Why Google Reviews are feared
Google Reviews are a source of anxiety for most business owners - especially professional services providers. This is understandable.
Detailed public information is scarce on professionals like lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, conveyancers, business advisers, financial planners and mortgage brokers. As a result, these professionals are primarily competing on trust and reputation.
So, it’s no wonder reviews cause fear: they can erode hard-earned trust among would-be clients.
It is tempting to disengage with reviews entirely, but that’s a bad idea. It’s way too easy to harness their power to gain a huge competitive edge and while mitigating their risks.
The market is moving towards reviews
If you already know how reviews are growing in importance for professional services - feel free to skip this section and go straight to how you can get a big edge on the competition.
If you’re yet to be convinced, you should know that over 80% of consumers check reviews before hiring a provider.
Online due diligence is most common among younger buyers. In fact, FirmChecker’s most dominant market segment is 25-34-year-old buyers, who are using data to inform their buying, and our aggregate user numbers have steadily increased in the past 3 years.
It’s where the market is headed - so don’t sleep at the wheel while your competitors make smart moves to exploit this.
Source: Google Analytics - young buyers are looking for reviews online on FirmChecker
How to get a competitive advantage
Firms have always found it difficult to know where to focus their efforts.
“Do we get detailed feedback & rigorous reviews from FirmChecker, or focus on Google Reviews which could be more visible?”
There are pros and cons to each approach - but we’ve now made it a no-brainer.
Do both.
Our new feature makes it easy for happy clients (who rate you 9 or 10/10) to amplify their detailed, verified reviews on FirmChecker by posting them to Google Reviews in just a couple of clicks.
This means that by using FirmChecker your firm can collect:
- Precious private feedback
- Detailed public reviews on FirmChecker, which helps you showcase your specific expertise and value to discerning buyers
- Google Reviews from happy clients, which boosts your SEO and online presence.
Another advantage is that clients who don’t have Google accounts can leave you reviews on FirmChecker, where they otherwise couldn’t.
How it works:
- Log into your FirmChecker Marketing Pro Subscription
- Go to “Profile for {your firm}”
- Add your Google My Business information to 'Review Sites'
Once completed, just continue sending out your FirmChecker Survey as before.
Your raving fans who give you a 9 or 10 on FirmChecker will be prompted to push their detailed review to Google with just a couple of clicks.
With no additional effort from you or your clients, you’ll get higher-quality public reviews with twice as much mileage, while any rogue unhappy clients will typically self-select towards giving you private feedback on FirmChecker.
In the near future, we will also be adding several other review platforms to amplify the voice of your happy clients even further and help you outstrip your competitors.
Get started
Don’t procrastinate on getting started with your new online reviews strategy. It’s dead-easy to start and the sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll get a competitive advantage.
This feature has been in huge demand from our subscriber base, so we suggest you act quickly to set yourself apart.
You can sign up or sign in here.
Key tip
Because reviews can be a bit intimidating, we usually ask our new subscribers one question: “Can you think of one client who you know will give you a great review?”
The answer is almost always “yes” - and in fact, you probably have several clients like this - so start with them and get an early win.
After this, you can include your FirmChecker link in your team’s email signatures & end of matter emails and you’ll typically see a response rate of ~30%.
Before you know it, you’ll have a killer online presence that turns traffic into paying clients that stay with you for years.
Further questions?
Book free consultation with our resident business growth expert, Gat Tholbok - who will be only too happy to set your firm on the right path.