December 2020

NEW: Google Review Email Notification

Make sure you’re notified when you get new Google reviews!

You can now set LoyaltyLoop to send you email notifications when your customers post new Google reviews about your business! Simply go to Settings, and choose the relevant location, if necessary. In the Survey grouping, click on Alerts & Notifications. Under “New Online Reviews Notice” enter the email addresses of those who should receive this notification. Lastly, make sure the Active switch is set to "YES".

Remember, you must connect your Google My Business listing to LoyaltyLoop before you can use this feature.

The notification you receive will inform you of your most recent reviews and provides a single link to view all your Google reviews inside LoyaltyLoop. Any time a new Google review is posted, you can be alerted by LoyaltyLoop.

Unlike the native alert available in Google, (1) you can send this alert to as many email addresses as you wish (Google only sends alerts to a single email address, the one you use to manage your GMB listing, and (2) LoyaltyLoop will even alert you when a customer who previously posted a review, updates or writes a new review.

Social Proof – Your Business’s Street Cred

Social Proof is the phenomenon where people follow the actions of others assuming the group possesses the knowledge of how to behave in a given situation.

Photo by Chicago Geek on Flickr

Imagine scrolling through YouTube for a video to watch. Google curates videos for you according to a number of metrics, including views and likes. If a video has millions of views, and hundreds of thousands of likes, it’s probably a video you will enjoy and share with friends.

You offer great products and great services, so how can you use social proof concepts in your marketing? In a recent article by Business 2 Community, they emphasized the value of review quantity with the following example:

You find two companies that offer similar [toasters] at an identical price. You’re not familiar with either one of these companies. However, you discover that one business has 400 reviews on their toaster, and the other has 3. Where would you buy your toaster?

Even if they’re both rated 4.8 stars, the toaster with 400 reviews has more statistical weight. The more reviews you have makes you the appealing choice when you are compared with competitors.

When your customers have a good experience, let them know you send out surveys that contain your social media links. Ask them to not only take the survey, but also to leave you a review. Connect your LoyaltyLoop account to your Google My Business page and use it to track reviews and your responses.

Show off the volume of work you’ve done. McDonalds made this method of marketing famous, “Over billions and billions served” their signs read today as continuing the count became infeasible. Having a congratulatory “One hundred thousandth customer/purchase!” gift isn’t just celebrating that one customer, but letting everyone else know you had 99,999 other customers as well. You could highlight a particular popular product to show a high rate of customer satisfaction, and also to generate sales of that product without having to offer a sale price. Or you could have a display letting others know what your top 10 most popular products are.

Remember that YouTube video you might share with friends? Encourage your customers to do the same by providing referrals. Don’t let your survey be the only way you ask for a referral, you can also ask on social media. If someone leaves a positive review on Google remind them to tell their friends right after a positive call or purchase, and ask those who have referred in the past to refer again. Encourage they show off their new widget to friends; let your products sell themselves. Include a couple business cards with their order, “One for you and one for a friend.”

Lastly, a major benefit of Social Proof is how inexpensive it is to try. Some time spent on social media, including business cards with each order, or displaying a list of best-selling products costs very little to implement, and one order or two could possibly pay for the whole effort.

TIP: How to Make a Great Last Impression

A first impression is crucial, it’s the moment a customer realizes you are there and can help them with what they need. But last impressions matter, too. When was the last time you watched a movie or a game, and the ending was just one big disappointment? You don’t remember the first half; your memory of the thing is that it was unsatisfying and it was all a waste of time.

The final moments of your customer’s experience with you should be met with the same effort you gave in order to win their business.

If something goes wrong, remember to remain empathic and don’t get defensive. They may have an outburst of emotion, and the important thing isn’t to respond to that, but to the problem at hand. Emotion is a wall, and understanding is a door. If you let them know you see the situation from their point of view and you understand how they feel, they are apt to quickly calm down so you can fix the root error.

Photo by Kraken Images on Unsplash

But what about interactions and purchases that go well? Is there anything else that can be done to ensure a loyal customer? Did they buy 1,000 widgets? Maybe they need help carrying the widgets out to the car, or maybe the widgets could be delivered. Ensure the order/payment process is quick and efficient, and without too much burden on the customer.

Perhaps you discover something unpredictable has happened, i.e., a power outage or equipment failure, that despite all efforts, will cause you to miss your customer’s expectations. Don’t let them find out about it when they expect delivery, give them a call right away and let them know what is being done to keep them happy. Everyone knows things happen beyond our control and you’ll be remembered for being forthright with solutions.

A good last impression will keep your customers coming back because they know your focus isn’t just on winning their business, but keeping it with persistent effort during your customer’s experience.

TIP: 100% Feedback

Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash

You’re already getting a great response rate. Statistically you have a great representative sample size to allow you to draw conclusions across all of your customers. But are there any other ways you can keep an eye on your customers’ experience outside of survey feedback?

Engage in casual conversation with your customers about what they think could run smoother. Their guard will be down and they may have some insightful recommendations they might not normally make when taking a survey.

When your customers visit or call, what do they do first? Do they always instinctively go to the same area or section of your store? Make sure they see what you want them to see; you can use this as a selling opportunity with in-store signage or displays. Or if they reach out to you by phone, do they always call certain numbers before reaching you? Streamline their experience so they know how to reach you directly. And should they visit your offices, consider what they see while waiting.

Do your customers ask a lot of questions before deciding to purchase? Listening to them can give you insight into what they think of the product and your business. Perhaps they need an extra bit of assurance that you will deliver on time and with better product quality and service than your competitors. Maybe they need to know if the product they’re looking at is the product they need. Armed with this information, you can re-tool your marketing and other messaging to reduce the time spent on explaining your products and provide a smoother path to purchase in the future.

By walking in your customers’ shoes, you can gain a different perspective that will give you fresh eyes on their experience. You then gain perspective that will help you provide feedback to yourself.

TIP: Set a recurring "Send List" calendar event or automate

Don't fall behind on collecting your customer feedback - have your calendar remind you when you need to send your next file of customers to survey! When we ask our most successful clients their secret to sending their list, they stated it's simple - they delegate! That's right! They delegate the job to their calendar program as a recurring task reminding them when a list is due. Give it a name like "Email report to Launch@LoyaltyLoop.com" and set it to fire off the reminder a few days before your regular launch date. Make sure you set it to repeat every month.

If you haven’t looked into automating yet, now is the time. You should explore your system in which you generate your list of customers to be surveyed. Many systems allow you to create a recurring report, some even allow you to automatically email the recurring report. If your customer data resides in a cloud-based system, there may be an automation available to you via services such as Zapier,IFTTT (which stands for If-This-Then-That) or other similar companies. If you can leverage an automation for the sending of your to-be-surveyed customer contacts to LoyaltyLoop, you can make this one less thing on your to-do list.

Steady survey launching will yield consistent customer feedback, increased reviews, and fresh online content. Our support team can always help you set this up if necessary.

2020: Summary of Feature Releases

If you missed any of our 2020 monthly newsletters, you may have missed the announcements of new feature releases made during the year. Here's a summary: