While online is good for most businesses, you should also consider possibly looking towards local people. In fact, more and more people will trust recommendations from friends than from branded but how do you do it? Well, we’ll go over here some of the best tactics to get more customers for a local business.
To start, you want to look at reviews. You can ask for customers email addresses and phone numbers at the time of purchases in order to get a review from them. This is usually because if someone is willing to give you their contact details, they are happy with the experience. Once you have their emails, ask them to review the experience, and you can choose a review platform for them to leave a review on, and let them pick what’s best for them.
Another option is using in-store placards to encourage reviews. Local businesses need to use signage in order to encourage this, in the form of clings, brochures, flyers, and banners, and you can also include the review request at the bottom of receipts. You can even provide and app for customers to go to a landing page to review the product. You can even have a QR code for them to use too. These are really good for getting online feedback from customers, especially if you feel you can get a good, quality review from them.
Next, be verbal about asking for honest feedback, and have employees ask for this. this won’t’ be effective if there is a line at the front desk, but when staff asks for this to customers when it isn’t a busy time, it can be really good. Don’t’ be pushy, but instead be genuine, and you can even do it over the phone too in order to garner support as well.
On your website, include reminders. This is obvious, but a lot of businesses won’t be making the effort. A big reason why is, of course, they don’t want to put the effort out there on how to do so. A lot of people view it as unnecessary too. You can be pretty straightforward with this, and you can even include a call to actions and pop-ups that aren’t annoying so that they can go to your page, and from there, let them leave a review. Don’t be annoying, but instead be realistic in your ideas, and get them to help support your business.
Finally, give these people an incentive. Fi there is no reason for someone to do something, will they want to do it?
While you don’t’ have to give them a tangible reward, you can nudge them with vouchers, reward points, offers and even gift cards and sales. They can take X amount off their purchase with a review.
This makes customers realize it’s worth it to post a review, so it’s a win for everyone and improves loyalty and customer retention. You should definitely be honest about it and give people incentives, and never buy fake reviews. Fake reviews will completely destroy your business, and you want the feedback which is genuine.
Building reviews for your local business is super important. Without reviews, you’ll miss out on a ton of customers. So do take some time to ensure that you get the proper reviews from people and use these tactics to better the customer experience.
