How can you get happy customers to become your greatest marketing tool?

Shep Hyken sits down with Lars Kristensen, founder of NiceJob, to discuss the importance of customer reviews and making them effective marketing tools.

TALKING POINTS:

- Lars explains how marketing is often based a company’s budget, not the kind of work or product they delivered. With NiceJob, the marketing hub isn’t an overpriced agency, but the individual customer who becomes a vocal fan of the company. This approach increases trust and reach for a fraction of an agency’s cost.
- Customers who have a special experience will want to give a glowing review online or share with family friends. After a customer referred a friend, a NiceJob employee found their favorite NFL team on their FB page and ordered them a team jersey. That customer made multiple recommendations since then. Shep emphasizes there’s no need to send branded merchandise, as customers will never forget where a sincere gift came from.
- Only 13% of companies ask for feedback. Compared to a referral, Google or Facebook reviews reach every one of the customer’s friends on social media, plus people they’ve never met before. Reviews can refer thousands of people through one awesome review.
- Lars explains the best way to ask for a referral is to start by making it personal, not a form email, and to use the customer’s name. Then frame the request to emphasize how a referral will both help the company and their friends and neighbors.
- When asked about the best way to ask for a request, Lars explains that customers rarely follow up on a verbal request. Give a verbal head’s up, then contact the customer preferably through mobile since it’s in the customer’s pocket at the point of peak excitement.
- Lars says to include specific instructions and the link for leaving a review. The easier you make it, the more likely the customer will follow through. Shep asked if a company should do something with the written review. Lars suggests choosing a powerful review and using it on social media and website along with photo of the customer service experience, which creates social proof. Posts with photos get triple the engagement.
- A bad review is an opportunity to show the kind of company you truly are. How you deal with a bad review creates a story you can use over and over. You can transform any negative to really positive review. to win the argument, it's to win the customer. Instead of making it good again, make it exceptional, and make it public, so others will see what you're willing to do to make it right.
- For his final thought, Lars emphasizes the importance of turning your customers into fans. It's not enough that you do that great service – you've got to take those customers and get them talking.

ABOUT:
Lars Kristensen is the Founder of NiceJob, a marketing service that helps companies improve their public reviews and use them to reach a broader customer base. Kristensen used his marketing agency experience to create a low-budget marketing app that yields big returns.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.
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