Author: Chad Diller
Are you frustrated because you don't have enough good Google reviews for your business? You have hundreds, maybe thousands of happy lawn care and landscaping customers, but where are their reviews?
Today I'm going to show you a proven method to get hundreds of great Google reviews for your lawn care landscaping business. Stay tuned.
Video Transcription
Hey, what's up? It's Chad with Landscape Leadership. We've helped dozens of mid-sized lawn care and landscaping companies all across the country, crush their competition and grow a business with a great online reputation.
If you're new here, make sure you hit the subscribe button down in the corner because I will frequently release new videos with lawn care and landscaping marketing tips that you're going to want to take advantage of.
Also, all the resources that I mention in this video along with some bonus materials you're going to find down in the description below.
In my last video, I focused on the “WHY”, meaning, why is it so incredibly important to get Google reviews for your lawn care or landscaping business?
If you haven't watched that video, be sure to check it out. Today, we're going to focus on the “HOW”.
How exactly will you get Google reviews for your lawn care or landscaping business? In order to make this happen, you're going to need three things.
1) The Right People
The first thing that you're gonna need is the right people. So who is the most passionate person at your company about getting Google reviews from your customers and who has the time to do that?
And also who is the type of person that's wired for my next tip?
(RELATED READING: Filling a Marketing Position - Hiring Within or Looking Outside?)
2) A Detailed, Proactive Process
My second tip is that you need a detailed proactive process. Getting Google reviews for your business at least to any impressive scale is not just going to magically happen on its own. You have to be diligent about asking your customers for feedback on a regular basis and the process needs to get all of the details right to be successful.
That's why choosing the right person is so critical. So as we explore this process, you have to keep in mind that you have to ask your customers two to five, maybe even six times a year for feedback, and you want to ask when the conditions are ideal.
You're going to get way more frustrated people during a hot dry spell in July and you're going to get plenty of people that could care less about writing you a Google review when it's snowing in January.
This could mean that you might have to hit pause just a couple times a year on your process to get Google reviews for your lawn care or landscaping business.
Also, just make sure you only ask a customer every 60 or 90 days to write your review or they're going to get really annoyed when you're asking for a review. Remember that people generally don't like doing this.
While you may be tempted to tell them why it's so important to you and your business, that's really more about you than it is about your customer. Your customer may want your business to succeed, but they're way more motivated by helping their neighbor.
That's why I recommend a simple sentence about how their feedback can help their neighbor and their community. Remember they were frustrated until they found you and now they're happy. Wouldn't they want other local people to find the best lawn care or landscaping company around so they can be happy too?
Also, when you ask your customers to give you feedback, keep it short and sweet. There's nothing more annoying than getting a three or four paragraph email droning on and not getting to the point.
I like to aim for two to three sentences at max. Create a unique subject line that's to the point, something about how you would ask them to just answer one quick question or two or give you feedback on their latest service.
Then, make sure you thank every single person that responds. Be sure that your followup process has a great sense of urgency, meaning if they are leaving you feedback about a problem that they're having or if they're as happy as can be and they're giving you a raving Google review, make sure you respond right away.
In our next video. In this series, we're going to talk a lot about how to respond in these different types of situations, so make sure you don't miss that.
Now remember, if this is going to work really well, it's gotta become something that is ingrained in your company culture and you just do over and over again. If you do this, you can easily get hundreds of Google reviews for your lawn care landscaping business.
Asking for reviews has to be something everyone is passionate about. I think a lot of people at lawn care and landscaping companies miss prime opportunities to ask a happy customer to leave them a Google review.
There are many phone conversations and interactions between technicians or crew leaders with customers on a property. There are notes that are sent via email, all types of correspondence so you will want to be able to easily offer up an opportunity for that happy customer to write you a Google review.
Check the description below for a link on how you can generate a link that you could copy and paste into an email template to send out in these situations.
Also, did someone give you a referral? If they trusted you and your company enough to pass your information onto their friend or family, that's probably a good sign that that person would also leave you a Google review. Following up after referral, asking that customer to give you a Google review just seems like a natural thing to do.
Now there's a third thing that you're going to need to be really successful at getting Google reviews for your lawn care company. You've probably been sitting here and thinking, “You know what, this just kind of feels a little complicated and is there a tool can automate some of this process?”
Yes, a tool or a piece of technology that will help automate parts of this process can be extremely helpful to get more Google reviews for your lawn care landscaping business.
(RELATED READING: 3 Proven & Practical Steps for Generating More Positive Reviews)
3) Tools for Getting Google Reviews
There are a bunch of products out there, new ones coming onto the market and their features and prices are always changing. So make sure you evaluate those and check those out.
Now some of these tools out of the box are great choices for a lawn care landscaping company, but there are some of you that are watching this video that want a really customized customer experience to deliver very specific messages on certain intervals and have all kinds of bells and whistles with reminders and all kinds of other things going on so someone could build this out for you.
That's one of the things that we do for some of our lawn care and landscaping clients that we work with. And it's worked really, really well in the past.
So how well does this work? Well, I've personally seen a lawn care company this year generate 75 great Google reviews within four months, but that would not have happened without the right people in place, a detailed, proactive process, and the right tools to help them get there.
What’s Your Experience with Google Reviews?
So tell me in the comments below, tell me what your experience has been so far. What are your struggles about getting Google reviews for your lawn care and landscaping business?
Where would you like to see yourself in 12 months from now?
If you liked this video, remember, subscribe by clicking that button in the right corner. Also click the bell icon so that you can get notifications and alerted when I release new videos in this series, and also start other series as well.
Here's to getting a five star rating and hundreds of great Google reviews. Thanks a lot. Have a really great day!
Want regular, practical tips like these to take your lawn care or landscaping business to the next level? Then consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. Or if you'd rather read our in-depth articles on Landscape Leadership's website, you can also subscribe to our blog.
Image Source: Oasis Turf & Tree
