More and better online reviews lead to better search engine performance. Positive reviews instill consumer confidence and help auto body and auto repair shops stand out from their competition, ultimately leading to more online sales leads, more online referrals, more phone calls, better customer engagement and a better overall reputation!
Consumers Use and Trust Online Reviews
Online Reviews Affect Local Search Engine Performance
Having several good reviews on sites like YELP, Google, YAHOO, Facebook, CitySearch, YP.com and other consumer review sites is critical when it comes to getting found by consumers on the first page of a Google, Bing or YAHOO search engine. Why is being on the first page of a search so important? Google tells us that 91.5% of consumers DO NOT continue on to the second page to find a company or product!
Based on search engine research we performed in more than 50 cities in North America, our team found Google, BING and YAHOO all present online reviews on the first search page right below their ads.
More importantly, our research found that 40% to 80% of ALL listings in the first search engine page on Google, YAHOO and BING are being driven by online review sites like YELP, Angieslist, automd.com, yellowpages.com and other review sites.
| Get 5 Google reviews, get the stars |
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If your business gets five reviews on Google, it gets the little stars in the search results. The 5 stars really draw attention to your company listing, drawing potential clients to read, click and even call your business, especially if you're competition doesn't have them. It is key that you get those five Google reviews. |
This means if local auto body and repair shops don’t incorporate an online review request, capture, share and management process their chances of being found by the 7.5 million consumers that performed a monthly online search in 2015 for auto body repair shops are severely diminished.
How to Ask for and Generate More Online Reviews
Online reviews can really tell customers about your company's strengths as compared to your competition. Remember that 87% of your competition is not asking for reviews. By taking a few simple actions you will be ahead of most of the competition.
The second thing you need to remember is to make it easy for your customers to give your business an online review. What does easy mean? Make it convenient and give them lots of options.
There any many simple things your business can do to increase the number of online reviews it receives on Google, YELP, YAHOO, Facebook and other consumer review sites. First and foremost, you need to make sure everyone in your company understands reviews are important to your business.
Once you communicate the importance of online reviews to your employees the next step you want to take is place signage around your business showing the consumer how important online reviews are to your organization. We suggest businesses focus on the top three online review sites: Google, YELP and Facebook. Signage representing these sites should be placed in your company’s lobby or waiting room, on your counter, walls or entrance door.
Now that your employees and customers understand how important reviews are to your business, how you ask your customers for reviews is very important. We suggest multiple techniques to request, capture, share and manage their online reviews.
| Review request options |
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1. Verbal review requests When you or your employees ask for a review, consider the following:
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2. Request review handout A review request handout should be included as part of a shop's vehicle delivery process and should include the following:
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3. Your company website Statistics show that websites that present online reviews on their home page keep visitors on their sites for 30 seconds more than sites without reviews. Providing your customers with the ability to post reviews on your website will increase traffic to your site. |
Social Media, Mobile Apps and In-House Kiosks
Your business should also consider using your existing social media sites, mobile apps and In-House Kiosks to request and capture online reviews. When it comes to social media, we suggest adding a review request app to your company’s existing Facebook page. By doing so you are making it easy and convenient for Facebook users to give you reviews on Facebook and other online review sites. Remember, there are more than 1.5 billion active Facebook users!
Last but not least, you can utilize an in-house kiosk to request and capture online reviews. Let me start by saying DO NOT allow consumers to provide your business reviews on any of the major online review sites via an in-house kiosk by linking a computer in your lobby to these sites. Google, YELP, Yahoo and other sites are “smart enough” to know that the reviews are coming from a single computer (IP address) and they will consider reviews generated from this computer FAKE.
Diversify Your Reviews
Another important concept when it comes to online review success is diversity. Don't get all of your reviews on a single review site, especially proprietary sites. Remember, Google, YELP, Yellowpages.com, YAHOO, BING are also important to your online review marketing strategy because of “review syndication” and local search engine performance.
Review syndication occurs when one review site shares their reviews on others sites. Those review sites that syndicate their reviews to other sites (including Google) are also more valuable than those that keep their reviews to themselves. Not only do you get the benefit of potential customers seeing your reviews on more websites, but Google may actually count these reviews multiple times in its ranking algorithm.
Sites that syndicate their reviews
| Review Site | City Search | YELP | InsiderPages | YAHOO |
| Syndicates to: |
Bing YAHOO InsiderPages Kudzu MerchantCircle YP.com |
Bing Apple YAHOO |
Superpages Judysbook |
Superpages YELP |
Share Good Reviews as Posts:
If your business is active on social media you probably want to share your online reviews on social media. If you get a good review you can share it as a post. For example, say your company gets a review from Stephen who said, "Oh, I had a great experience." And then they share that as a social post on their Google+, or other social media pages. Repost Stephen’s review with a response—for example, "Oh, thanks Stephen. I'm really glad you liked it." You are getting this extra benefit from that review. You got a review, and now it's actually feeding your Google+ social profile.
| Online reviews quick tips |
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· If you are going to implement an online review marketing strategy your company’s review sites need to be complete and professional. · Make sure you claim your YELP, Google My Business, YAHOO, Facebook and other online review sites and populate this with as much information as the profile allows. · Be sure to include the address in exactly the same format each time you reference your company online. · You should also include images, industry keywords and other content that makes your review site stand out. |
How to respond to negative reviews
While businesses never want a negative review, we all know we can’t satisfy everyone. Understanding how to respond to a negative review is important. Here are a few tips on how to respond to negative reviews.
· Don’t get defensive.
· Own the issue. Demonstrate that you are paying attention to their issue!
· Describe how future customers are not going to have this problem, "Hey, we're really sorry you had this experience. We're putting some things in place to make sure that that's not going to happen again."
· Offer to fix their issue and then make sure you fix it!
o You might want to refund them.
o Make sure you fix whatever their complaint was.
If you effectively deal with the customer's complaint and show that you care, you can sometimes turn an angry customer into a brand advocate, and they might even take that review down. After they have left a negative review online, if you really show them you care and you solve the problem - that's the only way to get a negative review taken off unless it is obviously bogus.
The Best Online Review Marketing Strategy
So you are probably wondering what is the absolute best review request, capture, management and sharing strategy? Here is what we know: the businesses that are “killing it” when is comes to review requests and capture use a pretty simple process—they make sure that every single customer got asked without exception.
