In our last article we shared that for several important reasons positive Customer Reviews are the currency of favorable SEO and of gaining credibility with your prospects and customers. The evidence of that is clear, the less clear element is how to ask for, receive and communicate positive reviews and ratings from your customers. In this article we will explore some options for accomplishing that mission.

You Have to Ask for Reviews

It seems simple enough that the best way to receive a review is to ask for it - that being said, if asking is not part of your business processes it will likely not get done.

Look at your current business processes with eye toward determining where in the multiple steps of processing a prospect through to a customer you can insert the task "Ask for a review/rating". Find the spot at which it makes the most sense for your processes and insert it and prioritize it as a MUST DO.

Once asking is part of your business rituals, build some goals around it such as offering a reward for consistency in asking, or for receiving results.

If physically asking is too great of a burden for you or your business team, find ways to automate the process. There are some great tools available to make the task virtually effortless. Research the following to determine if they are fit for your business:

• https://www.powerreviews.com/
  
• http://www.bazaarvoice.com/
  
• https://trustspot.io/
  
• https://www.shopperapproved.com/
  

Let the World Know

Of course the value of customer reviews is greatly diminished if you do not effectively communicate them to the interested audience. Reviews do have internal value to your business, helping your examine your strengths and weaknesses and improve your products and/or services, however, to leverage their full potential positive reviews must be accessible for the public.

Many of the tools listed above provide a relatively easy way of publishing the reviews gathered via their software. If, however, you are using a non-software method of asking for and gathering customer reviews you will need an additional process to share the fruits of your labor.

Just as it is important to make asking for reviews an element of your daily business processes adding the communication of the reviews that you have gathered to your scheduled tasks is vital. Perhaps it will mean providing the reviews to your webmaster on a scheduled basis, or publishing them in your business's blog.

Leveraging Your Reviews

This article has focused on the communication of customer reviews via your company's website. There are other uses of reviews that will optimize their value, for instance:

• Each week add a new customer review to your email signature.
• Include customer reviews in printed marketing collateral.
• Post reviews to your social media accounts.
• Add customer reviews to your business's signage.
• And perhaps most importantly, study your customer reviews looking for strengths and weaknesses in your business delivery and products. Reviews are an excellent way to see your business from the other side of the counter - from your customers' perspective and that can be invaluable to the improvement and growth of your business.

Asking for, receiving and communicating customer reviews are among the most beneficial activities your business can undertake. Making those activities a priority for your business should be prominent on your manager's task list. From SEO juice to credibility building through valuable business intelligence, customer reviews are a golden asset for your business.