Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar. You find this piece of game-breaking technology or software that is going to improve your business. You introduce it to your team only to have it fall on deaf ears. You’ve made this huge investment in technology, but you can’t get anyone to use it. We’ve all probably been there either as a business owner or a reluctant employee. What can you do to turn this situation around?As a software company, Podium is invested in enabling our customers to get the most benefit out of our solution. Those benefits can only be achieved if our customers can get their employees to collect reviews. To help you jumpstart your online review program, here are some tactics that have worked for our most successful customers.
Build trust with your employees
If your employees know that you have a track record of vetting software and technology, they will be more likely to try out a new piece of software. This is especially true if you make a good case for how it will help the business or make your employees’ jobs easier. However, if the new technology is cumbersome or requires a lot of training, it’s going to be more difficult to convince employees to incorporate it into their daily routine.
Offer incentives
It’s no secret that money is a huge motivator for your employees. If you’re looking for a way to entice your employees to collect reviews for your business, consider incentivizing them. A recent survey of Podium customers found that 56% of respondents incentivize their employees while 72% believe that incentivizing employees has a positive impact on the number of reviews collected.
There are a number of different activities you can incentivize, but before I get to them, I want to emphasize that you should never offer incentives to your customers to leave a review. Not only is this practice against the terms of service for many online review sites, but it could also water down your reviews and make them seem less authentic. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here are three activities we suggest incentivizing.
1. Incentivize based on number of invitations
Securing reviews is a numbers game. The more customers you ask to review your business, the more reviews you will receive. If you choose to incentivize based on the number of invitations sent, you need to have safeguards in place to ensure your employees are inviting customers and not everyone on their contact list to try and earn a bonus.
2. Incentivize based on recommendations
Depending on how your online review management platform works, you can incentivize based on how many customers said they would recommend your business. This metric is important because it can act as a soft net promoter score for businesses that might not be able to afford a formal customer satisfaction survey.
3. Incentivize based on the number of reviews secured
At the end of the day, the number of reviews secured is what is most important, so it makes sense to reward employees based on that metric. You may receive some pushback from employees because ultimately whether or not a customer leaves a review isn’t dependent on how much effort your employees put in to secure it.
You might be wondering which one of these incentives are right for your business. We recommend using a combination of all three, setting minimum thresholds your employees need to hit before they become eligible to cash in on the incentive. By building trust and rewarding positive behavior, you increase the chances of a high adoption rate of Podium or any new technology you decide to implement.
