Online Reviews...

I'm curious if your experience with them is the same as mine?

I have customers tell me daily they will leave a review on Yelp for me, since they found me on Yelp after all. You would think easy enuf right?.....But in reality it seems there's a lot more more 'takers' than 'giver's'. From my experience, the reality is only about 5% (or less) people that say they will leave a review actual do........Some are very convincing, by saying things like "oh yes I leave reviews all the time, and will review leave you a review today!" And as sure as it sounds most times it never happens.

It's taken me well over 3 years, to get 42 reviews. That's hundreds of jobs done for people that find me on Yelp for that 42 reviews.

I just wonder if this is common across the nation?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not displeased by Yelp or all the jobs I get from it, quiet the opposite if anything.

I'm just a bit discouraged by all the people they say they will do but don't.

I would say that it is normal for all regions. It isn't just reviews on Yelp either. Angie's List, local business sites, and even just simple referrals all feature unfulfilled promises.

How many times do you have a customer ask for several business cards and promise to refer you to their friends, family, and co-workers? If I recovered 5% of those I would be shocked....so your responses on Yelp is probably pretty good.

Same here, but if you think about it, when you first posted last year you only had 10+ and since then you've gotten about 30 in the past year, that's good, I got over 100 in about 4 years, it's hard, I've tried everything from calling them after the service trying to get them to write something and they all kept saying oh yes I most definitely will and hardly ever did, I've had a few that finally did after 2 - 3 services and I kept reminding them to do it.
Try giving them small discount for their time to write something on there, that works a little better for me but it sucks when you gave them discount and yet they forgot all about it

Yea, I did that discount thing for a review a few times, but after getting screwed the second time I gave up on it.

I figure they're going to do it or not regardless of discount or not.

Pretty sure what you go through, everyone else does too.

But with Yelp, they may be filtering the reviews too. I have heard LOTS of negatives about Yelp filtering good reviews.

Yes, and they had faced lawsuit too against them regarding review filtering but I believe they won it because that's part of their business practice to make sure the reviews stays legit, does it work perfectly ? No cause I got 40+ 5 stars reviews that they filtered out, but there's no perfect review sites out there, Angie's list is pretty close but people have to pay membership fees to look and write reviews, even Yelp that's free people still don't post reviews. It's tough for businesses.

some times customers pull out a tip and I tell them the best way to tip us is to just leave a nice review.

seems to work.

At some point I really want to start filming the transaction's end and just posting the customers comments on-line. I think they would all be willing to give comments right then instead of having to go on-line to a review site and leaving comments later.

Video testimonials are a great idea Rob.

Just remember though, people may not value them quite as high, as a review from someplace like Angie's or Yelp.
They are STILL an excellent way to build trust and value though.

If you really make a go of this, you may want to think of getting a "channel" on YouTube.

My plan for the upcoming year, (one thing I'm going to do, anyway) is to create a channel for my business. I will be developing another domain before spring. The new site will be most all videos, and little marketing text. I want to track numbers and bounce rates of my domains. I think something video driven, rather than sales/marketing/education in text form, will draw much better close rates.

Freemind1 wrote:Video testimonials are a great idea Rob.

Just remember though, people may not value them quite as high, as a review from someplace like Angie's or Yelp.
They are STILL an excellent way to build trust and value though.

If you really make a go of this, you may want to think of getting a "channel" on YouTube.

My plan for the upcoming year, (one thing I'm going to do, anyway) is to create a channel for my business. I will be developing another domain before spring. The new site will be most all videos, and little marketing text. I want to track numbers and bounce rates of my domains. I think something video driven, rather than sales/marketing/education in text form, will draw much better close rates.

I'm with you on this one....want to set up a channel to pump out testimonials and informational pieces to educate the customers on why they should consider me over the competition. I think people are far more visual these days and that you can build more trust with potential customers by presenting yourself in video form.

You hit the nail on the head Rob.
This is EXACTLY why I am building another domain. I watch people everywhere viewing videos on their phones all the time.

The spoken word and visuals seem to ring with people more now, than reading something. I think it has become VERY apparent in the media (news) industry. People don't read the paper anymore, and most all news firms now have an app that news stories are linked to video.