{"id":6184,"date":"2010-03-12T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2010-03-10T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T21:26:11","slug":"asking-for-reviews-umovefree-finds-the-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/12\/asking-for-reviews-umovefree-finds-the-groove\/","title":{"rendered":"Asking for Reviews – UMoveFree Finds the Groove"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Barber is President and CEO of UMoveFree<\/a>, the largest apartment locating service in Texas. UMoveFree is a free service that helps renters in Texas find a new apartment each month. Nick called with some questions about Google Maps and we had a great conversation about his company’s review strategy. Nick agreed to share his review gathering story and tactics.<\/p>\n

MB: Could you provide a brief overview of your process to garner reviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nick<\/strong>: When we started taking an active role in our online reputation management I noticed, like I\u2019m sure many business owners notice, that the review sites are more likely to attract a customer that has a negative experience than a positive one.\u00a0 That is, even if the overwhelming majority of your customers have positive things to say about your product or service, those customers are more unlikely to post their opinions online than the few customers who have negative things to say.\u00a0 The trick is to identify your satisfied customers and give them a voice.\u00a0 I think this starts by making certain you run a good business with a strong focus on customer service.\u00a0 Our strategy focuses on giving our happy customers a strong voice\u2026that means we have to first have overwhelmingly happy customers.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s worth saying that no matter what you do, if your customer satisfaction is bad then your online reviews are bound to be bad as well.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you have great customer satisfaction it should be relatively easy to make the online review sites reflect this truth\u2026so long as the business is taking an active approach.<\/p>\n

How long have you been actively seeking reviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n

About 6 months.\u00a0 We got to the game late but we made it a major focus once we showed up.<\/p>\n

What has been your experience with customer reviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great.\u00a0 Some consultants will say \u201cReputation Management\u201d is trying to de-rank the review sites and rank \u201cother\u201d alternative pages that are created for this purpose.\u00a0 We started with this strategy and put out new content (articles, press releases, etc) that were essentially a pseudo brochure for the brand.\u00a0 These articles were optimized for brand name keywords and then we worked to get page one of a brand name SERP to be covered with this content.\u00a0 This was mildly successful but had a temporary shelf life.\u00a0 In my opinion Google has a vested interest in ranking the legitimate review sites on a brand name search\u2026If someone is doing research on your brand that\u2019s what they want to see, and there\u2019s no way you can trick Google with a bunch of brochure-like articles.\u00a0 We dropped that approach and instead focused on making sure the pages that are bound to rank were likely to give customer a positive impression of our brand.\u00a0 Again, this all about having good customer service and making sure you leverage those happy customers.<\/p>\n

What process have you implemented to make it easy for your organization to get reviews and for clients\/customers to give them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have changed the culture so that everyone is aware this is a major goal for the company.\u00a0 When we encounter an extremely happy customer (which happens often if you\u2019re running a good business) we simply take the time to point that customer in the right direction.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

What review sites do you recommend to customers? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Picking sites that are easy to post a review on is the best strategy.\u00a0 If it takes 10 steps and a double email confirmation the customer is likely to give up.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had the best success with Google Local, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, JudysBook, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, and InsiderPages.<\/p>\n

What is your experience with Yelp…
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

We avoid them like the black plague.\u00a0You can find a lot of articles on the subject so I won\u2019t get on a soap box\u2026but we\u2019ve had around 30 satisfied customers post positive reviews on Yelp and none of them posted to our profile.\u00a0 When we asked why we were told that the customer has to be an \u201cactive Yelp user\u201d or the reviews will not show up.\u00a0 When we asked what constitutes an \u201cactive Yelp user\u201d we were told that formula was proprietary and confidential.\u00a0 Of course, this didn\u2019t stop them from making a sales call and offering us assistance in getting more positive reviews on our account.\u00a0 After doing some research and realizing this was a much bigger problem with other business owners, and that they were involved in a class action lawsuit for similar accusations, we just decided to avoid them all together.<\/p>\n

What were the barriers to getting a smooth process set up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has to be consistent and sustainable.\u00a0 Every employee has to be aware of the project and empowered to get involved; not just the marketing and management departments who rarely interact with customers on the ground.\u00a0 For instance, if the receptionist has a chance phone call with an overly appreciative customer their immediate response should be \u201cwe really appreciate your positive comments\u2026would you mind if I send you an email with a link to our XXXX business review profile\u2026it would mean a lot to us if you take just a moment to share those thoughts with other potential customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Do you incent clients in any way to provide reviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NO.\u00a0 We decided this could potentially destroy our credibility.\u00a0 The last thing you want is a customer you thought was happy that turned out to be not so happy posting a comment like \u201cdon\u2019t believe any of these positive reviews, this company offered me a bribe to post a positive comment on this site\u201d.\u00a0 We even included a section in our policies and procedures handbook.\u00a0 Offering incentives for a positive review will land you in serious trouble with the big boss\u2026posting a fake review will cost you your job.<\/p>\n

Do you make your review process explicit on your website?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, but we are in the process of overhauling our site and it will be on the new site.<\/p>\n

How do you handle negative reviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Actively, immediately and seriously.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an example\u2026Check out the review and comments from \u201cHeaS\u201d on 9\/5\/2009:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/local.yahoo.com\/info-18620194-umovefree-irving;_ylt=AlySqGlgA1irDpE5n2OMSNaKNcIF;_ylv=3?tab=reviews&allreviews=1#reviews<\/a><\/p>\n

How has the world of online reviews impacted your business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We see this as a major competitive advantage.\u00a0 We have great customer service and by taking an active approach our online review profiles now reflect this\u2026<\/p>\n

I always tell our sales reps that if your customer is considering using another company, tell them to check the reviews of us and our competitors online and let me know every time they still choose the other company\u2026I\u2019ve never lost a customer after they do the research.\u00a0 The reviews are legitimate and they are the best marketing pitch we could ever give a customer that is considering using our service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Barber is President and CEO of UMoveFree, the largest apartment locating service in Texas. UMoveFree is a free service that helps renters in Texas find a new apartment each month. Nick called with some questions about Google Maps and we had a great conversation about his company’s review strategy. Nick agreed to share his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6188,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions\/6188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}