How to Get Cleaning Company Testimonials Even if You Have a New Cleaning Business

Have you ever heard of the concept of social proof? It basically means that there are people outside of your company that are saying your cleaning business is a company people should hire. The more social proof you have, the easier it can be to acquire new cleaning clients. Getting social proof in the form of cleaning testimonials and reviews is important, but what if you are a new company? How do you get reviews when you are just getting started? In this post, you'll learn how to get cleaning company testimonials even if you have a new cleaning business.

Why Reviews are Important

As we talked about above, positive reviews and cleaning company testimonials are important for a number of reasons. The big reason is that positive reviews can help build social proof for your company and cleaning services.

A happy satisfied customer talking about the value of your services can go further to help someone decide to hire you compared to you saying it. Beyond that, there are also additional benefits that positive reviews and client testimonials provide.

On platforms like Google My Business, for example, more positive reviews can help your business listing rank higher in search results. Although there are many factors involved, many cleaning companies that have a combination of the highest review rating and the most reviews show up high on the Google Maps listings.

If you are a commercial cleaning business that does business locally, this can increase your exposure significantly. When people search using terms like commercial cleaning near me and your cleaning business shows up on top, that can generate a lot of new leads.

Having many reviews also builds credibility for your business. If a potential customer sees that you have little to no reviews, they usually think your business doesn't have a lot of customers. This can lead them to believe you lack experience and expertise in the industry. Which usually will cause them to hire someone else.

why cleaning client testimonials matter for commercial cleaning companies on Google My Business

How to Get Your First Cleaning Clients Even if You Don't Have Reviews

Now you are probably wondering how can you get your first cleaning clients if you don't have any reviews. It might be a little more challenging than when you have lots of reviews, but it is still possible.

One strategy we recommend is to start small and work your way into bigger accounts. Typically larger accounts will want to work with a cleaning company that is experienced and that has a good reputation.

When you start small you can eventually scale up in the size of accounts as you prove yourself. Smaller clients are usually more likely to give you a chance compared to bigger clients with more complicated cleaning challenges.

However, before that, you might want to start by leveraging your existing network and contacts. For example, do you belong to a church or any networking groups with contacts you could reach out to?

A good strategy for how to get your first cleaning clients and reviews is to offer some free cleaning services in exchange for a positive review. Of course, you don't want clean for free forever, but if it's a small account and only requires a little time and resources it could be worth the review and experience.

You might also offer to clean for free for a month or two in order to prove yourself and then if they like your work, you can transition into them being a paying customer. Just be sure to ask for a testimonial for doing the work for free.

Don't Ask for a Review Too Soon

When you are just getting your cleaning business started, every review counts. Since reviews are so important, you've probably wondered how soon you should ask for reviews from a cleaning client.

While there isn't necessarily a magic number of days you need to work with a client before asking for a review, you don't want to ask for a review too early. If you ask for a review too soon it can potentially annoy your new client.

Most people are happy to give a review or testimonial when you ask for it in the right way and after enough time. However, if you ask for a review too soon, it can seem desperate or needy, as well as something you haven't earned yet.

You want to get past the point of feeling like you have proven yourself and your worth to a client. This can vary for every client you bring on, but usually, there are some key signals to look for as to when to ask for a review from a cleaning client, which we'll cover below.

When is the Best Time to Ask for Reviews from a Cleaning Client?

You've probably heard it hundreds of times, but timing is everything, and the same holds true for asking for cleaning company testimonials and reviews. Asking for a review or testimonial too soon could annoy your client's or if you ask at the wrong time they may never get around to it.

So when is the best time to ask for reviews from a cleaning client? Well in most cases the best time to ask directly is going to be after you receive some kind of positive feedback from a customer.

You want to leverage the timing of a customer compliment in the best way. This means you should reach out about getting a review whenever a customer calls or emails, or tells you in person that they're happy with some aspect of our service.

Always take that opportunity to first thank them sincerely, and then ask if you can use that comment as a testimonial for your website. The best time to get a testimonial is when they're happy with your service!

How to Ask for Cleaning Service References and Reviews

At this point, you might be wondering what to actually say to a client to get them to give you a review. There are a few ways to go about it, one is more direct, and the other can help you discover opportunities for compliments, which you can then turn into reviews.

The direct route is pretty simple and you could say something like, "Hey (customer name), recently you mentioned that you were really happy with the job we did for you last week and the attention to detail we have. Would it be OK with you to use your experience with us as a testimonial for our cleaning company?"

The indirect route can be accomplished by asking your customers for ongoing feedback on the work you do for them.

Using Customer Feedback Surveys to Get Reviews and Cleaning Company Testimonials

Asking for ongoing customer feedback is a great way to find out what you are doing well and what areas you may need to improve in. Using customer feedback surveys can also give you a better gauge of when to actually ask for a review.

If the feedback is good for several surveys in a row, you are probably good to ask for a review. Using this strategy can also be a good way to solicit more compliments without being pushy about it.

Then when you get a compliment or the client expresses you are doing a good job you can simply use the strategy above to ask for a review.

Plus, if you aren't already using customer feedback surveys you can start implementing them quite easily. For example, you could say something like, "Hey (customer name) in an effort for us to continue to provide you the best service possible, we are wondering if you would be willing to fill out a quick feedback survey on our services on a monthly (or quarterly) basis? We would just ask a couple of simple questions on what is working well and what areas we may need to improve on to keep your business. If that works let us know and we can start sending those out to you. Thanks!"

How to Automate Your Review Request Process

Another great strategy to get more reviews for your cleaning company is to automate your review request process. Again if you are just getting started you should usually ask for reviews personally, but as you grow you can automate some of this process.

One service we recommend for this is called More Reviews Now. This is a service where you can upload your client list and set up automated emails to go out to clients who haven't yet left you a review.

Another strategy you can do is to include links to leave reviews in emails with your customer feedback surveys, or really with any emails, you send out to clients. For example, you could include a "P.S. line" at the bottom of your emails with something like, "P.S. Did you receive exceptional service from us on your last cleaning? Click here to leave us a review on Google and let us know."

How to Use Cleaning Testimonials in Your Marketing

Another reason to strive to get more reviews for your cleaning business is that there are several ways to use them to improve your marketing. As we mentioned earlier, reviews and cleaning company testimonials are a great way to build trust, credibility and provide social proof.

One form of review we recommend using in your marketing is a video testimonial. Certainly, there are some companies that write fake positive reviews for their company, but that isn't the norm. It's even more unlikely companies would make fake video reviews, so potential customers see them as more trustworthy.

A longer form of a cleaning company testimonial you should use for marketing are case studies. A case study is more a detailed account of how a client had an issue, why they reached out to you to solve it, how you fixed it, and how their business is better off now since they hired you. Case studies work great to help convert potential customers with similar issues and backgrounds.

As we mentioned earlier another way to use reviews in your marketing is on your Google My Business page. The more positive reviews you have on your Google My Business page, the more likely you are to rank high in local searches.  This can generate a lot of free targeted traffic and phone call leads for your cleaning business.

As you build up more reviews we also suggest making a page on your website dedicated to reviews. This will help improve conversion rates on your website.

Conclusion

By now you understand the value of having reviews and cleaning company testimonials to grow your cleaning business. When you use the strategies above you should have an easier time getting cleaning company testimonials even if you have a new cleaning business.

For example, if you are trying to get your first few reviews and clients, try networking with your local contacts and offer some free cleanings in exchange for a review. This could also be a strategy to get clients to give you a trial run to prove yourself and they may eventually take you on as a paying client after your trial run.

Also, make sure that you don't ask for a review too soon. Often cleaning business owners ask for a review before they have earned it, and this can annoy your new customers. A great time to ask for a review for your cleaning business is after a client has given you a compliment or commented on something you did exceptionally well.

A great strategy to get these compliments more frequently is to implement a customer feedback system. This could be asking your clients to fill out a quick survey on what you did well and what you may need to improve on for future cleanings.

Asking for customer feedback can help you fix what isn't working and can also help improve your customer retention. After several positive surveys or a good complement, you can ask for a cleaning company testimonial.

To make these request processes easier you might also want to implement an automated review request system to streamline getting more positive reviews. Once all of these systems are in place and you have several reviews use them in your marketing to improve your conversion rates and to build trust and credibility faster.

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