Did you know the U.S. is home to more than 10,000 household appliance stores? If you're the owner of an appliance store, this can make it difficult for your establishment to stand out in the crowd.
So, what can you do to make sure your appliance store doesn't get lost in the shuffle? One of the most effective ways to do it is by using Google customer reviews to your advantage.
The more Google reviews your appliance store is able to get, the more customers you should see coming through your front door. These business reviews can boost sales by ensuring that people come across your appliance store when they search for a business like yours.
We're going to walk you through how you can utilize Google customer reviews to your benefit below. Continue reading to find out how easy it can be to get the job done.
The good news for appliance stores that want to take advantage of the power of Google customer reviews is that they'll be free to do it. You will, however, need to agree to Google's Terms of Service before you get started. You can find them here.
Google has put some strict rules and regulations in place regarding its reviews. For example, your appliance store isn't going to be able to promise payments and/or discounts to customers in exchange for reviews.
If you get caught breaking any of Google's rules, it's going to prevent you from using Google customer reviews to your benefit. So you should make sure you're aware of these rules prior to doing anything else.
As long as you read through Google's Terms of Service and agree to play by their rules, you can proceed to establish a Google Business Profile for your appliance store. To do this, you will need to take these steps:
1. Turn your appliance store into a "Place" on Google Maps
2. Set up a Google My Business account
3. Verify that you own your appliance store through Google
It isn't going to take you long at all to create a Google Business Profile. But you aren't going to be able to begin collecting Google customer reviews until you go through the verification process.
If you've left reviews for other businesses in the past, you can skip this step. But because you're going to be in charge of convincing people to leave reviews for your business, you will need to know how to do it. So you should take the time to figure it out.
Fortunately, it's very easy to leave Google customer reviews. Most people will be able to do it within just a minute or two. It'll call for you to go through these steps:
1. Open Google Maps
2. Search for a business
3. Click on your business name
4. Look for the reviews section on your business profile
5. Write a review
Work your way through this process a few times to get the hang of it. It'll make it so simple for you to explain it to customers when you're encouraging them to leave your appliance store reviews.
When your customers want to leave your appliance store reviews, they might know to go to Google Maps to do it. But they might also visit your website thinking that would be the place to go to write a review.
With this in mind, you should put a link to your Google reviews page on your website. You can set up a special "Reviews" or "Testimonials" section on your site that has a link to your Google Business Profile.
You might also want to consider obtaining a widget that will allow you to post positive reviews for your appliance store right on this section of your site. These reviews can help show potential customers why they should shop for appliances through your store. This alone could boost retail sales in a big way for your business.
It's one thing to go through the process of creating a Google My Business profile so that you can begin gathering Google customer reviews. It's another to start getting reviews.
As we mentioned earlier, you are not going to be allowed to solicit reviews by offering people money or discounts. But there is nothing wrong with simply asking people to leave you Google reviews after you're done providing them with appliances.
Without being too pushy, you should ask people who purchase appliances from your store to consider leaving you reviews. You should also prepare to show them how easy it is to increase the chances of them providing you with reviews.
Outside of coming right out and asking people to leave Google customer reviews, there are also other things you can do to encourage them to write reviews for your appliance store. You will need to get creative to let people know you would appreciate their reviews.
Here are things you can try to do to entice people to leave reviews for your appliance store:
1. Put together "Please Leave Us a Google Review!" cards and hand them out when closing a sale
2. Create an email campaign designed to ask customers for Google reviews
3. Ask customers for Google reviews on social media
4. Place a Google reviews link for your appliance store in your email signature
You might even want to go as far as to film a short video that showcases how people can leave Google customer reviews. With a little luck, people will watch it and start to write reviews for you after seeing how simple it is to do.
If you've done everything we've talked about up until this point, it should only be a matter of time before you're bringing in your fair share of Google customer reviews. Hopefully, you'll get almost nothing but positive Google reviews from your customers.
But whether the reviews you receive are good or bad, you should immediately get yourself into the habit of responding to them. In a perfect world, you should respond to each and every Google review that you get from your customers.
After getting a positive review, you should thank a customer for their business and let them know you appreciate them taking the time to leave a review. Doing this might make a customer feel more loyal to your brand and have them coming back to your store the next time they need an appliance.
After getting a negative review, you should resist the urge to snap back at a customer and instead do what you can to make things right. If nothing else, you should leave a response asking them to contact you ASAP so that you can learn more about their unhappiness with your store.
Studies have shown that about 86% of people will shy away from buying anything from a company that has negative reviews. You can put a positive spin on negative reviews with your responses to them and show people that you care about your customers' satisfaction.
Within a few months of setting up a Google My Account profile and beginning to collect Google customer reviews, you should have a stockpile of reviews you can use for marketing. You shouldn't be afraid to use these reviews to portray your business in the best possible light.
We already alluded to how you should try to have some of your best reviews showcased on your website. But you might also want to think about adding your reviews to:
1. Your store's email signature
2. Your store's apparel
3. Your store's marketing materials (newsletters, pamphlets, business cards, etc.)
Positive Google customer reviews are going to be worth their weight in gold. You should use them early and often as far as marketing your appliance store is concerned.
Every time a customer leaves a Google review for your appliance store, you should use it as a learning opportunity. You will be able to learn so much about what improvements you can make to your business by putting reviews to good use.
For instance, if you notice that more than a few people complain about how long it takes your store to deliver appliances, this will be something you'll want to address. You'll also want to address any comments that people leave about your prices, your warranties, and your sales.
Additionally, you should check to see what compliments people tend to pay you the most. This will allow you to identify your strengths so that you can continue to use them to set your appliance store apart from the pack.
In recent years, studies have suggested that the average small business has about 39 Google reviews. You should be able to top that with ease by working hard to convince people to leave Google reviews for your store.
But here's the thing: You shouldn't ever stop trying to get Google reviews. Even if you're able to get hundreds of them, it's important for you to keep striving to get more.
Eventually, a lot of your initial reviews will get to be old, and people won't trust them anymore. It's going to look bad if the only reviews they see are from a few years ago. Even reviews that are a few months old might not instill much confidence in people.
Ideally, you will want to keep on working to collect as many Google reviews as you can. They'll continue to work wonders for your business as long as you're bringing them in.
At this point, you should see how easy it is to get people to leave Google customer reviews on your own. But if you find yourself struggling to gather reviews, you should know there are companies that can help.
We can provide you with our appliance.io platform that will make it so easy to manage many aspects of your appliance store. One of the main things we can help you do is improve search engine results and provide you with a review booster.
This review booster will help you get ten times the number of Google reviews that you're getting now without any effort on your part. You'll be surprised to see how effective it can be.
But don't just take our word for it. Instead, see how this review booster has helped an appliance retailer like Slyman Bros. Once upon a time, they only had about 100 Google customer reviews for each of their locations. Today, they have hundreds and sometimes even thousands of reviews for these same locations.
Would you like to get some additional information on how our appliance.io platform can benefit your appliance business? We would be more than happy to break it down for you. Our appliance POS could be just what your business needs.
We would also welcome the opportunity to show you how our platform can help you obtain more Google customer reviews. These Google reviews can boost sales for your company in no time and leave you wondering why you didn't start trying to get more reviews much earlier.
Reach out to us today to book a free 30-minute demo so that you can hear more about how we can help your business.
