How to Reply to Reviews for Your Commercial Cleaning Business
Reputation management is a very important aspect of keeping a positive image of your commercial cleaning business. How to reply to reviews is just a small portion of reputation management, but it can't be ignored. How existing customers feel about your business can influence if future potential customers hire you or not. In this post, you'll learn how to reply to reviews for your commercial cleaning business in a way that helps maintain your positive image.
Why you should reply to online reviews
Building a large client base for your commercial cleaning business is going to require building trust and credibility with potential customers. You also are going to need to maintain your relationships with customers if you hope to keep them as clients.
Responding to reviews is one way to maintain relationships and to build trust with potential clients. Most people think that they only need to reply to reviews that are negative, but you should focus on replying to all reviews. Certainly replying to negative reviews is especially important as it can show that you care about your clients, but positive reviews are still important to reply to as well. Consumers expect a company to engage with them especially when it is as something as simple as replying with a sentence or two on a review.
If your cleaning company doesn't reply to reviews, it shows indifference towards the customers who took the time to leave a review. Replying to reviews also gives you the opportunity to build loyalty by thanking a positive review, or by rectifying issues from a negative review.
A benefit to replying to reviews is that if people see you engaging with your reviewers they are more likely to leave a review. When people see that it builds more trust and people who have issues feel like they have another avenue to solve their problems. When you have a lot of positive reviews it also builds social proof for your commercial cleaning business. Having a customer talk about how great your company is can be more effective than you doing it.
Plus, when you get more reviews on places like Google My Business, your ranking in search on Google Maps usually improves. This works as another benefit that can bring in more exposure for your cleaning business locally. This also improves the chances your cleaning business will show up when people search with terms like, "commercial cleaning near me".
Follow up with reviews quickly
Usually, people who leave reviews are either overly happy with your service or overly unhappy with it. This means you'll be able to increase loyalty and trust by engaging with those who are happy with your service, or the chance to fix a possible issue from a negative review.
Also, sometimes you'll get an average review and this can give you an opportunity to convert that person into a happy customer based on how you respond. With this in mind, you need to be strategic with how you reply to reviews for your commercial cleaning business. An ineffective or lack of response could lead to potential customers avoiding hiring you or existing customers deciding to stop working with you. It's important to follow up with all of your reviews and to do so in a timely manner.
People usually leave reviews at the height of emotion, so you can parlay that emotion into brand loyalty or make a situation worse if a negative reviewer feels ignored. If you leave a review too long without responding people will have either moved on or solidified their opinion about your business for better or worse.
Responding to all of these review types, in general, is important, but often how you respond is more important than anything else. We'll cover how to reply to reviews about your commercial cleaning business below.
How to reply to average and negative reviews
Probably the most important reviews you need to address quickly are negative reviews and average reviews. The good news is that getting a negative review or average review doesn't mean your reputation is ruined.
Most people understand that all companies are going to get a negative review every now and then, and they are more concerned with how a company responds to a negative review more than anything. There are definitely negative reviews that are irrelevant or that claim outlandish things or complain about something outside of your control, but your average consumer will see through those negative reviews. Again, it is all about how you reply to these reviews more than anything.
First, you want to acknowledge the issue in the review. Show that you hear what the customer is saying and try not to go on the defensive immediately.
The next step is to accept responsibility for what you can. When you accept the blame it is hard to attack you further because you admitted it was your fault. Sometimes issues are outside of your control but admit fault where you can and then try and provide a solution. This may be a refund in some cases, or it could be some other way to make it up to a customer, such as a bonus service or future cleaning on the house. Here is an example of replying to a negative or neutral review.
"Hey (customer name). Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are truly sorry we did not live up to your expectations with your recent service. Please give us a call at (your phone number) so we can make it right. We're here for you when you need us."
How to reply to positive reviews
Now you might think that if a review is positive that you don't really need to worry about replying to it, however, if you reply to a positive review in the right way, it can enhance brand loyalty.
For most people, a clean facility is a clean facility, and who cleans their business or facility might be determined by how they feel about a specific cleaning company more than cleanliness or price. If someone takes the time to leave a positive review, you want to make sure that person gets recognition.
Be sure to include a thank you to your customer in replies to a positive review. Also, try and personalize your reply by addressing something they mentioned in their review. You may also want to highlight a benefit or feature in relation to something they talked about in their review.
Another thing you could do is mention another related service or additional value they could get from your cleaning services. For example, you could say something like:
"Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us (customer name). You might also be interested in our floor polishing services as well for your next service."
Here is another example of a full response to a positive review:
"Hey (customer name), thanks for choosing (your business name) for your cleaning services! We are thrilled you had such a great experience with us. By the way, did you know we also offer window cleaning services? If you'd like the outside of your building to look as great as it does inside, you can check out the details here (insert link). We appreciate your business."
How to get more positive reviews
Now that you understand that you need to get more positive reviews for your cleaning business, how exactly do you go about it? There are several strategies you can use that can help improve your chances of getting that next 5-star review.
First and foremost, you want to make sure that you provide great service as a foundation to assist you with getting great reviews. It's hard for clients to leave positive reviews if they receive mediocre service. You likely strive to provide the best service anyway, so beyond that, the next step is to ask for reviews. You'd be surprised, but many cleaning companies don't actually ask for reviews on a regular basis.
Most people don't take the time to leave reviews even if they have a great experience with your cleaning company. The reality is that if you want more positive reviews, you have to make it easy for people to leave reviews. One way to make this easier is to create a link that directs customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business page. Click here to access a tutorial from Google on how to create a review link.
With your link set up the next step is to send out this link and a friendly request to your customers to leave you a review after you clean their business. You can also be selective with this if you choose and only give it to facility managers who you know had a good experience recently.
In addition to this strategy, you can also automate this process of getting reviews from customers. Click here to learn about setting up an automated review management system.
Ways to use reviews in your marketing
Having lots of positive reviews is great, but you can also use these reviews while marketing your commercial cleaning business. The first area you want to use reviews for your marketing is on your home page.
The home page of your website is going to be one of the most popular pages on your website and is often the first place people will look when researching your company. Your website should be focused on building trust with potential customers and having several positive reviews can do just that.
See the photo below for an example of what a review section should look like on your cleaning company website.
Another place to use positive reviews to your advantage in your marketing can be using them in paid advertising. One great option can be to create a video that plays through several positive reviews in a row. Then you simply end the video with a call to action telling viewers to visit your site or to call you to set up a free estimate and walkthrough of their facility.
Conclusion
Understanding how to reply to reviews is an important skill to have as a cleaning business owner. Most cleaning companies neglect this step and doing so could hurt the long-term growth of your company.
Your review and reputation management strategy can work in your favor to build trust for your cleaning business. Depending on how you reply to reviews both positive and negative can help you attract new customers or repel them.
Make sure that you reply to reviews in a timely manner even if they are positive reviews. With negative and average reviews, make sure you start with acknowledging the issue and accepting responsibility for the problem. After that seek to fix the issue and make things right for the customer.
Also, make sure you implement a follow-up system where you ask for reviews from your customers. This can help you get more positive reviews for your cleaning business. Doing so will improve your online reputation which can help you market your cleaning business more effectively.
If you need help with managing your online reputation feel free to reach out to our marketing agency branch Marketing Systems By Design to learn about how we can help you with your review and reputation management
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