5 Star Biz of the Month

Has Get More Reviews had a measurable impact on your business?

Absolutely, we get people all the time like “oh I saw your reviews, that's why I’m here”. There’s always new people in Austin moving into town and we attract a lot of new residents who don’t have a jeweler yet, as well as a lot of young people who are wanting to get engaged but  have never been to a jeweler. It’s amazing how many people come in and say “oh we saw your reviews!” We don’t necessarily ask all the time, sometimes people just come out and say they saw the reviews. 

A lot of people really take the time to write some really heartfelt reviews about us. For example, what a beautiful thing we created out of their mom’s ring or something like that, and it has a big impact on the business when people read those reviews about us. The application works, I think we are close to 300 reviews on Google, 120 on Yelp, and several on Facebook, but we have a lot of reviews for a business that’s only been around a few years. It really is incredible how much the app (Get More Reviews) has helped our business grow, even during the pandemic.

How has GMR helped you in generating and managing your online reviews?

It’s super easy and it gives customers multiple options as far as where they want to leave a review, and it makes it easy on our staff to send out review requests with text and email, it automatically sends reminders to customers about 3 times. We just keep sending out requests, about 15-20 a week, and if we get 5 new ones a week, that’s awesome for us. We’ve managed to generate a lot of reviews already compared to businesses that have been around a lot longer than us. 

Do you feel you get great value out of GMR? 

Yes because people can obviously go online and put the effort in if they want to do that on yelp, google, etc. on their own but by sending requests, first it’s a reminder like “Hey can you let us know how we did” and it’s an easy way to ask that because they can go straight to leave a review directly from the request. We’ve had a few reviews before, but it has exponentially shot our numbers up. 

Typically when someone is very happy, we try to send them a review quickly because they will probably stop and write something. I also think that if people come to us because of reviews, they are more likely to leave a review for the business. I always thank them for their reviews because it means so much to our business.

What strategies do you use to keep 5 star reviews coming in?

Of course, as a business, you have to do your part to get those 5 star reviews. Of course if you don’t have a good product or service then you’re going to really struggle to get more reviews, no matter what you do.  But assuming you have that covered, the secret is really simple, we just verbally ask each customer if they’d be willing to leave us a review and then we send out the review request.

But like I said, the customer experience is super important, which is why we bend over backwards, deliver repairs promptly, professionally, and produce high quality work. We will do multiple drawings or options and keep going over the job until the customer is totally blown away. We never pressure people but aim to please. If the ring size doesn’t fit, we’ll resize it, if the piece is not perfect or not exactly what they wanted, we redo it. We don’t have to redo it too often, but when you do enough business you run into those things. I train my staff, it’s all about customer service now and it’s all about your presence online, of course.

Whether it’s Google, Facebook or Yelp, before we get them in the door, that’s their first impression. It’s a competitive business, you do whatever you can to stand out. We don’t have the biggest, most glamorous store, but teaching my employees to figure out what the customers are after by listening to the customer and having good customer service can make a business stand out. When you say something, do it, and make sure it gets done. You have to do your part as a business, just cause you send out review requests, you have to be doing something right because bad reviews can hurt you.

Has COVID impacted your business? 

We went by appointment only for probably 4-5 months and half days, so business was off a little bit last year. We’ve gotten through it okay actually all things considered. The silver lining of it all is that having a great online reputation really helped us.  Since even more people moved to doing business online, our hundreds of 5 star reviews really allowed us to stand out against the competition.  I really think all our reviews gave us an edge, and helped our customers feel more comfortable booking a virtual appointment with us vs a competitor. 

What is something you would tell other business owners about Get More Reviews?

It’s a no brainer. It definitely brings us more customers than anything else we do. People just time and time again, “We saw your reviews.” I would say out of 10 times, 7 of the times new customers come in are going to be because of the reviews. What those reviews are worth are unbelievable, you can’t put a price tag on it. New Paragraph