Due to my extensive travel, I’m a prolific reviewer of restaurants and hotels. That said, there are more businesses that I don’t post about than I do, even if I had a good experience. While it’s frustrating, I can’t complain when people who are happy with my sales training or consulting don’t post reviews about me, when I am guilty of the same thing. What about you? Do you read reviews when considering purchases? Do you post reviews when you’re happy with the results? If you do, is it every time? Probably not.
Listen to this 6-minute episode for a little perspective on posting of reviews that will hopefully give you a little solace when you don’t get as many as you’d like.
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
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– What does it take for you to post a good review? Listen to this episode. See where I’m going with this.
Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I was having some conversations recently and we were talking about reviews and how hard it is to get reviews and things like that. And I said, you know, I am a prolific reviewer. I have personally posted over 650 reviews on TripAdvisor over 200 and, I don’t know where I’m at, 240 or so on, on Yelp, maybe more than that. And yet there are hundreds of businesses I have never posted a review for and never will. And I started thinking about what does it take to get somebody to post a review?
Even somebody like me that posts all of these good reviews, right? Oh, and I shouldn’t say that. All of these reviews, they’re not all good reviews. I might be a little different than some people. I don’t go immediately and post a bad review if I had a bad experience. I reach out to that business to give them an opportunity to know that it happened, especially if the manager or the owner wasn’t present when it happened.
So especially with the hotel, if the manager is not there when I’m checking out, I will say, “Let me get the manager’s name and email.” I’ll write to them, give them an opportunity to get back to me. If they don’t get back to me, I am being very courteous and I will give them a second opportunity. And then if they don’t get back to me, I might go and post that negative review or I will go to the, if it’s a chain like if it’s part of Hilton or Marriott, I’ll go to them and say, “Hey, I never got a response here.” Maybe they didn’t receive it or something like that. And then to me, the worst thing is when they do respond and they respond poorly. And that might make me go post a bad review as well.
I actually have one hotel right now that’s about to get one of those because they have not responded twice. I reached out to Hilton, they apologized and said, “We’ll make sure they get back to you,” and they haven’t. So that will probably get me to do it. But the key is that we need to move the needle as a customer. I’m sitting here, there’s two receipts in front of me from two restaurants that I was at recently that we had a very good experience and my intention is to post a good review for them and they’re sitting here to remind me to do that. And yet it’s been, what’s the date on this one?
This one is now two weeks ago. Yeah, it’s about two weeks ago and I still haven’t done it. I want to, I intend to, but it hasn’t happened yet. So when we’re frustrated that our customers aren’t posting reviews for us, we have to look in the mirror and say, are we just as guilty of that? It’s not that we didn’t like what they did. It’s not that we didn’t appreciate what they did. We just aren’t posting the review and people aren’t going to do it.
So think about what would move the needle for you to do that. For me, I need the reminder, that’s what it is. That’s why the receipts are here and I still intend to do it, but the longer this goes until I do, the less likely it’s going to happen. If I make a reservation through OpenTable for a restaurant, they will send me a, “Hey, how did it go?”
That reminder is helpful for me. And that’s where, for you, reminding your customers, it’s not that they don’t want to do it, not that they don’t intend to do it, do that. I had somebody yesterday, I was working with a client and they sent me an email that said, “Here’s a new testimonial for you.” And I went back and thanked them and said, “Could you do me a favor? Could you copy that here to Google? Because I want you guys to see it in a public forum.” Not where I posted it, but where the customer posted it themselves. I
t’s the same thing you could do with a thank you note that you got in text or an email or a message from someone and you asked them to go to The Knot or WeddingWire or Google or Facebook or Yelp or someplace to post that for you. It’s the same thing, just going back and thanking them and saying, “Here, here’s the link. Could you copy and paste this over there where other people could see it? Could you help me show them about that?” But I’m just going back to this, what makes you want to go post that review? What is it going to take?
And then if you’re getting frustrated ’cause your customers aren’t doing it, are you just as guilty yourself of that? And some of you might not be. Some of you might be prolific reviewers just like I am. But again, as prolific as I am with this, in so many places, I don’t post a review at all. Now for me, it kind of has to be an extreme, really loved it, really hated it, to make me post the review. If you did exactly what I expected and I walk away like, yeah, that’s what I wanted, it was fine. Nothing wrong, but nothing special. I’m probably not going to post the review.
I don’t do a lot of threes, I don’t. I do a lot of fours for restaurants and hotels because it’s different than a wedding or an event where you’re not going to have that again so there is no comparison. So you say yes, boom, five, goes great. It takes a lot for me to give somebody a five for a hotel or a restaurant because I know what that means. I’ve experienced something that just blew me away to the point of wow. But when it’s better than I expected, I want to give you that four. And that’s why when I’m searching for restaurants and hotels, I don’t need fives.
I need fours ’cause that’s again my benchmark, right? If I’m seeing a lot of threes, I’m like, “Hmm, okay, it’s not bad. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” If I’m seeing twos and ones, I’m probably not going to go there, right? That’s the difference. Then we look at recency, then we look at what they’re saying and other stuff like that. So let’s digress back to the beginning here. The whole point of this is if it takes a lot for you to post the review, understand that it also takes a lot for your customers and think about what you might be able to do to move the needle for them, which might be nothing more than just asking them again and reminding them again, right?
But it also could be incentivizing them and no, I don’t mean, hey, if you post the review, I’ll give you something. It’s give them something to thank them for choosing you and ask for the review at that time, because then there’s a feeling of reciprocity, code word guilt, that they want to do something back for you. Yup, I hope it helps get more reviews and maybe post three more yourself. Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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