Five stars for your company: Google reviews in check

A journey back in time before the Internet: Anyone who needed a quick new haircut before an important job interview asked friends about a suitable hair salon. “Go to the one on the street corner, not the one at the train station, it's way too expensive,” a buddy advised. On the other hand, if you wanted to try out a new bar that no one you know had visited yet, you simply did so without having the opportunity to check the drinks or service on the web beforehand. Nowadays, we enter “good hair salons in Ingolstadt” into the search mask and compare the reviews of all hair salons from all over the city. We Google a bar we don't know before we visit it to read reviews from strangers. In a study by searchenginland.com, 88% of respondents said they trust online reviews to the same extent as personal recommendations. Advice from Testfreak089 is therefore just as credible for many as that of their own friend. We learn: Nowadays, word of mouth is mostly carried out online. For example, if you operate a hotel in Munich city center, this is always compared with other accommodation options. If Ms. Schmidt only comes across negative or no Google reviews about your hotel at all, she will most likely stay with your competition, which has four to five golden stars. It doesn't matter which sector your company belongs to — people will always use the opportunity to find out about your business in advance. If you oversleep this development, you will no longer be able to assert yourself against growing competition in the long term. To prevent this, the following explains how you can easily avoid mistakes, deal with negative reviews in the best possible way and the most important thing of all: how to get positive reviews for your company.

No reviews — no problems?

At a time when end customers have more power than ever before, purchasing decisions are being made rigorously. If a completely unknown place was simply tried out in the 1980s, very few today run the risk of being disappointed, as they have the opportunity to compare a number of places with each other in advance. For this reason, businesses that do not receive any reviews on Google often lose the battle against competitors who have been rated. In a representative survey by the digital association Bitkom, a third of German consumers stated that they trust offers for which there are no reviews less. The legendary bestselling author Zig Ziglar (See You at the Top) explained how essential trust is in sales with the following words: “The main reason for deciding not to buy from you is a lack of trust.” In addition, companies without reviews are visually lower in the search rankings, while stores with reviews stand out visually with the golden asterisks.

How to deal with negative reviews

Case study:Mr. Möllinger visits your restaurant, enjoys a starter, a main course, plus drinks and would like to redeem a voucher at the end for a free dessert that has not been valid for two years. Your waiter refers the guest to the expiry date, whereupon Mr. Möllinger leaves your premises furious. That same evening, read the following Google review from Mr. Möllinger: “Mediocre food and unfriendly waiter who did not want to redeem a valid voucher.” This review, which has only one star, could drastically downgrade your company's Google rating and cause significant financial damage as a result. Like many other entrepreneurs in this situation, you are now playing with the idea of having the negative review deleted. But that is not as easy as expected. Without hiring a specialist lawyer, your chances of success are low and the processing time is long. If you want to hire someone to delete it, only reputable lawyers are eligible; dubious companies on the Internet based abroad are not legally authorized to do so. On average, you pay well over 100 euros to delete a single review, and the comment can be rewritten and published at any time. The bottom line is that deleting Google comments is extremely expensive and only solves the problem for now. But it is not only the sale of products and services that can be demonstrably increased through Instagram marketing, the presence on the platform helps over a third of the respondents to find suitable personnel for their own business. You will not only meet people who are interested in customer contact and are enthusiastic about your restaurant, but potential applicants also have the opportunity to get to know your company better in a clear and uncomplicated way. Almost half of all participating companies even confirm the latter as part of the study carried out. Scheduling job interviews can be much easier in the future: If trained confectionary salesman Michael Zoller responds with a heart emoji to your story post about the current vacancy, you can first view the applicant's profile and, if interested, arrange a meeting directly.Avoid negative reviewsImagine if there was a way to avoid negative reviews in the first place. A solution that means you never have to worry about the costly and time-consuming process of deleting comments. The solution is to offer your customers the opportunity to publish positive Google reviews about your company, but not to share negative feedback with the whole world, but to collect it in your email inbox. For example, the guest at your hair salon has the opportunity to complain about what they think are too long waiting times and is in direct contact with you. You will then have the opportunity to answer him and address his condition directly, but without publicly discussing the matter in a business-damaging manner. The Socialwave marketing package includes such a function that, in the event of negative reviews, customers are redirected to an internal form instead of on Google. In the future, your potential customers will therefore never again receive comments like “Waited an hour despite an appointment!” put off.

The importance of positive reviews

Summer is over and autumn is defining our ever shorter days. You notice: Wearing a white polo shirt when opening up your restaurant business in the morning cold is no longer enough to keep you from freezing — you need a down jacket. When searching for closing time, you come across numerous offers on the Internet and, like almost three quarters of Germans, read corresponding product reviews before making a purchase. One of the jackets has received ten different reviews in recent months, all positive. “Keeps you warm and looks chic,” says the general tone. All the good experiences of the customers before you have convinced you — you click “buy.” You are already one of the third of German online shoppers who let the opinions of other buyers on the Internet influence their purchase decision. “References are better than 1,000 sales arguments,” says Martin Limbeck, a successful wholesaler and author, summarizing this phenomenon. Positive reviews are essential not only for selling down jackets, but for shops, companies and services in all sectors. Regardless of whether you run a doctor's practice, a bakery or a car dealership, you only prefer new customers to your competition if you have a positive overall Google rating.

Is it worth buying reviews?

Due to the high value of positive Google reviews, there are numerous providers on the Internet who advertise the sale of fake reviews. But what seems uncomplicated and profitable at first glance is in fact a dubious game with a certain loser: the buyer. Acquiring any references is not only very expensive, it is also illegal due to the Act against Unfair Competition. Twenty times 5 stars, for example for your new bar business, cost an average of over 200 euros here. You may then also delete your company's profile by Google and receive warnings from competitors, as you violate both the Google Maps terms of use and competition law. Google is also currently increasingly taking action against fake reviews and deleting them again, which would waste the 200 euros and could have otherwise been invested in marketing your bar. Buying positive Google reviews is therefore strongly discouraged in any case. But which legal and effective way is the right one? In the following section, we'll show you how to attract reviews such as “Great bar: delicious drinks and great music” from real customers.

Make things as easy as possible for your customers

Suppose a customer at your supermarket meets a helpful salesperson. There is a high probability that she will be happy about it shortly afterwards, but will then continue her everyday life as usual and would like to shop at your premises again the next morning. On the other hand, if she meets an unfriendly cashier the following day, the negative experience can often weigh on her even more long-term. Compared to the joy of the previous day, this displeasure more often leads to feedback about your company. This is due to the distortion of negativity, as a result of which the human psyche is more influenced by negative experiences than by positive ones. In addition, it is often not worthwhile for your guests to spend their precious time giving you feedback about positive experiences. So make it as easy as possible for customers in your organic supermarket to leave a review about your business in the future. Give your visitors the opportunity to provide feedback directly after their stay at your premises. The easiest way to do this is to use the Socialwave WiFi Marketing Package feature, which reminds your guests via email to rate their experience. Lean back and collect positive Google reviews about your supermarket, restaurant, hair salon or gym, which would never have been created if the tool hadn't automatically asked your customers about them at the moment when the visit was still current.

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conclusion

Every fifth search query on Google now has a local connection and that is why it is all the more important that Max Zahnschmerz sees your practice first and foremost when searching for “Dentists Berlin”, for example. More than eight percent of your Google ranking is influenced by your Google reviews. So if you want to run a successful business today, Google reviews are essential. There is no way around online reviews, with both the absence of reviews and the presence of negative reviews harming your company. For this reason, it is up to you to avoid negative reviews and actively attract positive ones, like a kind of magnet. With the Socialwave marketing package, you can do just that, either via logins to the WLAN network or via signposted QR codes. You can find more information about the Socialwave marketing package here.With our WLAN marketing package, your customers/patients/guests advertise for you, are happy and recommend you to others.