For HVAC companies, a good reputation is essential to drive new business. That’s one reason you need positive online reviews on social media and review sites like Yelp: reviews provide evidence about your reputation and what prospects can expect from your company. In HVAC marketing, we call it “social proof.”
Online reviews can also help to bury any negative reviews you might already have. Let’s face it: every company has some online complaints from unhappy customers. (People may actually be suspicious if you don’t.) And you can’t get rid of those. So getting new positive reviews can help by making the negative ones less visible.
There’s another good reason to work on getting reviews online: the process helps you build relationships with customers and find out what they care about most.
Here’s how to do it.
HVAC marketing: 5 steps to get reviews online
1. Set up your own profile on review sites like Yelp and Google.
On review sites like Yelp and Google, make sure your business profile is set up to help your business succeed. Start by claiming your listing (depending on the site). On both review sites and social media platforms, include a company description that clearly explains what you do, what sets you apart from your competition, and speaks to what your customers want and need most.
Be sure to follow the guidelines for each platform, and make sure to enable reviews on sites like Facebook. Now you’re ready to promote those listings and get more online reviews!
2. Take advantage of “thank you” emails
Every company that does good work gets the occasional “thank you” email from a happy customer. When that happens, thank the customer for their feedback and ask them to do you a favor and post their online. You can send the customer a list of links to your online profiles on social media and review sites. That makes things easy for the customer, and they can choose a site where they already have an account.
Make sure everyone in your company who interacts with customers has that list of links and knows to respond to thank you emails with a request for a review.
3. Create a process for technicians to ask customers for reviews.
The very best time to ask a customer for an online review is right after they have a good experience with you. So get your technicians involved in asking for reviews. Here’s the best way to do that.
At the end of each service call, have the tech verify that the customer is satisfied (which is a great practice for a lot of reasons beyond getting reviews).
Assuming the response is positive, the technician can ask the customer to leave an online review and explain that a positive review will help him personally. Customers will often go well out of their way to help a technician they like and trust!
Make it easy for the customer by having the technician leave a postcard with links to your online profiles. Or better yet, use QR codes that the customer can scan with their phone.
To really get things going, you can create a contest with incentives for technicians who get the most reviews online from their customers.
4. Create a process for service managers to follow up
You can also get your service managers involved in the effort to boost your HVAC marketing with online reviews.
Have service managers send follow-up emails after service calls to have customers rate the service they received. Customers who give high ratings can then get an email request for an online review (including your helpful list of online profile links).
Better yet, use your HVAC marketing tools to automate the process. You can schedule automatic email follow ups for every customer with an email marketing platform.
5. Respond with your thanks
Chances are, you already know that it’s essential to respond right away to any negative reviews. When you do that, people reading them can see that you care enough to fix whatever went wrong.
But it’s also best practice to take the time to respond to the positive reviews online. All you have to do is take a moment to thank the customer for their comments. And you also have the opportunity to highlight your strengths and your values for prospects who may read your reviews in the future.
What you SHOULD NOT do to get reviews online
This is important: NEVER post fake reviews online or pay someone else to create reviews for you. Review sites and social platforms are good at recognizing fakes and will take them down. Not only that, but customers are getting good at spotting them as well.
Also try to build your reviews naturally over time, don’t do a big push for lots of reviews at once. That can come across as fake also and prospects may not trust the reviews they see.
More advice to help build your HVAC business
Check out more articles to help you manage and grow your HVAC business. You can also share our training content with your technical staff.
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