Five new ways to get online reviews for your insurance agency
Good reviews can prove your agency has what it takes to provide true value.
Gaining a good review online has a multitude of benefits. It has an impact on your agency’s public image.
Any time you get an outstanding review, you’re proving your agency has what it takes to provide true value. Reviews also have SEO value for your insurance website. This is an important factor in getting your website to appear more in local internet searches.
Reviews and your public image
These days, people look at online reviews to make a determination. They are considering using your services. This is especially true for insurance agencies. When it comes to insurance, people search for the right policy and an agency that’s going to take care of them.
It’s also not the end of the world if you get a negative review. Getting an average or bad review can alleviate suspicion you may be paying for reviews. It shows potential clients you’re honest with your public image.
Getting that bad review will also give you a chance to attempt to improve that person’s experience with you. Always respond to negative reviews online. Doing this will show the public even though they may have had a bad experience, you cared enough to try and make the situation right.
Ask your customers
By far one of the simplest ways to earn reviews is to educate and ask. At the beginning of your relationship with the client, let them know how important it is for your agency to get their feedback. Explain how it can be of benefit. Putting a slight amount of pressure this way can help in getting them to want to leave a review. Especially if you provide exceptional service.
Make it easy
People can be lazy. This sounds harsh. But if you don’t make leaving a review easy, you won’t get the results you want.
If you don’t have a clear and concise way for someone to leave a review, your client may see it as cumbersome and tedious. This makes it difficult to get them to share their experience with you if they even remember to do so.
Send them an email with a link leading to the platform you want them to leave the review on.
Incentivize check-ins
Everybody likes a deal. A strong strategy to get reviews is by offering some type of incentive to check into your location on apps like Facebook or Yelp.
The true benefit to this is once they’re checked into your location, you can capture their information and remind them that you would love to hear about your experience with them.
Educate and coach
By far one of the best ways to get more reviews is to educate your employees. Explain how they affect the business. Then coach them to bring it up to consumers.
Most people will not even think about leaving a review for an insurance agency. Simply bringing up the topic can vastly improve the odds of it happening. Educating your employees will allow them to speak about the subject with confidence. Coaching them on how to talk about it will allow them to bring up the subject organically at their discretion.
Paid management service
Another powerful way of getting more reviews is by using some type of paid service. I’m not talking about paying for reviews. Rather, use a third party to do the leg work that you may not have the time or expertise to handle.
There are tons of options out there, and strategies to be implemented that can make a huge difference. So even though you may have to pay for their services, the benefit could outweigh the cost.
David Ray is an SEO specialist at Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC), a provider of marketing, rating and management software and services to the insurance industry.
This article originally appeared on ITC’s blog and is republished here with consent.
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