How Online Reviews Will Benefit Your Collision Repair Business

Carlsbad, CA, May 11, 2016 (Newswire.com) - ​​Every month, nearly 10 million consumers search online for auto body repair shops and related services. One of the first things they see are online reviews.

Autobody News recently learned how important these reviews are to your business from Frank Terlap, founder and CEO of eMarketing Sherpas. Whether your organization has two, 200 or 2,000 locations, Terlap said online reviews can improve customer engagement, a company's brand and increase online referrals.

"88 percent of connected consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from people and 90 percent said that positive online reviews influence their buying decisions," said Frank Terlap.

Terlep recently held a webinar discussing the importance of online reviews and offered tips on how to have your business appear on page one of a Google, Yahoo! or Bing search in your local market.

During the webinar, he cited data collected from the Bazaarvoice network in 2015, which said a business with one review can see a 10 percent increase in sales, a business with 50 reviews can see a 30 percent increase and businesses with 200 reviews can see a 44 percent increase.

Terlep said that 88 percent of connected consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from people and 90 percent said that positive online reviews influence their buying decisions.

In 2015, a company named Review Inc. surveyed 1,000 consumers and found that consumers trust online reviews much more than any other marketing and advertising mediums, including websites, newspaper, television and the yellow pages.

“But the sad news is that 87 percent of small businesses like most of you on this call don’t really have a formal process in place to ask for and capture online reviews,” Terlep said during the webinar.

With an abundance of different review sites on the web, businesses might wonder what review sites are the most important to focus on. “The review sites that consumers use the most and see the most and know the most are the ones that matter the most,” said Terlep.

Some of the more popular ones he mentioned include Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch, yellow pages and Judy’s Book.

What steps should a business put in place to get more online reviews?

“Just ask!” said Terlep. “If you want to get reviews, you need to let the customer know that reviews are important to your business.” He said it’s also important to make it easy and convenient for consumers to give you a review and let them know which sites you would like to get the reviews on.

When asking for a verbal review, Terlap said there are eight must dos:
1)    Always get permission before sending a review request.
2)    Ask at the peak of your customer’s happiness with your service.
3)    Let your customer know that you’re asking for a “favor.”
4)    Let your customer know how long this will take.
5)    Let your customer know how you benefit from their favor.
6)    Get your customer’s primary email address.
7)    Tell your customer how much their offering to write a review means to you.
8)    Tell them that you’re looking forward to reading their review.

Terlep stressed the importance of responding to every review. Not only is it great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), he said it demonstrates to the consumer that the reviews really are important to your business.

To read the entire article and stay current on collision repair industry news, visit www.autobodynews.com.

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For more information, contact Stacey Phillips, Assistant Editor at Autobody News magazine.

Source: Autobody News magazine