As a business owner, you understand the importance of having many positive online reviews. But how do you go about asking your customers to leave you online reviews? You’ve probably thought about the idea of incentivizing your customers to leave you with more possible online reviews. Should you incentivize online reviews? Or should you avoid it all cost? The brainer team breaks it down for you.
The Pros of Online Review Incentives
As with any decision that you make, there will be pros and cons to incentivizing online
reviews. Here are a few of the positive aspects of incentives.
An Increase in the Number of Online Reviews
Starting with the obvious, you will most likely see an uptick in the number of online reviews. People like incentives, and they will leave you reviews if they can get a freebie from your business. That’s a no-brainer.
You’ll See More Positive Reviews.
More importantly, you’ll likely see more positive online reviews. This has to do with the fact that you’re offering an incentive, usually a freebie or discount if customers leave you a review. Now they will likely leave you a positive online review because it is a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” kind of agreement. Even if you never say anything like that at all.
Incentives Grow Your Online Reviews Quickly
Because you now have an incentive working for you to help rack up those online reviews, you will see your online reputation jump up. Like Google, Yelp, and Facebook see that you gain momentum and are growing in popularity, they will start to show you higher up in search results!
The Downside of Online Review Incentives
But like most things in life, if it is too good to be true, it probably is. The same is true when you incentivize online reviews. These are the downsides to incentivizing online reviews.
Online Review Platform Penalties
By far, the biggest reason to NOT incentivize online reviews is that major online review platforms such as Google, Yelp, and Facebook give out pretty hefty fines if they find out that you are incentivizing online reviews. The reason being that they believe that it will skew people’s judgment when leaving an online review. In short, it’s unfair.
Customers May Find Incentives to Be Sus
Not only will online platforms penalize you, but your customers might start to think that you’re gaming the system by handing out incentives for positive reviews that you did not earn. This may harm your online reputation.
Your business Might Never Organically Improve Customer Service
On a final note, there is more than just the ethical question about whether or not you should incentivize your online reviews. The reality is that if your business receives positive online reviews regardless of performance, then the reality is that
Brainer Online Review Management Tool
There’s a better way to receive more positive online reviews without jeopardizing your online reputation— brainer!
Brainer is a leading online reputation management tool that allows you to control your online reviews with the click of a button. Our software makes it easy for your to prompt customers to leave online reviews without incentives or penalties. It’s a no-brainer. Try brainer today and watch your online reputation go to the next level.