18 | Ask and Ye Shall Receive: Tim’s Review Revolution

What if the secret to boosting your business's credibility lies in your fingertips? Discover the transformative power of customer feedback in today's episode of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show, where I spill the beans on how to turn reviews into golden opportunities. Today, we help Tim, a small business owner feeling stuck, with some sparkling advice on leveraging both good and bad reviews to stand out. I share my personal experiences and insights on how simply asking for reviews can significantly improve your business's online presence and trustworthiness.

Imagine turning a negative review into a trust-building moment that wins over potential customers. That's the kind of magic we're talking about! Whether it's Google reviews, Trustpilot testimonials, or social media shout-outs, we unpack practical tips to make the most of customer feedback. Tune in to hear how addressing concerns and showing responsiveness can turn even a seemingly bad situation into a win. This episode is your go-to guide for mastering the art of reviews, packed with positivity and actionable strategies to get you and Tim back on track.

If you are self-employed or run a small business and feel more like you're self-annoyed then get in touch, visit the website www.theannoyinglyoptimisticshow.com where you can submit a question or problem and start your journey to becoming self-enjoyed! 

The majority of 'business advice' out there isn't aimed at self-employed or micro businesses, following it leaves you frustrated and chasing quick fixes. I specialise in tools, systems, techniques, inspiration and help specifically designed for YOU, the person who has to do it all, who doesn't have a team of people, unlimited resources or the time to spend months learning complicated techniques. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey there, listeners, it's your annoyingly optimistic host here bringing you another season of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Welcome to Season 2, voicemails to Tim. Now let's meet Tim. He's been running his own small business for almost three years now and let's just say he's hit a bit of a rough patch. You know how it is Sometimes you get so stuck, you make yourself busy and just avoid finding the real problems. Well, that's Tim.

Speaker 1 0:23

So, as a good friend, I decide to leave him a daily voicemail, if I can't get hold of him, filled with nuggets of inspiration, insight and wisdom and downright brilliant ideas to help get him unstuck Every day. In just under 10 minutes, I'll share some tips, tricks and a healthy dose of optimism to get Tim, and maybe even you, back on track, because, let's face it, we're all a little tired, in need of help and muddling through. So here we go. Oh wait, never mind Tim's being busy. Here's the voicemail I left him today. Hi, tim, thanks for your message. So I get what you're saying in terms of you're worried about or not worried, but your question was about kind of reviews and, yes, kind of social media, five-star reviews, google reviews, trustpilot, all those kind of things, and how you kind of get that message out because, again, you were feeling that you were very much kind of, you know, up there with some of your competitors I would say above your competitors but you were being and it's how to make more of those reviews. And one of the simplest things that I learned many, many years ago, actually, at the time doing some work with Trustpilot, and obviously they do a lot of research into reviews and what goes behind that. And, again, we're very much a review driven culture because, yeah, getting a recommendation from someone that you know is fantastic and and we often do that through social media, through liking things, through sharing things, um, you know, and and putting that message across. And it happens, of course, more and more online as opposed to kind of verbally and, um, you know, there's whole different areas where it, where it kind of happens and there's pitfalls and up that you know. We all know about the scandals that and it comes around every so often that all these fake reviews that people buy on Google and Amazon and things like that. So there is a trust issue in there.

Speaker 1 2:18

But fundamentally, and look at your own habits, you know, when you buy, buy something, do you dive straight down to the reviews. If I'm umming and ahhing about something, I will dive into the reviews and I will look for the bad reviews. I will find the one star reviews, partly to see whether there's such a weird thing that it's just kind of like okay, why did you buy that for that? That's not what, that's not its intended purpose, but also to see the response. Because there there's two things in here.

Speaker 1 2:45

A lot of people will look for bad reviews because in most instances, when someone leaves a review, you have the ability to comment or reply to that, and it's that comment and reply that people are actually looking for because they expect it. Even with the best companies, things will go wrong, things will happen, but it's how you deal with. It is what people kind of really want to understand, you know if, because they go oh, all these good reviews, but what if something does go wrong? Oh, there's a bad review, oh, it deals with it quickly, deals with it, you know, calmly, and and, and it wasn't a fuss. Okay, I'm, I'm covered. Either way, it's probably going to be good, because most of the reviews. But if it is bad, it deals with it timely and quickly. So I haven't got anything to worry, and that will often be what people are looking for.

Speaker 1 3:29

If they're looking for volume of reviews, it's just if it's something that they haven't heard about and go okay, loads of other people have used this service, then great. So the thing that and this is such a silly piece of advice and it's kind of obvious. But again, so many things in life are simple but we make them over complicated. The best way to get more reviews ask for them. Simple as that. Consistently ask for reviews at the time when your, when your customer is delightfully happy with the service and what you've given them, they've paid their money and everything else. Ask for review, just literally ask. Now again, I've got some scripts I can send you if you're not sure kind of what to ask, but it is as simple as just asking them for a review.

Speaker 1 4:14

Now, in an ideal world, what you want them to do for the you know, in the grand scheme of things, is you want them to go on and log on to Google and put it in there, because obviously that helps your SEO, that's kind of searchable and it's a good kind of core review system, unless you're using a third party, something like FIFO and Trustpilot and things like that. Now they do a lot of the asking for you and that's kind of what part of their kind of system but you're, you know, you're you're dialing into to their review system, then, as opposed to kind of running your own, you can get people to send you reviews, which means makes them really really nice to put out on social media which you should be doing anyway on your website, featuring three kind of recent reviews to kind of back that up, that social proof that people need. Obviously, that's harder than to get them onto things like Google and to help with kind of SEO and stuff like that. But it is simple. Simple to ask and again, I think the figure was something like 60% more reviews when you literally ask for them. We want people to be so delighted and excited that they naturally give us a review.

Speaker 1 5:24

But let's not leave it to chance. Systematically ask them and remind them to kind of do that, because, again, if you're in that mindset to do it, get it done and they're going to stay as a customer and you get to chat about how excited they were and look at what they loved, at what you did. So, yeah, you've got to use them. Um, you've got to put them out on social media, put them on your website. But you've got to consistently ask for them building a, you know an email workflow when you, you know, mark a client product is complete or whatever, so that it can automatically go out, can tell them, you know, um, how excited you were to work with them, or whatever, and just kind of ask for that review.

Speaker 1 6:05

You see it down to things like Etsy shops. You know that they go to a because it's very boutique. They go to a real extent of you know they'll wrap it nicely, they'll put a little card in there with a little handwritten thank you and they will be asking for reviews. And you'll see the automated ones that come out from bigger companies that are using a third party. Because it just kind of hits you three or four times to ask you that review. Because, again, once it goes kind of a week, 10 days, two weeks past that, you'll notice the, the third party ones tend to stop because they know if you're, if you don't act straight away almost on that review request, chances are you're not going to react at all, so they don't want to. Then it become a negative that you were chased and chased and chased. So that's why you've got it in the, in the heat of the moment, the excitement of receiving, you know, the, the product or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 6:57

That's when you want to ask as soon as close to that as possible, and and get those, and even if you get bad reviews, that's quite brilliant. Then what? What was it went wrong? Fix it, most importantly, and then ask them for a review. You know there are no missed opportunities or bad times to ask for a review. Every review you get is valuable because it's valuable to help the next person make a sale. If there's a problem there, it's valuable to fix it, to then make it better for the next person. So, yeah, you want to be shouting about those things, but just ask, just consistently ask for those reviews in whatever works for you, whether it's email, whether it's um, you know whatsapp message, whatever but ask for those um and you know, in a real friendly, nice, relaxed way, ask those reviews and you'll get more. So it's again, it's a bit simple, um, but it is backed up by that. That is what the big companies do and that is simply the best way of doing. If you want something, ask for it, um, rather than sit there and just kind of keep your fingers crossed. So I hope that helps answer that question, tim, and I shall catch up with you soon.

Speaker 1 8:01

Bye for now, and that's it for today's episode of Voicemails to Tim on the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Now, remember, tim might be busy, but we're all in this together. Whether you're tired, in need of help or just muddling through, tim is here for you because, well, tim is you. Yes, you heard that right. Tim isn't just my friend, he's a reflection of all of us who are struggling to make it work. Tim stands for tired in need of help and muddling through. So if you're feeling like a tim, you're not alone for all those ambitious listeners. If you've got a burning business question, a quirky thought or just want to see if you can leave an even weirder voicemail head over to the website, voicemails to timcom. Submit your question and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear your idea in a future. Voicemails to timcom. Submit your question and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear your idea in a future voicemail to tim. So until then, stay annoyingly optimistic, keep pushing forward and remember, if life gives you lemons, leave a voicemail about it.