If you’ve taken a trip using the ride-sharing app, Uber, then you know all about their star rating. Every driver has it prominently displayed, and Uber requires its drivers to maintain at least a 4.6-star rating to keep driving for them.
That’s extremely high, right? How is it that drivers are overflowing with good reviews when your home services company barely rakes in more than a handful of reviews?
It’s all in how you ask.
Soliciting Reviews
First, Uber actively solicits reviews, something not enough home services firms do. The app automatically requests a review of the driver from the passengers and vice versa. You can’t expect your home services firm to get good third-party reviews without asking for them. Only restaurants generate hundreds of reviews organically.
Business owners get gun-shy about asking for reviews. There are a few common reservations.
First, they worry that they’ll bother their clients by asking for a review. The fact is that most people get all kinds of requests every day. The average person gets 88 emails per day. Your request will be just one of the many, many requests for their attention they get that day, and they’ll forget about it as quickly as the 80 other emails they didn’t care about that day.
Second, home service contractors worry that they’ll get bad reviews. There are systems to mitigate that risk, but for the most part, this is unfounded. You, of course, remember well the occasional unsatisfied client, but you don’t remember the legions of satisfied ones. That’s good in a way — a satisfied customer should be a ho-hum event. But it makes you forget that the vast majority of your clients are satisfied with your work.
Know When to Ask
The real key to getting good reviews is knowing when to ask. Uber knows exactly the right moment: When the passenger exits the car. You immediately get pinged by the app for a review right when you’re most satisfied.
We call this the “Uber moment,” and finding it is an art and a science. It depends on what kind of company you run, but it’s there somewhere.
Say you own a patio furniture retail store. When is the customer most satisfied? Right at the point of purchase. Whatever they have is theirs, and they haven’t had a chance to be disappointed by it. If you wanted to get good reviews, you’d ask everyone to review you at the point of checkout.
What if you have a landscape supply delivery company? It’s the day of the delivery when the customer finally has the big pile of mulch they’ve wanted for a while, but — crucially — before they’ve actually gotten down to the hard work.
What if you’re a contractor? That time is the final
Every situation is different, but our system will work for everyone. If you want to find your Uber moment and give your third-party reviews a shot in the arm, contact us! We’ve seen it all and can build a custom plan for you.