How to Get More Reviews for Your House Cleaning Business
November 3, 2021
Between working, putting food on the table, exercising and spending quality time with family and friends, life can get incredibly busy. Finding time to clean the house can be difficult, to say the least.
Outsourcing house cleaning not only ensures a cleaner, more relaxing home environment, but it also saves people time — an asset all too many of us don’t have enough of.
But, before someone decides to take advantage of a business’s house cleaning services, 9 times out of 10, they’ll read their reviews.
Inviting someone into your house to clean is a big deal, and it takes a lot of trust. People won’t place that trust in just any house cleaning business. They want to know that they’ve found a house cleaning business with a proven track record.
Reading reviews is a huge part of a consumer’s decision to work with a house cleaning business or not. If you have a less than stellar star rating or — even worse — you don’t have any reviews at all, most consumers will turn to your competition instead.
Here are a few easy tips to help you build trust and get more reviews for your house cleaning business.
5 ways to get reviews for your house cleaning business
#1. Deliver a share-worthy experience
The first and possibly most important thing you can do to get more reviews and build a strong reputation for your house cleaning business is to make sure that you provide your customers with an experience worthy of sharing.
If you merely meet your customers’ expectations, it doesn’t give them much incentive to actually take the time to write a review. But, when you can exceed their expectations by going above and beyond, your customers will feel more compelled to share it.
Providing great customer service alone probably won’t be enough to encourage your customers to write reviews. It does help to ensure, however, that you get more positive reviews and a higher star rating.
Getting more reviews doesn’t mean much if they’re all one or two stars. Get more five-star reviews by delivering a five-star experience.
#2. Ask your customers to write reviews
Unfortunately, most people won’t write reviews on their own, even if you go out of your way to exceed their expectations and provide the ultimate experience. However, most people will write reviews when you ask them to.
The easiest way to ask for reviews is through automated email marketing. Streamline the process by sending follow-up emails after someone makes a purchase or gets a service. This way, you don’t even have to think about asking for reviews. The process is already built in.
In the first email of your campaign, ask whether they had a positive or negative experience with a thumbs up or down. If they choose the thumbs up, link them to a review site, like Top Rated Local®, Google or Yelp. If they choose the thumbs down, send them to a feedback form that will go directly to your team.
This allows you to address negative feedback before it becomes a public review and send positive feedback to the right review sites.
#3. Offer incentives in exchange for reviews
Writing a review only takes a few minutes, but let’s face it, not everyone has a spare few minutes in their day to write a review, especially if they’re not getting anything out of it in return.
Some people are more than willing to write a review when asked, but others need a little more encouragement to write a review. Offering a discount or an exclusive offer is a great way to nudge those people into writing a review for you.
Be sure to read the terms and conditions for any review site you’re listed on, as some will penalize businesses that incentivize reviews. And, be careful when wording your review incentives.
Most of the time, it’s acceptable to incentivize reviews, but it’s not acceptable to incentivize reviews with specific star ratings or to only incentivize some customers.
#4. Respond to reviews, especially negative ones
Reviews allow your customers to give you feedback and share their experiences with other consumers who may be interested in your house cleaning services. But, it’s a mistake to treat reviews and reputation management as a one-way street.
Not only do reviews give prospective customers a preview into your house cleaning services and customer service, but they also give customers a preview into how you handle feedback and resolve customer complaints.
By responding to negative reviews, you demonstrate that you listen to and care about feedback from your customers. You show prospective customers that if something does go wrong, you’ll make it right.
Customers write reviews because they want to be heard. Show them that you’re listening by responding to their feedback.
#5. Monitor your reputation across the web
From Facebook and Angie’s List to Yelp and Top Rated Local, there are many review sites a house cleaning business should have a presence on in this day and age.
To build a strong reputation across the web, you need to be in the know about each and every review site your house cleaning business is listed on.
Keep a close eye on your reputation across every review site you’re listed on. This will help you respond to reviews in a timely manner, identify the best review sites to direct customers to and more.
Reviews are an important part of success for any modern-day small business, but for businesses that operate in people’s homes, like house cleaning businesses, reviews are essential.