Mariah Montano, Author at ReviewBuzz

The Most Important Review Sites for Contractors

The internet, social media, and the major search engines have enabled customers to research and learn about companies before they shell out their hard-earned dollars on the services they need. This is good news for reputable companies—at least those with savvy marketing skills and a knowledge of the review sites. However, these review sites are not alike.

Learn more about some of the best-known review websites today, so you can make sure your contracting firm is listed—and that you are getting the high-level reviews your business deserves.

Yelp

Yelp is a review site—and that is it. The site was designed to help consumers find local enterprises of all types. Yelp reviews often rank high on all search engines for local searches, making it crucial to get listed and even more important that your reviews be accurate and ideally with plenty of 5-star ratings. Additionally, Yelp reviews are syndicated to other services including Apple Maps (for the iPhone), Bing and Yahoo.

Google

Google is the leader in search engines today. Nearly 65% of searches are completed using Google. Anything you can do to improve your standing on this search engine Behemoth is vital. Google reviews are one of the simplest ways you can do just that. All it takes is creating a Google + business account, and then customers can review your business plus you get the social benefits of Google + too.

Bing

Bing is the second largest search engine and a crucial player in the review market. Bing reviews work much the same way as they do on Google except that local searches on Bing utilize the reviews from the Yelp Engine. Customers can search reviews locally to find nearby contractors and other service businesses—making it vital that you show up in these listings.

Yahoo

Yahoo is the third largest search engine, but that still translates to millions of searches ever month. Like Bing, Yahoo local searches pull from the Yelp engine. However, due to algorithm differences, you may find that your site shows up higher or lower on one site versus the other, so it is worth looking at the rankings and comparing results.

Facebook

You may think of Facebook as just a social media platform, but it as quickly grown into much more. When you create a business page for your company, customers can leave reviews. This makes your page more visible through standard search and gives you authority on the Facebook platform as well. This is just one more reason to consider upgrading your page to a business page on Facebook (which is free, by the way).

You may wonder; why doesn’t this article include reference to Thumbtack, Home Advisor or the heavily advertised Angie’s List as important review sites? In actuality, these are not review sites at all. They are paid lead generation tools.

Websites like these may be part of your marketing plan. However, these sites are quite a bit different from a free-form review site (such as Yelp!) that encourages all visitors to leave online reviews and read those left by others.

Now that you know a little more about how online reviews and reputation management for contractors work you may want to explore the concept a bit further.

Poke around our site to learn more about our unique software. We would love to help you start driving more web traffic and getting more calls by harnessing the power of 5-star reviews on the sites that matter most.

Image: Courtesy of Huffington Post

Be Remarkable!

remarkable-marketing

You’ve likely heard me say this before, but I can’t say it enough…

Being remarkable, creating raving advocates from your current customers, and then giving them an easy way to shout your praises across the internet is the most effective form of marketing in today’s digital world.

This sounds basic, I know, but I’m always surprised at how many businesses don’t make remarkable customer service a priority in their business.

Here’s an excerpt from Stop Marketing. Be Remarkable! to remind us of the surprising power of remarkability on our businesses.

How Remarkable Service Trumps Traditional Sales and Marketing

Many business owners see customer service as a type of damage control and think of marketing and sales as the engine that drives company growth. Meanwhile, successful companies like Tony Hsieh’s Zappos get away with spending very little on advertising and instead use remarkable service to create mind-boggling growth.

These types of companies are making one simple decision which sets them in a league of their own when it comes to creating long term success, growth and equity, making them the envy of every entrepreneur on the planet.

They’re making customer-centric service their primary product and therefore, their primary marketing strategy. Early adopters of customer-centric service will turn raving fans into effective online promoters. They won’t need to come up with out-of-this-world, Thomas Edison-caliber products or marketing ideas in order to create explosive sales and company growth. Their very business will become its own advertisement.

Zappos’ “Entrepreneurial Suicide”

In 2003, when Zappos was going through the roughest financial period of their early years, Tony Hsieh made some cuts (in between fundraising rounds) in places many experts thought would certainly cripple Zappos’ growth.

Rather than continuing to spend a large amount on advertising, Tony did something completely out of the ordinary and decided to cut most of their advertising and marketing budget.

He shifted those resources and invested them in creating a remarkable customer experience. As it turns out, this act of supposed “entrepreneurial suicide” catapulted Zappos’ growth and revolutionized the way businesses were being run.

Zappos-CEO-Tony-Hsieh

After making that groundbreaking decision, Tony grew Zappos from $70 million to $184 million over the course of just 12 months.

Over the next few years, Zappos continued to grow, going from $184 million to over $1 billion dollars in sales. This total growth from only $1.6 million to $1 billion took less than ten years.

Now here’s a question to consider… Is there anything earth shattering about selling shoes?

If you were to slip and fall in the shower, hit your head on the toilet and come up with the idea to sell shoes online, would you charge out of your house and run wet and naked down the street screaming: “Eureka!, Eureka!”? Probably not.

Selling Shoes Wasn’t a Remarkable, Innovative, or Outstanding Business Idea

If shoes were all Zappos had to offer, they’d have been priced out of the market by monster companies like Amazon and other online retailers who were willing to simply offer a lower price.

So how did Tony Hsieh grow Zappos so big so fast? He did it through remarkable customer service and turned ordinary satisfied customers into raving promoters and brand ambassadors who shared their positive stories through some of the largest social media platforms on the planet.

As you’re trying to grow your business, consider the story of Tony Hsieh and Zappos. You may be surprised what happens when change your focus from Marketing to Remarkability.

Be Remarkable!

Mike

Images courtesy of: Stylists Bootcamp; Jonathan Savage | Addicted2Success.com

How To Respond To Negative Yelp Reviews

Let’s face it – Yelp is a four letter word for most of us. It seems like the only reviews we see on it are negative reviews – and all the positive reviews get pushed into the dustbin called “…other reviews that are not currently recommended”.

Take heart though, despite riling us up and getting our blood boiling negative reviews come with great opportunity.

By responding to your negative reviews you can reduce the impact on your Yelp page. In some cases you may even get more calls to your business from a negative review than a positive one.

Here are some tips on how to respond to negative yelp reviews:

First, don’t be emotional. Take a deep breath…and relax. This is a great opportunity – you’ll see why when you read this.

Next, log in to your Yelp business account and add a public comment to the review. https://biz.yelp.com/

Resolving the issue publicly will tell a story to future visitors to your Yelp listing that you care and that you are committed to making customers happy (studies have shown that a negative review with a public comment from the business creates a better experience – and drive more calls – than a 5-star review).

In your public comment…

Always thank the customer for the feedback – this is a golden opportunity to learn and improve.
Be contrite – admit that you made mistake and that you want to make it right
Have the comment come from the business owner
Tell the customer that you will be sending them a private message in Yelp with your cell#, and ask them to call
Tell the customer you will be calling them personally as well

Next, send a private message to customer via your Yelp Business Account Admin.

In your private message…

Always thank the customer for the feedback
Be contrite – admit that you made mistake and that you want to make it right
Include your cell# and ask them to call
Tell the customer you will be calling personally as well

Resolve the issue and then ask for either an update to the review (this is the preferred method because it creates a great story of customer service to future visitors), or ask them to remove the review.

We know sometimes customers just can’t be satisfied, so even if they don’t go back and revise or remove the review, you have made a public display of great customer service and that will make a bigger impact on future visitors to the page than a 5-star review.

And, as always keep providing great service and earning great reviews because the more reviews you have in your account, the less volatile your star rating will be. You’ll be able to absorb any 1- or 2-star review without it changing your overall star rating.

3 Secrets That Transformed My Business

Like many small business owners, I started my career with a less than encouraging start. Unexpected pitfalls and incredible obstacles blocked my path to success.

When I started my home services business I was 23 years old with a family of five crammed in a 800-square-foot apartment.

My first office was my bedroom closet with the doors removed, and it was there that I sat in the wee hours of the morning planning my business strategy next to my tie rack.

MikesCloset_start

Then, shortly after starting my business I experienced the greatest adversity. My apartment had a new echo because all that was left was my desk, the bed, and my clothes. The pressure of my entrepreneurship was too much for my wife. She was gone.

In spite of being a single dad and a “closet” entrepreneur, I used my newfound knowledge of internet marketing to gain traction in my market. 1800Anytyme.com was dominating SEO rankings for all of San Diego County, Los Angeles County, Orange County, and Denver.

I was also ruling Pay Per Click (PPC) in my local market with powerful PPC campaigns that were making my phone ring off the hook.

But my success soon began fading. Traffic to my site was holding steady, but my call count was slipping, and slipping fast. Panic set in, I scrambled to figure out how to stop the bleeding.

Here are the three things that turned it all around for me – and they can do the same for you.

1. It’s Who Your Potential Customer Trusts that Counts

The most important lesson I learned was that the best tactic for converting that traffic to calls and those calls into sales had nothing to do with traditional marketing where you shouted your name as often and as loudly as you could.

What I discovered was that potential customers would come to my site, they’d read my self-serving marketing message and then they would leave, likely moving on to my competitor’s website.

Why? Because they didn’t trust me, or anything I had to say…

…and they don’t trust you either.

Your potential customers aren’t listening to you any more. In fact, they are actively trying to tune you out. They sort their mail over a trash can and quickly toss out your direct mail pieces. They fast forward through your tv spots, and they turn down the volume on your radio ads.

However they are listening to your past customers. Those that love you, and those that don’t.

Your potential customers are online – all the time. And the Internet has revolutionized how your people make purchase decisions. Before they make any purchase decision they go online and they look at reviews – yours and your competitor’s.

How does your company stack up online?

Your potential customers don’t trust you. They trust your past customers – and what they say about you on sites like Yelp, Facebook, Google+, Angie’s List, YP.com, Yahoo and many others…

It’s clear that online reviews are critical to the success of your business. People will choose you over your competition because your reviews are the catalyst for their decision. So the question then is…

“How do I get great online reviews – and how do I get more of them?”

2. Make Online Reviews Part of Your Company Culture

I quickly realized that the road to great reviews began and ended with my people.

I knew that without great service I would never get great reviews. Obvious, right? But too many business owners this still hasn’t sunk in yet. And that’s great news for you, because if you can beat your competitors to the punch by giving great service and getting great online reviews, you will absolutely crush it in your market. guaranteed

Like is said – it all starts with people. I’m curious…is the first contact a customer has with your company impressive? Are they extremely happy with the service you provided? Not just satisfied, but truly happy, ecstatic? Is the post-sale contact from your company respectful and courteous?

Let’s face it, in the service industry, your reputation is not about your company, it’s about your people. Your people are your products, and products are profitability game changers. No matter how good your company is, if your product is a failure, you will not last.

And the secret not many know is that your customers are motivated to write reviews about your people not about your company. Your people are the source (power) behind your reviews. They are the ones delivering the exceptional service, and they are the one’s your customers want to praise.

So, it’s critical to get your employees on board with reviews – to get them motivated and excited about asking for and getting reviews. Without that, your journey to 5-star online reviews goes nowhere.

Here are the keys to getting employees excited about only reviews.

Find the most influential front line personnel and focus most of your energy on getting their buy-in to the philosophy of winning reviews. The rest will follow.

Build solid and consistent communication and training about the process of winning reviews, not just asking for reviews, but winning reviews.

Reward and recognize great service. When there’s more accountability to provide great service and a new level of confidence that the great service will be rewarded and recognized, you will get 100 percent of someone’s effort.

3. Make it Easy for Customers to Write Online Reviews

If it’s difficult to give a review, your customers won’t do it. Even if they were over-the-top ecstatic about your people and their service, they won’t review if it’s difficult.

So you need to make it easy for your customers to post reviews. You may think it’s simple to post a review, but to some people it’s much the same as learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. So let’s make it as easy as possible for them.

You should have your business listed on every single social media site, review site and directory, plus any appropriate industry-specific sites such as HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List and then offer your customer an easy way to access the review site of their choice.

Give customers a direct link to your review pages so they don’t have to go looking for them. Then, give them clear and simple step-by-step instructions on how to post a review. Customers are often wary of creating a new account on a review site, so give them a few options.

Throughout the growth of my company I discovered the all- important link between top-notch customer service, online reviews and word-of-mouth marketing.

If you reward your team for outstanding service, make reviews part of your company culture, and make it easy for your customers to give reviews, I guarantee you will transform your company and dominate your marketplace.

If you’re curious about how you’re stacking up against your competition online, get a free analysis of your online reputation right here.

Thanks, and stay remarkable.

Mike

How Online Reviews Inspire Great Service And More Sales

If you’re struggling to keep your service team motivated about delivering a great customer experience and earning more sales, then watch this video.

The video is an interview with ReviewBuzz Founder Mike Montano and Troy Brigham, a service technician from Campbell & Company in Pasco, WA.

Watch and you’ll see how online reviews (on sites like Yelp, Google, Facebook, etc.) inspired Troy to deliver a great customer experience, which ultimately led to him getting more service calls – and more sales.

The bottom line message from Troy to other service pros is this: “the more reviews you get, the more money you will make.”

So if you want a more engaged, excited and motivated service team that provides a remarkable customer experience….then watch this video and start applying these concepts in your business today.

Have a great day and…Be Remarkable!

The Team at ReviewBuzz

How to Add A Business To Apple Maps

Most of us are familiar with using Google maps to get directions and find local businesses, right?

Google maps are everywhere – and used by millions of people everyday…

…and they are critical for the online marketing success of local business owners.

(If you have a local business and you don’t have a Google listing, set up or claim your Google My Business listing here.)

Now, Apple has launched business listings on its Apple maps application, and you can now add a business to Apple Maps.

Why you should add a business on Apple Maps now?

Millions of people use iPhones, and by extensions Apple Maps to find and review local businesses, so you need to get on this now. Apple maps is especially useful if you don’t yet have a mobile friendly website.

Because we love you and want you to be successful, we created a how-to document that shows you exactly how to add your business to Apple Maps (you can download the PDF file here).

Important Note:

Apple pulls in photos, address and online reviews from Yelp, so it’s now even more important that you have a great looking Yelp page that is fully updated and has lots of great online reviews.

Shameless plug alert….

If you want help getting more great 5-Star online reviews on Yelp, request a free trial of ReviewBuzz and we’ll help you get there.

Okay. That’s it.

Go and add or update your Apple Maps listing now!

Be Remarkable!

The Team at ReviewBuzz