Reviews. You’ve seen them, you use them and, most importantly, your customers check them.
But, how important are reviews for your roofing business and how do you generate more?
This guide covers both of these topics so you can maximize the impact of online reviews to increase leads and build your business.
Why Reviews are Important
Many businesses see getting reviews as an extra step that isn’t that imporant. However, getting reviews can affect how much business you get in the future.
These are the two main reasons reviews are important.
Authority and Trust
In business, your online reputation has become more important than ever!
In the past, someone could recommend a business to you and you would give them a shot. If it worked out you kept using them if the experience was subpar you would move on to another.
Today, even with a personal recommendation, people will check the reviews of a business before calling them. In their 2022 survey, Bright Local found that 77% of consumers ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ read online reviews when browsing local businesses.
That’s up from 60% in 2020.
The good news is that consumers don’t expect you to be perfect. The same survey found that consumers are looking for an average of four stars or higher. If you can keep your reviews over that, people will consistently give you a shot.
SEO
While there are many factors for search enging optimization, having a significant number of reviews is a ranking factor for local search.
If you do a search on Google for “roofers city, state” you will see a map with three businesses listed.
If you don’t have anywhere near as many reviews as one of those three roofers, then there is a good chance you will not rank in that map listing until you do.
Google is not as likely to trust a business that doesn’t keep up with the competition for reviews.
Make Giving A Review Easier
Whenver you are trying to get a customer to do something above and beyond what involves their personal interest, it is vital that you make it easy.
Get a Direct Link
Google provides a direct link for a customer to leave you a review on your profile, but you have to follow these steps:
- Make sure you are logged into the Google account that your Business profile is attached to.
- Search for your business name on Google with your city and state (ex. Roofing Experts Atlanta, GA).
- Click on the reviews inside your business profile box.
- When the pop-up opens, click on the “Get more reviews” button.
- Another pop-up will open with a direct link to leave a review.
If that seems a bit confusing, we put this video together to walk you through exactly how to get that review link.
QR Code
Once you have the link, you can convert that to a QR code where anyone with a smartphone can scan the code and it takes them directly to the review page.
Here’s how it’s done.
Go to QR-Code-Generator.com.
Once there you need to click on the button that says “URL” and paste your Google review link in the main box.
As you can see, this tells the QR code reader to open the url immediately after scanning.
Now all you need to do is click on the download button on the right hand side of the page. The generator will create the QR code for your and download it to your device.
You can then make the code available on any printed materials or have it stored on your phone for easy access.
Ways to Get More Reviews
There are many ways to get more reviews for your roofing business. The most important part is consistently asking people with good experiences to leave you a review.
These are the most common ways we encourage clients in implementing a review strategy.
At the end of a job well done, having a thank you email with a request for a review is an excellent way to encourage satisfied customers to leave a review.
Remember to send that direct link we talked about earlier.
Email Signature
Having a link to leave a review in your email signature is a more passive way to give your customers an opportunity for reviewing the business.
The only thing we don’t like about this method is that it doesn’t allow you to screen which customers you promote leaving a review.
Text Messages
Text messages are quick, easy and make leaving a review stupid simple. A quick thank you message with your review link can really accelrate your review hit rate.
In-Person
This is where having a QR code can come in handy.
After having the customer take a look at the finished work, ask them if they would be willing to leave a review.
If they say yes, your worker should have a copy of the QR code for the customer to scan from their phone and leave a review right then and there.
Screening Reviews Before They are Posted
There are tools online where you can send a quick survey to your clients to see how they feel about the job your team did with the roof installation or repair.
If they leave positive feedback in the survey, they are immediately prompted to leave a review on one of the most popular services.
If the customer leaves a negative review the software alerts you and gives you an opportunity to fix the issue before it gets left online for all to see.
We provide this software as a part of our roofer SEO services and our clients are able to provide a customer review campaign for both email and text messaging.
No matter how you decide to start getting reviews for your business, these steps will boost your review numbers and get a better average rating for your customer facing profile.