7 ways to get your clients to write reviews

As a provider of accounting, bookkeeping, and CFO services, you are essentially selling trust, the corollary being that you must give your clients a reason to trust you. But it’s not enough to simply say, “Hey, we do quality work, so trust us!” A potential client has no reason to trust your word. However, what they will trust is the word of your past and existing clients because their experience validates the trust you are selling.

How important are reviews to potential clients? Very. According to this infographic, up to 90 percent of potential clients read online reviews before visiting a business, and 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

This leads us to the next question: How do you get your clients and referral sources to write reviews?

My top 7 tips for securing online reviews

1. Ask. Many accounting professionals are just afraid to ask for reviews. Don’t be. Your clients will be happy to give you a review.

2. Make it easy. In your email request, make sure to include the link to the review site so clients don’t have to figure out where or how to do this for you.

3. Double dip. There are so many review sites out there—Google, Yelp, Facebook, Find-a-ProAdvisor, and more—that you might as well ask your clients to post on two sites. I wouldn’t recommend asking for more than two. That makes the task bigger and sounds suspiciously spammy.

4. Offer to reciprocate. If you use your client’s services, offer to give them a review as well. This makes your request for a review a win-win and everyone gets something in the exchange. Be sure to ask them where they’d like you to post the review, as there may be sites specific to their industry.

Here’s an example of a message I send to my clients–feel free to use it!

5. Engage clients who have already reviewed you. If a client happens to have given you a review without prompting, go ahead and ask them if they could copy and paste their review to another site such as Yelp or Find-a-ProAdvisor. You can say something like:

6. Follow up. Your clients are busy people. They forget. Follow up two or three times on your initial request, leaving a week or two between each follow up. I find people usually post reviews after the second or third follow up. A thank you note once they’ve posted the review doesn’t hurt either.

7. Be persistent and consistent. I’ve set a recurring reminder for myself every Saturday morning to ask a client for a review and/or follow up on requests sent. There are several reasons for this. First, once a week isn’t overwhelming. Second, it’s much easier to follow up than sending a mass email to your entire client base. Third, review sites often flag service providers that get a high volume of reviews all at once. I know someone who asked 20 of his clients to review on Yelp in the same week. Yelp ended up removing all 20 reviews and freezing his account.

Getting a negative review

Although it’s not likely you’ll get a negative review if you ask your clients to write a review for you and your firm, every now and then you might get a review that is posted at random.

If this happens, take a breath and try to respond in a constructive way, not necessarily online, but one-on-one with the client. Sometimes very minor disagreements can be worked out easily and in a speedy manner.