Roots to Revenue

The best way to get reviews for your small business as a tradesman

• Robbie Lynn

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“Reviews = Revenue” for trades and local services, but you don’t need a hundred to win work. If you want to learn the best way to get reviews for your small business as a tradesman.
How many do you need? 
The best moments to ask
How to handle bad or fake reviews
How to turn fresh reviews into Google rankings, enquiries, and booked jobs. 

Who it’s for: lawn care, landscaping, plumbers, sparkies, roofers, cleaners, decorators — any UK trade or home-service business that wants more local leads with less faff.

 Try out Jobber for FREE with a 14-day trial with your exclusive discount Root to Revenue  https://go.getjobber.com/premierlawns

Reviews = Revenue - How Many Do You Actually Need?

Robbie

At what point do you think is the tipping scale between having enough reviews?

Lorcan

Having any reviews at all is a bonus. They say that in the latest research that even if you have as few as five reviews, that gives you a better than 25% chance of a conversion. So you don't have to be terribly sophisticated or think that you have to gather a hundred reviews before you gain some credibility.

Robbie

What happens if you get a bad review and you don't think that it's a fair review?

Lorcan

The first thing I would say is don't panic, because if you're a busy business, in all likelihood. Things are gonna go wrong every so often despite your best efforts. So what I would say is reply with all reviews, whether they're positive or negative within 24 hours or one working day, if you can. Acknowledgement is really important. Flipping on its head, responding to good reviews is equally as important as responding to the negative ones.

Robbie

What about it? And welcome through the Route to Revenue podcast. Did you know that 93% of buyers say that reviews will influence their ban decision? In a world where reputation is everything, reviews can make or break your business. However, in today's podcast with Kin from Trusted, and he's going to tell you exactly how you can use reviews with Turbo Charge. Your own business. Before we get into the Day's podcast, let me tell you about the sponsor. The channel is sponsored by Jobber. Jobber is my go-to software. It does all the scheduling, the invoicing, and the quoting, but best of all, it gets me paid faster. If you're a busy business owner and you don't have any time and you want to earn more money, then you want to check checkout Jobber down in the video description to get your

Jason

unique Premier launch discount. It's. Premier Loans link slash jobber. We'll be diving into the power of customer and client reviews, how to manage your online reputation and creative ways to gain new customers. Before we introduce the guest, don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe as it really helps the channel and leave a review. Kin,

Guest Introduction: Lorcan Flanagan from Truist

Jason

would you like to introduce yourself?

Lorcan

Good morning, Jackman. Thank you for inviting me along. My name is Kin Flanagan and I represent a company called Truist. And what we do, we are an online customer review, management, and reputation company. And what we do is we help our clients to capture, amplify. And leverage their customer reviews to get them more business to their websites, and more conversions.

Jason

Why are online reviews

The Crucial Role of Online Reviews

Jason

so crucial for small businesses in a digital world?

Lorcan

They're really important because it basically talks to the trustworthiness and the reliability and the credibility of the organization that searcher. It's trying to establish, if you imagine for example, that if you're going out to, to capture a pro, to buy a product or service, you want to know that they'll be fit to deliver that product or service and that they have a track record of doing so. So it's also in, in those things like impacts your social. Media and your search engine optimization scores as well. So we, our co company helps to do all of those things in order to raise your credibility and increase your social proof.

Robbie

At what point do you think is the tipping scale between having enough reviews? When is 30, 40, 50, 60,

Lorcan

having any reviews at all is a bonus. They say that in the latest research that even if you have as few, as five reviews, that gives you a better than 25% chance of a conversion. So you don't have to be terribly sophisticated or think that you have to gather a hundred reviews before you gain some credibility depending on your type of business. Quite the opposite could be true. So if you're in a small volume, but highly specialized business environment. A handful of reviews is enough to convince some people that you've got the credibility and that they'll choose you over your competitor.

Robbie

Especially, I suppose with a restaurant and what have you. The reviews are really super important and it's in a lot cases it's easier for those businesses to generate reviews. This podcast is really aimed at man with Fan.

Lorcan

Okay. Okay.

Robbie

I would say, would you say 30 to 40 online reviews is, or what's the

Lorcan

It's a good starting point. It's a good starting point. I think the most important thing in terms of reviews is that they're current and that they're obviously authentic authenticity and validity, and that they're not five years old. That customer wants to understand that the last person that had a, an experience with that organization had a good one. And so what people will be looking at is the quality of the review and the, the date stamp on it, if you like. Like I say I wouldn't think too much about the quantity to begin with. Just get a handful of really good reviews. If you've got repeat customers, for example, always coming back to you. Don't be afraid to go back to those delighted customers says, I know you, we did a, it sounds like we did a good job for you there recently. Would you mind giving us away review? When's

Robbie

the best time to ask for a review?

Lorcan

It can vary very from one business to the next, but as opposed to use the hospitality or the restaurant example you used earlier on,

Optimal Timing for Requesting Reviews

Lorcan

a good time to ask is just as you're paying the bill, for example, or you're just about to go out the door and the miy or the general manager has presented you with the bill and. You've got a nice belly, full of nice food and a nice wine or whatever the case may be, and everybody's in good form. That's the optimal moment in that

Robbie

If a transferred that day a or if you run a small business and you're out crying out services in people's homes. Yeah. Whenever the customers send you, we've done a, you've done a fantastic job there, John. Yeah. That's the time they ask.

Lorcan

That's the time to ask, just as you're handing over the invoice or you're just about to take payment. I'll give you a perfect example. We have got some customers that have QR codes on key rings, on their van, key rings, if you like, so that you just present that to the consumer at their front door, and obviously you've got them. That's the optimal moment, but that's going to be different for different businesses. If it's an online business, for example, typically between seven and 10 days is a good. Is a good time to ask for a review after somebody has delivered a product or service to your business or to your, A

Robbie

trade. A tradesman. Tradesman. A tradesman. Best time is at the door or whenever they're sending an invoice. Absolutely. Or if the customer comes back and says, you've done a great job. That's the time they, yeah.

Lorcan

Another good example would be if it's, you can embed trust us will embed links on your sort of digital assets as well as your printed assets as well. So if you've got flyers or if you've got, for example, invoices or monthly accounts, again. You can embed those either the QR codes or the links in order to capture the review.

Robbie

Wanna go straight to something going to jump a little bit ahead. Sure. Because a lot of people maybe that are watching this have maybe had a bad experience with a review. Sure.

Jason

What

Robbie

happens if you get a bad review and you don't think, you don't think that it's a fair review on the different, does it differ for different platforms?

Lorcan

It does. The first thing I would say is don't panic, because if you're a busy business, in all likelihood. Things are gonna go wrong every so often despite your best efforts. So what I would say is reply with all reviews whether they're positive or negative within 24 hours or one working day, if you can. Acknowledgement is really important. And like I said, I suppose flipping on its head, responding to good reviews is equally as important as responding to the negative ones. But obviously there's a sense of urge and there's a perceived wrong to be righted if you like with negative reviews. So acknowledge and empathize and say, we're sorry this has happened. No. By saying, sorry, it doesn't mean that you're accepting responsibility because at this very early stage, you don't know what has happened for sure, unless you're very, you're intimately close to what the customer or you are dealing with it yourself. Like I say, empathize take the time to listen and be objective. And then take that information away and then, like I say, manage the client's expectations around when you would expect to come back to with a response. I don't think, don't make any promises or make any offers at that early stage.

Robbie

Would it be best in most cases to say, wait till you calm down. 'cause I know if I got a bad V, I'd be. I'm blinding. Do you wanna take a deep breath? Maybe even Lou, you want to come back within 24 hours, you might want to sleep on it. Would that be a

Lorcan

Absolutely. Unless obviously it's something really, business critical or mission critical to the customer where a greater sense of urgency exists. Like I say, manage their expectations. Go away. Have a cup of tea or a beer or whatever it is, whatever your poison happens to be and step outside. The event or the incident if you like, and better again, if you can find somebody within your organization, if that is, if you're big enough,

Robbie

If you can resolve it as soon as possible.

Lorcan

It's not even that, it's just stepping back from it and being objective and saying somebody who isn't financially or emotionally attached to the business as you are to get us, to get an objective opinion. Say, this is what's happened. This is how things transpired, are we at fault here? Or how much are we at fault here? And then that's when you gather your thoughts, you think about a strategy to resolve it, or some level of olive branch if you like. And then at that point, you then you're in a position where you've gone back to the customer and you say yes, I think this is how it looks from our perspective. Accept that we got that and that wrong. And we're really sorry. We don't want you to feel like this. We want you to come back as a repeat customer. We have some suggestions on it as to how we might rectify this problem. And what that does is that shows the. If you're sitting on the opposite side of the table to the customer, you're making a genuine effort to fix what has gone wrong.

Robbie

Good customer service is easy whenever everything's going well.

Lorcan

Correct.

Robbie

You're judged it whenever everything goes bad. Yeah. Whenever the excuse the prince, the shit hits the fan.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Robbie

That's whenever you're judged.

Lorcan

Yeah. Yeah. It's how you can turn. And I always say that you can use that, the that as an oppor a really sort of stellar opportunity. To showcase your abilities when things go wrong. 'cause that's a true measure of customer care. I think we, I know I can think of numerous occasions in the past where people I've had an elevated sense of people's capabilities and crus if you like. Whenever things have gone wrong and they've fixed them and then I says I'll always go back to them because of the way the dealt when things went south, if that makes sense.

Robbie

And I A fake review.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Robbie

Best way to deal with that

Lorcan

fake review. It's very hot topic at the moment. The best thing to do is be before you label it as a fake review, be absolutely sure that it is indeed a fake review. The difficulty with platforms nowadays is that you've got two types of platforms. So you've got open platforms where anybody can say anything at any time of the day or night. And it's difficult to manage those, and it's very frustrating because. Some people just have way too much time in their hands, to be honest.

Dealing with Fake Reviews

Lorcan

The other side of that is with trust us, you have a closed platform. So what you do is we issue you with a QR code or a unique link. In both cases, they're very unique and we can trace it back to your, to, to you as the user or the product or service user. So there's that closed lip safety net if you like, or reassurance that this person has indeed, in fact used my product or service or both, so that there is accountability and that is the level of accountability that you would want for your business. The fake ones to answer your original question is ignore them. Ignore them.

Robbie

From my understanding on Google, if you answer a fake review and you say This is fake, and then try and get it removed and Google look at it as being authentic. Whereas if you don't reply to it and you're reported, there's more chance of it getting removed. Have you heard it? Have you heard that?

Lorcan

I haven't, if I'm honest, Robbie Google is a tricky one in that whilst it is the go-to platform for both business to business and business to consumer, it's not perfect and none of the platforms are perfect. So what I would say is, depending on the context, I think context is really important. I, if it was my business, I would challenge them and just say, listen. For the third time, this is, or second or third time, this is a fake review, Mr. Google, please. Or Mrs. Google, please do something with this. This is not fair.

Robbie

Cause a lot of people would actually, if they get a fake review through and they can't get it rid of it, or especially small business, dumping their toes in their reviews. Yeah. They get a fake review or a per review and they put their head in the hand and they remove all their reviews.

Lorcan

That's counterproductive. 'cause what you've got to remember is. That is a tiny percentage. If you're really good at what you do, that is a tiny percentage of your overall customer base. There is a small percentage of people out there that you will never make happy, and that is something that we as businesses have to accept and just move on. That's now there is the ones there that again, they have perhaps maybe and have just reasons for leaving reviews of. I'm not talking specifically about fake ones, but I'm talking about negative reviews. The worst thing you can do is stick your head in the sand, as you said, because that doesn't do anything for your reputation. Zero. Yeah, and quite, quite the opposite, actually. Be responsive be sharp with your responses as in, within the 24 hours or within the one working day. And acknowledge those and just saying, listen, we, there's all sorts of language that you can use, we acknowledge your your review above and we're working to to resolve this with you. And that shows maturity and it shows acknowledgement and it shows that you're prepared to try and make an attempt to put it right. And I, like I say, a few moments ago. You will find yourself having a better, more credibility, an enhanced reputation as opposed to what, when, where you're, where it's seen that you ignore negative reviews and bury them in the sand, turn that negative into an opportunity for yourself. I would always say

Jason

with fake reviews. Yeah. Is there anything out there to catch 'em before they go live onto the page for the review page?

Lorcan

There's no filter as such, and the filter is you, is and your business to be quite honest. And what that means is do you know, even just around the whole subject of asking and capturing reviews, the same applies for the, the fake ones or the malicious ones, which are, again they're very hurtful as well. You need to be responsive, make time every single morning or every last thing in the day. Put it into your calendar block time to to check your platform. Or in our case, if you're working with trust, for example where you go into the dashboard and it manages the reviews from multiple platforms in one place. So that makes it really easier and manageable and less overwhelming because at the end of the day, whether it's the first thing in the morning or last thing at night, sometimes the last thing you want to do is to read a fake or a poor review. But everybody's different. Find a day, a time in the day. Where it works for you to deal with those so that if it is a fake review or a malicious review that you're equipped, your mind is equipped to deal with it at that particular time. So it could be first thing in the morning, it could be lunchtime, or could be last thing a day, but make it a habit. Stick it into your calendar, block it out, you. Outlook on all sorts of calendars. Have the ability to put these block time Monday to Friday or whatever your work pattern is in order to, so that it acts as a trigger for you and that is your trigger where you dive into your, because that is, it's time well spent.

Robbie

And what platform do you think is best for reviews in general?

Lorcan

I would of course say justice, but. Each of them have their own nuances, if you like, and their own specific USPS if you like. But what I like to think, as before you start spending a penny, get your Google Review page up and running off your Google Business page. That's the first thing. Second thing I would say is build a page on your website so that people can leave reviews. And to answer your question. I would say choose carefully depending on what industry in, 'cause you're gonna get industry specific ones. So the obvious ones in the hospitality, for example, would be booking.com or TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor. Okay. I would suspect that the likes of, check a trade.com or if there's a, I'm not familiar, intimately familiar with your business, but there might be a trade body or a trade organization that li that where you can leave reviews for people who,

Robbie

Most of the time I think most people are gonna leave reviews in Facebook. Yeah. Google.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Robbie

SA trade. I'm not on SA trade, but what do your views and the likes of Trustpilot?

Best Platforms for Reviews

Lorcan

Trustpilot again, is a competitor. Where I don't see the sense in that is you're leaving your website. Or you're asking your customer to leave your website to leave a review on a third party platform. Okay. So Trustpilot is an open source or open platform. So

Robbie

they're going somewhere else. Your customer's going some else. So you're

Lorcan

leaving and what you're actually doing is you're diluting your brand Thing about it is Trustpilot is Yes. A well-known competitor version. Yeah. Okay. But it has its flaws that, let all of the platforms, my advice would be to say, start from the beginning, like I say with the Google ones without, with reviews, direct people to your own website. Why dilute your own brand? And also, have the security of using closed platforms such as trust us so that that you can verify the review and that is a genuine, and you can be sure that individual or that business has actually used your product or service. So that's, that would be my answer to that.

Robbie

What review platforms does Google pick up? The searches, so I know they got show Facebook and Yelp and three different ones.

Lorcan

It depends on the quality of the, those organizations, SEO, their own SEO. But what I would say is it's almost always. Like I said, Google is the go-to place for B2B and B2C typically. And then if your own SEO is doing what it's supposed to be doing, then it should be picking up your own website straight away. And then there's the ones after that. So typically what we would advise is pick a half a dozen platforms from which we can. Trust us will pull the review views into the dashboard

Robbie

where you might typically find your customers as well. So not, 'cause not everyone's gonna be on check and trade. I'm not on check and trade e

Lorcan

exactly. I suppose it, people are doing discovery searches they're looking for lawn care in Lisbon or all given sake. You want to make sure that your SEO is set up in such a way so that it is, that you're ranking in the top five and you our platform. Enhances that by amplifying your four and five star reviews across all of your platforms, all of your socials. So that means that you can get that enhanced SEO from us.

Jason

What about the time difference between reviews? Does that matter or does that depend on the trade?

Lorcan

It depends on the vol volume and type of business is important. It's going to be very, but over time you will get a sense of what, what works for you and the algorithm is gonna do its work there for you as well in that depending on the frequency, when a customer uses your cust your product or service I wouldn't be overly concerned. About volume. Again, it's quality over quantity. I would say the second thing is, which what I said earlier on in the podcast was around the date stamp. Very often on, on reviews. Now, some costs, some clients might choose not to put a lower debt stump on, on reviews. My advice would be to, if you can, if it makes sense to do it. Include that, so that there, excuse me. There isn't a huge gap between the between reviews so that there's consistency. I think what you're looking for, quality and consistency,

Robbie

I think look, 'cause if you think yourself, if you're looking at reviews online and you say a company has 20 reviews, but five of them, or 10 of them, or from five years ago you're gonna say,

Jason

that's, that, that was where my question was going. 'cause like we've been looking for trades recently and. You go through the reviews and you're looking like some of them, sometimes it's like a month or two between reviews. Yeah. Yeah. And then he's like thinking, what's he doing in that, those two months between, is he working or

Lorcan

yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I wouldn't concern myself again if it was a high volume business and the reviews were few and far between. If it tells me one of two things that you're not asking often enough, actually, that's how you fix it. To be quite honest, and I mean

Robbie

gonna give a, we started the sponsored jobber. With Jobber, we can automatically ask for reviews online.

Jason

Yeah.

Robbie

So

Jason

yeah,

Robbie

whenever you close a job, jobber can automatically request that you get a review, which is really good. It's really terrible. Charge my review.

Jason

Yeah. And

Robbie

gonna give a, we talk about a weep recently and just that was something that Jobber had said in one of their blog posts. If you can get the customer the name. Your employees, if they name whatever employee they name, that employee then gets a tip. Yeah, my name is Jason, by the way. So Jason does quite well these days on. On getting, so what I found is it's really encouraged people to Yeah. To leave a view. Yeah. He gets a small tip.

Jason

Yeah.

Robbie

But also then makes, whenever people read my reviews, now Robbie and his team, or Robbie and Jason or Jason look after me or Jason did that fresh

Lorcan

content.

Robbie

Yes, it's fresh content, but it's also. People tend to know who's, if you were looking to buy something from a small business Yeah. Then all of a sudden it's a really friendly, it makes it perfect. Personalizes it personalizes. Yes. Yeah,

Lorcan

absolutely. Absolutely. Business nowadays feels very transactional. Let's be honest. People go online, they buy this without really thinking where they're spending their money. Now, that might be a controversial statement, but I'm thinking of my own experience and the people around me where I like to think I stop and think where I'm spending my money, if I'm honest. And that is where if you can personalize and, stand out from your competitors. Is there any other

Robbie

tips you can give us about how to personalize and get. So there're really trouble towards

Lorcan

it. There isn't really, it's personalization. It's you name checking people and interestingly,

Personalizing Customer Reviews

Lorcan

a lot of our customers use their reviews as a performance management tool for their businesses. So that if you're getting name checked five and six times a month. You're doing really well, and that can be spoke about, at the end of year review, for example, or if, and then all of a sudden, when I worked in the oil business, for example many moons ago I had come, I had customers that only wanted to deal with me. Okay. And that is the coldest, and that was the days before digital marketing are I'm old enough to remember, but the days before the internet. But my point is this. My point is not unique in that you wanna personalize the the the experience. So they keep coming back. They love coming to.

Robbie

I've always found as well that if you can ask people whenever they're leaving their review, if they're gonna leave a picture well, and that's absolutely amazing. If you get a,

Lorcan

yeah.

Robbie

If you can get a customer to leave a picture interview, that's gonna really turbocharge it. But ask them. Yeah. Ask them to not just say Robbie, and this team did an excellent job. You want them to write a little bit about the service that you provided? Yeah. Have a bit more than just a, yeah. A five star review, what do you want? Or easy Five stars you want. Yeah.

Lorcan

Yeah. What do you wanna encourage your customers? If they're gonna take the time to leave a review, be specific, call out Robbie or call out whoever. And it's just, there was, or if there was particular aspect of the service that they particularly liked. Get them to call it out for you. 'cause that is, you can use that as a USB going to your very next customer. Okay? And there's an old saying, of course, you're only as good as your last job. If you adopt that mindset that I wanna get five great reviews this month, give yourself a target. Say, listen, make it competitive, even, between if you've got a small team, 'cause that, rice and tide lifts all boats as they say, you wanna be saying you the honestly, the impact on of the good news stories on your business is phenomenal because like I say, people are too focused on the negative stuff. What about the 96 or 97% of people who you do a terrific job for? Turn it right on its head and say, listen, spread the good news.

Robbie

If you can get. Build something in for any team members that incentivize them. Yep. To ask them for reviews.

Lorcan

Yep.

Personalizing Customer Experience

Robbie

And then maybe give them some sort of bonus. Whoever, whoever gets most reviews end of the month gets free lunch.

Lorcan

Yep. We have a pizza delivery company who all the drivers have a. A key fob with the QR code on it. Okay. And they're incentivized to collect reviews now, obviously. Have to be good ones. No, not have to be good ones. I take that back. But what I mean is they need to have done a good job to deserve it. That's the most important thing. And if they haven't. Do equal as well. Do something about it, turn it on its head. It's not just about the good ones. The guys

Robbie

that have the key fobs to, is there some sort of bonus scheme attached? Yes.

Lorcan

Yeah. I think they get a five or

Encouraging Detailed Reviews

Lorcan

something. Their employer gives 'em five for every new for every new review. And what does that do? It's fresh content for their review page on their website and at Lift their SEO. Everybody's a winner

Jason

I find with when looking at reviews. You're saying all reviews matter.

Lorcan

Absolutely.

Jason

Like I'll go on. I'll look at the first view and then I'll hit the filter to show me all the bad reviews. Yeah. And I go through just to see, yeah, when was their last bad review?

Lorcan

Yep.

Jason

And did they respond to it or anything like that? Yeah.

Lorcan

Yeah. I mean it be objective about it. There's going to be occasions where things go wrong. And just see how they dealt with it. That's all I would say. Or if they ignored it, that's gonna form, help form your judgment or around whether that organization deserves your patronage or not.

Jason

How can a business make the process of reviews more natural rather than feeling pushy?

Lorcan

That starts with you. You think about your customer journey. Now there might be one, maybe two, maybe various, several variations of what that, depending on the product or service, but think about. From the initial awareness right through to the. Issue the invoice and, sign off whatever it happens to be. But think about the customer journey and then pick the optimal moments, mo moment or moments in that journey where it's gonna be easy for that customer to now it might well be on the doorstep as you're receiving your hot pizza and everybody's happy. Or it might be seven days later after you've issued an invoice by post or by digital

Incentivizing Reviews for Employees

Lorcan

or by email, whatever the case may be. But think about it. Or ask them, why don't you ask the customer? Make it all very much customer centric. We are trying to build our reputation, share, share your journey. Share your development, and share your expansion journey, if you wanna call it that. Say, listen, we're working really hard to be the best at what we do, and we can only do that through customer feedback. When do you feel is the best time for you to give us a review after you've had our product or service? And what that shows is maturity and real sincerity. Start by thinking about the customer journey yourself, but why not ask the customer as well, what's the harm?

Robbie

And how many times would you ask? How many times would you ask? So let's say for example, you ask the customer door. So customer says yes, they'll do that, and then you send invoicing. Then you ask again, would you mind leaving out a review? If they haven't left a review, do you let it go or would you ask, would you follow it up in a couple of weeks time and just say, John, just a wee reminder by the email or whatever. John, just a wee reminder. Would

Handling Negative Reviews

Robbie

you mind doing that review?

Lorcan

Yeah. I'm going. The politician's answer, it depends, but I think this is, and this is the personalization comes into it. You will get to know if you've got a repeat customer who always comes back you will know over time when to ask for that review. After the third time, I would say leave it until the next time. People are busy, people don't want to feel pressured just flag it on their account somewhere or other them, I asked them for a view.

Optimizing the Review Request Timing

Lorcan

You'll probably see the the history on their account or on your CRM system where you've asked for, and it hasn't been completed. Pocket. Especially if they're a repeat customer, you will find it or just go and get one from somebody else. Simple as that. It's, you're not depending on just one because you're obviously depending on a whole platform or a whole plethora of customer types and personas, to, in order to collect reviews. But what I would say is just polite, persistence, and I think after three attempts, that's reasonable. Until the next time they come and use your product or service unless there's a problem. Why don't you phone them? Say, listen, you didn't, we asked you for a review. Is everything okay? That's another way of personalizing customer care where you actually take the time. Let's be honest, who lifts the phone nowadays? From businesses to ask, are you doing, really, again, it's the humanization of the business world is what again, that's my mission.

Jason

I recently, I recently brought a product, and it must have been about three weeks ago, and it was about two weeks. I got an email, but the email didn't come through till, I think it was about five o'clock at night. About asking to leave a review. I thought that the timing of that was quite good 'cause. I've sat down. Not really. It's not coming through my working

Lorcan

Yeah.

Jason

Day. And I thought that was quite clever. Like the, yeah. Wait till that sort of time to send it.

Lorcan

Yeah. Test, select, do 25, 50, 75, a hundred clients and maybe one month and then, split testing or whatever the case may be. Do it at a different time in the next month, and then you can maybe start to see trends and patterns as to when. The optimal time is to your point, is if it's five o'clock in the evening and you're just dining tools and you're in a good spot, that might be the optimal time. Might be eight o'clock in the morning for some people, who knows. But I suppose if you're trying to get a consensus across a a body of customers might be any harm, just to be creative and go the next step and think about doing it at different times over, over a period of six months to see where are they. The uptick rate sits best.

Robbie

You guys through trusted or through job, or you can ask for reviews. The likes of, would you recommend any ways The best way to send mass emails would be to use something like MailChimp. And send out a newsletter, would that be

Lorcan

MailChimp or, if you have a CRM system in your organization, then you know there's great automations available and you don't have to be a super with CRM expert to run those, there's lots of good examples like HubSpot and Salesforce and a few other, those m and other good example where you can set up. I believe you can set up automations to send out those review requests, after,

Robbie

is there any platforms or there, what apps would you recommend? So you mentioned a few there just,

Lorcan

Again, I suppose MailChimp is one of the more established ones, but there are others. Don't what I would say is experiment, do a little, take some time to do a bit of research on those because,

Robbie

find 'em on the, set your needs.

Lorcan

Yeah. Yeah. Find one. I suppose you could, you can overthink these things. If it does what it says on the tin, use it. MailChimp is one example, but there are other examples out there as well that you can use. Just

Robbie

off the top of your head, do you wanna name a couple of, I can't think of any, to be quite honest. I'm really honest.

Lorcan

But, and like I say, there is the ability to set up sequences and CRMs, most CRM systems, in order to do that very same function,

Robbie

what are the benefits of being able to pull all that information together or. Business. So if I have a hundred Google reviews and 50 Facebook reviews. Yeah. And 10 Yale and 10 here, and 10 there, yeah. What's the benefit of being able to take all those reviews together? What way do businesses typically use that information to grow their business?

Lorcan

You think about the amount of time it takes to manage all of those platforms, so you're bouncing from one platform to the other, and you're afraid of missing one, or you're forgetting one, or you've made, there's this fear that you've left it too long to respond. The beauty of our platform is that you can respond within one that our platform to all of the reviews that you have selected for the platforms that you've selected to, to pull the reviews in. So it's it's a time management first and foremost. It's you. The amount of time that you can save in your business by simply streamlining that process is not least the stress of, and the worry of if it is, worry is the right word, but let's call it concern of, forgetting to respond or, not being sharp enough or not being responsive enough. That's where we steal a margin on a lot of competitors whereby we're able to streamline that process for you and give you less stress

Jason

so people are going to wherever suits them to write a review.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Jason

Trust us. Pause all that information. Yeah. For the client, for like the business Yeah. Owner. Yeah. It's not for everybody else that's going out doing the review. And then for the business owner,

Using CRM and Email Tools for Reviews

Jason

he replies to all the reviews in one place. Yeah. And then. His reviews get published to where he wants them put out?

Lorcan

Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. The score that you see on your Google search will be your cumulative score from all of the platforms that you have, that from which you're pulling the reviews in. So you're gonna have, like you said a minute ago, Robbie you've got 20 Google reviews, you've got 20 on your website, and you've got 10 on 10 on Facebook. That's 50. And you're gonna arrive at an average score of that. So that's the score that you'll see with the stars beside beside the result whenever you do a Google search, whether it's a discovery search or a named search for your business.

Jason

Alright, so even though they're not Google reviews, it still adds to their Google

Lorcan

accumulates or aggregates that score. Yes.

Robbie

With trust test. Whenever you give someone the QR code.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Robbie

They then go to a landing page that has a review just for trust.

Lorcan

Yeah.

Robbie

It's not a review for Google or yell or off platform, but it's a closed system.

Lorcan

Yep. Closed platform. Yeah. So

Robbie

whenever somebody goes there, you can, it's not somewhere where somebody can just go. They can't find that link on their By themselves.

Jason

Yeah.

Robbie

They have to get a link to it. So you can say a hundred percent. This isn't just, 'cause you see a lot of websites and people go on and oh,

Benefits of Centralized Review Management

Robbie

message Jones says, premier Lawns did a fantastic job, but there's nothing to back that up.

Jason

Yeah. There's no, yeah.

Robbie

There's no hard evidence. Yeah. Whereas if you're giving a customer a link to your software. Then they have to follow it and you can see who exactly who is leaving their views. It's

Lorcan

ri absolute verifiable that,

Robbie

that's the word I'm asking.

Lorcan

Yeah. It absolutely is. Because it's you that's issuing it.

Robbie

Yeah,

Lorcan

and it's not a, it's not a third pla party platform like Trustpilot or Google or any other platform that, that's out there. You're in control of that because you have issued the QR code or the unique link. You're closing the loop. You, there's the verification and then there's the you can stand over that review.

Robbie

So really if you were standing on the doorstep and you're talking to Mrs. Jones and you say to Mrs. Jones and she said, oh, you've done a wonderful job. You say, look, would you mind leaving me a review? Yeah. Would you mind leaving it on Google? And some people say, I don't have a Gmail account. Yeah. Would you mind leaving it on Facebook? I don't have a Facebook account. Look, let me send you a link to our review platform. You can go on there

Lorcan

to our review page,

Robbie

to our review page. You can go on there Yeah. And leave your review there. Yep. And that's nice. And you

Lorcan

don't have to log in. And I, if somebody, maybe people who are maybe a wee bit older, for example, where username passwords, I forget usernames and passwords all the time, so I'm not even, I'm talking about myself here it's the accessibility and the ease of use is so key. And it is if it's people are in, who aren't especially. Tech savvy, let's call it, where all they do is they press a button on their phone. One of the, you're gonna get, I'll show you an example in a moment or two of what it actually looks like. But it's simple. It's easy. It's within anybody that has a smartphone, they just, it, click the button.

Robbie

Do the type, brings 'em through. Yep. You have all their information.

Lorcan

Yep.

Jason

Can

Robbie

you give us

Jason

three actionable steps business owners can take today to leverage online reviews?

Lorcan

Absolutely. First thing to do is Google is the go-to page for our go-to destination, if you like, for both business to business and business to consumer. Make sure that you have set up a Google Business page for yourself. Make sure it accurately reflects what your business does and how you can be found. That's really the, on an SEO search, for example, and for goodness sake, make sure that the data is correct on your Google business page. That if you, some, a consumer rings that number, somebody answers the open business, open in hours are correct, that it's, if you're a 24 7 business, somebody rings you at three o'clock in the morning, make sure that's happened now. Most businesses aren't. So you nowadays, you can set it up so that every single day of the week is you can define your open business hours. Okay. Second thing I would say is everybody in your organization that's customer facing, it's as much as a cultural or mindset within organizations to, to get into the habit of asking for reviews. And there's a shyness there, and that's quite all right. As I get said earlier on in the podcast, you've got to spread the good news of the 96 or the 97% of people that you do a fabulous job for. Tell everybody, that's the second thing, and it's it might require a wee bit of coaching and incentivization if you like. Like I say, we're small

Robbie

bonus for team members that for,

Lorcan

yeah. Yeah. And I say, and it's a win-win for everybody. And the third thing that I would share with you today is make sure that you have a customer or client review page on your website so that people can direct, can be directed to your website to leave a review directly with you. And you're not deleting your own brand by leaving it on third party sites, websites. That's what I would say.

Robbie

Can you share a real world example where a business use trusted, they manage their online reputation and the best sales and growth?

Lorcan

Absolutely. Several examples, we have standalone businesses with one site where we've had a real impact on their business. And we also, one of our largest clients is actually Timpson's. Who do the key members.

Robbie

The key, the keys.

Lorcan

Keys. They make keys and they shoe repairs. And they've got sub-brands for dry cleaners and things. They've got 2200 outlets across the UK and Ireland, and we service them. So we do literally every, there's very few businesses that we can't help, is what I would say. And one good example is there was a, an opticians that didn't have a review page on their website and they. They needed some help. They needed some help to get their SEO results optimized. So the first thing we did, we got their web developers to build a review page. They then got their staff to start collecting reviews, and all of a sudden there was a, it was a transformational it was transformational for their business because from not ranking at all. To, to ranking in the top five for local search for opticians in their region. So they were absolutely delighted with that result. And that was, again, it was a sm a small but significant change. It wasn't that difficult just to add a page to their website and then start collecting reviews themselves, change the culture within that small business to say every time you close a customer or customer out with a glasses or contact lenses or whatever it was, just ask them for a review. And that was, it was literally transformational. Another good example I can think of was a firm of undertakers the same thing. They didn't have a review page on their website, and the average duration of searcher visits was a minute and a half. After they built their review page, that increased to 11.5 minutes. So more than 10 times customers or prospects or users or consumers were staying 10 times longer on their website and they were able to attribute a 15% increase in business. That's crazy, isn't it? Absolutely brilliant. They were doing nothing else different except simply collecting reviews and publishing and amplifying them.

Robbie

The power of reviews. Yep. The power of reviews.

Lorcan

Yep.

Robbie

Thank you very much for coming.

Lorcan

No problem. Thank you Rob. Yep. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.