Recently my business got a 3-star review from a customer, and it felt super unfair. We did an amazing job on his project, and he told our staff how pleased he was with his new roof. Yet on the 3-star review he commented only that after he paid as much as he did for a new roof, you’d think we would send him photos of his finished project.
Ouch. Burn.
Part of our company culture is that whenever we receive
negative feedback or any constructive criticism, we do not just jump to the
defensive (or if we do, we bring ourselves back to center before we react). I
firmly believe that in every criticism, there is a grain of truth and something
that we can learn from, do better at, and improve our process. Customers who
take the time to give us feedback, even and maybe especially negative feedback,
are actually giving us a gift. Even though it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
Now, I’ve thought about sending finished project photos in
the past, but generally we just send them when a customer requests them. When
we received this review, one of my first reactions was guilt for not
implementing this long ago. But let bygones be bygones, all I can do is change
it going forward.
I created an email template that:
1.
Lets customers know their project is complete
(no matter how big or small),
2.
Attaches some job completion photos,
3.
Mentions nothing at all about payment,
4.
Asks them to contact us directly if they are not
pleased with any aspect of the project,
5.
Asks them if they were pleased to leave us a
review (I then I provided three links to leave us reviews at (Google, BBB, and
Yelp!))
The first person we sent this email to with photos was the
man who had left us the three-star review. His response? He was just so happy
with our team and his final project and thank you so much. We were a bit
puzzled.
I then directly emailed the customer, sincerely thanked him
for his feedback, told him the changes I had implemented based on his feedback,
and asked him kindly to consider changing his review. He has not responded to
my email, nor has he changed his review. Yet I’ve reaped the reward, and that three-star
review has yielded dividends.
The very next day one of our customers came into the office,
beaming about his experience with us – from the crew to the roof to the staff
in the office to his bottle of Roofer Chick Red wine – but especially
his final photos he had received. He then left us a 5-star review.
Since then, we’ve gotten four more 5-star reviews from
the email.
I pay a review company $750 a month to get us reviews
because we have struggled so hard to get customers to give us reviews. This review
service gets us 5-8 reviews a month, and I’ve been pretty happy with those
results. BUT LOOK – apparently, we just got taught how to fish. It’s magic!
If this is as effective as I think it is going to be, it’s
going to save us $9,000 annually and generate more reviews than they are
getting us!!! That 3-star review changed my life and is worth it’s own weight
in gold.
I’ve never been so grateful to be graded as mediocre!
