10 top tips for keeping your tools safe
The tools you work with are an essential part of your business and likely one of the biggest investments you’ve…
There’s a reason every company you interact with these days is desperate for you to leave your feedback: reviews are crucial in influencing decisions. How often have you been swayed to “add to basket” by a slew of five-star ratings, or been led to the cinema by a friend telling you a new blockbuster was a must-see?
If you’re a tradesperson who’s not collecting reviews, you could be missing out on opportunities. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you build your base of customer reviews.
Why collect reviews?
Displaying reviews and feedback from happy customers is a great way to generate new leads and help legitimise your business. Reading reviews of good experiences can give new customers the confidence to reach out and ask you to work with them on their next project. If others trust you, that’s an encouraging sign to a customer that they are getting a good deal by hiring you.
Where to show your reviews
It’s a good idea to have your reviews all in one place, so that you can send new customers straight to them. One of the most common choices for tradespeople is through trade comparison sites such as CheckaTrade, TrustaTrader, Which Trusted Traders, Bark and MyBuilder. But many tradies also use Facebook, Google, their own website, or a review service like Trustpilot or Feefo.
All of these have their own pros and cons:
- Trade Comparison Sites and Review-Collecting Services
Tools like Comparison Sites and Review-Collecting Services have the advantage of being independent, so may be more trusted by potential customers, but you are relinquishing a lot of control over your reviews and you may have to pay a fee to use them. - Social Media
Through Facebook and Google, customers can see that the reviews come from real people, but if they don’t have an account themselves they may only be able to see a limited view of your profile. - Website
You can customise your own website to display the reviews as you want them, but there’s no real way to verify that the reviews are genuine, and you’ll have to keep manually updating them.
How to collect reviews
If you’re using trade comparison sites, Facebook, Google or a review-collecting service, testimonials from customers can be entered directly into the site. With some services you can also automate it so that customers are automatically emailed to leave a review.
If you are going for a more DIY approach, then you will need a way of collecting and collating reviews. This could be emailing clients directly and asking for feedback, or using a survey tool like SurveyMonkey to collect the views of all of your previous clients. If you want genuine and honest feedback, you could make the survey anonymous.
However, reviews are more convincing and powerful if a previous customer is willing to put their name and company to it (if applicable – particularly if they are an established brand). You’ll need to balance these aspects to decide what’s the best way to collect reviews of your work that will help you improve and promote your business to potential new customers.
Ask for feedback!
Asking for feedback should be a regular and routine part of your interaction with all of your customers. Whether because they just don’t think to do it, because they are worried about what will come back, or they feel cheeky asking, some tradespeople don’t collect customer feedback. However, there are a lot of reasons to do so.
As well as the promotional potential, honest appraisals of your work can help to improve the services you offer and identify any gaps in the market that you could be filling. If there’s anything that your customer isn’t happy about, you can address it head on and make things right, rather than risking negative word-of-mouth.
Head over to our website to see what a great deal you can get on our Trades insurance (and find out what some of our customers think about us too!).
