I previously wrote about how positive reviews of your local services business are the gift that keeps on giving.  Customers and prospects will see this positive independent feedback on your business for the days, months and years to come.  With a free and open review system like HelpHive, those reviews will also be promoted across Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines as well as many other places on the Internet.  Your reputation functions as a strong marketing program for your business … which is what you always hoped and expected it would … but it didn’t always work that way, right?!

Rich positive reviews bring your services to life

Here’s an actual review posted for a landscape design business called Cambium Design .  You can see Cambium Design’s HelpHive page including this review.  Carlin P. (a real person, you can see her profile here) is obviously a happy and satisfied customer!  She’s provided some great, rich information about Cambium’s work including:

• what work they did for her
• photos of the work (she uploaded these! Cambium could also have uploaded them)
• rating:  5 stars
• awarded them 3 badges (hover over to see):  High quality work, Went the extra mile and Great attitude
• commentary on what she liked

How valuable do you think this review is to Cambium?

As the Mastercard commercial says, priceless!

Getting your customers to review your business on HelpHive

Here are a few tips for getting customer reviews posted on HelpHive:

• Ask.  If you don’t ask, they won’t review you.  Simple, but often forgotten truth!
• Ask early.  When your work is fresh in their mind.  Did they just thank you more enthusiastically than you thanked them?  This is the best time to get them to act before they get on to their next item.  This is why you get asked at some retail stores or amusement parks to immediately provide feedback.
• Ask them for a favor.  If you’ve wow’ed them with the quality of your work/service, then you may be able to appropriately let them know … “hey, I really try to do a great job.  What I’d appreciate the most is if you’d take 5-10 minutes to review me on HelpHive.”
• Offer them an incentive.  For instance, a future discount or a coupon or something for writing a review.  Remember, it must not be conditional on whether they write a positive review or not (as HelpHive strictly prohibits paying customers to write positive reviews).

Resources:  Here’s information you can send to customers including a sample email requesting them to review your business.