5 Must-Dos to Generate Reviews

If you’ve spent any time on the internet in the last decade, you’ll know the impact reviews have on business. For the most part, reviews serve as great social proof to future customers. These testimonials from past interactions help them decide if you’ll be the right fit for them.

Generating reviews is an ongoing tactic. It should be part of your overall business plan and serve as a KPI you use as a measure of success.

How many loans turned into a positive review?

How many reviews do I generate a month?

What is the general feedback I get in my reviews?

All of these questions should be part of your monthly or quarterly evaluations of your business. The answers should guide you to the next steps of tweaking your workflows or optimizing your business.

So why do reviews matter?

Reviews are a high-return tactic, meaning they create value in multiple ways. It may just feel like a quick, throwaway comment from a transaction, but reviews - used properly - can check several boxes on your business and marketing plans.

Reviews Matter for Local SEO

Generating reviews, particularly on Google My Business, plays a pivotal role in bolstering your local SEO strategy.

Firstly, Google's search algorithms prioritize user-generated content and ratings, and the quantity and quality of reviews are significant factors in how your business appears in local search results. Positive reviews not only enhance your visibility but also serve as a trust signal to potential customers.

When prospects search for businesses in your niche, your well-reviewed profile is more likely to capture their attention. It will also show higher in search results for anyone using local search queries. These include “mortgage lender near me”, “mortgage companies in [City Name]”, or “best loan officer in [City Name}.

These reviews effectively validate your credibility, increasing the likelihood of conversion and making your business more competitive in the local market.

Moreover, the feedback and sentiments shared in reviews offer valuable insights into your business's strengths and areas for improvement. By responding to both positive and negative reviews, you demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction, which can boost your reputation and customer loyalty.

Replying to reviews is also a rumored element of the local search algorithm. While Google hasn’t confirmed this, we’ve seen better success in search impressions for accounts that regularly respond to reviews left on their pages.

Encouraging customers to share their experiences on Google My Business not only benefits your search ranking but also cultivates an engaged, loyal customer base that can drive organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing.

In essence, actively seeking and nurturing reviews on this platform is an integral component of an effective local SEO strategy, helping you build credibility, improve visibility, and ultimately, drive more customers to your business.

Reviews Matter for General SEO

Generating reviews can significantly enhance the SEO value of your website, particularly when you implement review schema markup. This goes beyond the local strategy boosts mentioned above.

Prioritizing reviews as part of your technical SEO strategies can help your site in all search queries - not just the ones that mention your local area.

Review schema is like the secret sauce that makes your website stand out in search engine results. When you have a collection of authentic, positive reviews from customers showcased on your site, search engines like Google take notice.

They see this user-generated content as a vote of confidence in your business, which can boost your website's ranking in search results.

Now, let's talk about review schema. It's like adding an extra layer of information to your website's code to help search engines better understand the reviews on your site.

This information includes details like the reviewer's name, the rating given, and the review text.

When you use review schema effectively, your reviews can be displayed as shiny gold stars in the search engine results page (SERP). This not only makes your site more noticeable but also adds an extra level of trust and credibility for users. They can see at a glance that real people are saying good things about your business, which can lead to higher click-through rates and, ultimately, more traffic to your website.

So, it's like getting a little SEO boost and a gold star reputation all at once!

Reviews Confirm Your Customer Experience

Generating reviews is a powerful way to showcase your customer experience to potential customers. When they stumble upon your website or business listing and see a collection of authentic, positive reviews, it's like a window into the experiences of past clients.

These reviews provide social proof that your product or service has made other customers happy, which can be a compelling motivator for new customers. Reviews are often relatable stories, and they help people envision what their own experience with your business might be like.

They serve as an invaluable source of reassurance for those on the fence, offering real-world insights into the quality of your offerings.

Furthermore, responding to reviews is equally crucial in reinforcing the idea that you genuinely care about your customers' experience. When you take the time to acknowledge and engage with your reviewers, whether they're sharing praise or raising concerns, you demonstrate your commitment to their satisfaction.

Some of the most compelling review responses are when a business transparently and directly addresses negative comments. Nothing can better demonstrate your dedication to helping your customers than a prompt, thorough response to an issue.

It might feel scary to even acknowledge a negative review, but it’s worth the effort.

This active participation humanizes your brand and fosters a sense of connection between your business and your customers.

Responding to reviews also presents an opportunity to address any issues or thank your customers for their loyalty, further solidifying the positive impression of your customer-centric approach.

By showcasing this dedication to the customer experience, you not only attract new clients but also cultivate lasting relationships, leading to customer loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Reviews Create Easy Marketing Content

Using the reviews you generate in your marketing efforts is a strategic move that can yield remarkable results. These reviews serve as a goldmine of authentic, customer-generated content that holds immense value.

You can utilize them as social media content, sharing snippets of glowing reviews along with engaging visuals or infographics. By doing so, you not only highlight your satisfied customers but also inspire trust and confidence among your online audience.

You can also leverage reviews on your website, creating dedicated sections or widgets to display customer feedback. These act as powerful testimonials, helping to convert website visitors into customers as they see real people sharing their positive experiences.

Video content is another avenue where you can breathe life into your reviews. Consider creating short video clips or customer testimonial videos, where clients express their satisfaction with your product or service.

Video content is not only engaging but also highly shareable across various platforms.

The key is to use customer feedback strategically in your marketing, as it adds authenticity and relatability to your brand message.

Your existing customers' voices resonate strongly with potential customers, who are more likely to trust fellow consumers' experiences over promotional content.

Therefore, seizing every opportunity to fill your content calendar with user-generated content is a smart move.

It not only showcases the real value your business offers but also instills a sense of confidence and authenticity that can set you apart in today's competitive market.

So, don't let those reviews gather dust; instead, turn them into powerful marketing tools that continually reinforce the trustworthiness of your brand.

Reviews Give You Rare Insight Into Your Business

Mining the valuable data within your customer reviews can be a game-changer for your business strategy and overall operations. By delving into these reviews, you can pinpoint recurring themes, both positive and negative, to identify areas that require attention.

If, for example, several reviews highlight a consistent problem with your customer service response times, this becomes an actionable insight. Your business can then implement workflow adjustments, such as enhancing your team's responsiveness to inquiries, improving training, or streamlining communication processes to address this issue proactively.

Furthermore, customer reviews offer a direct feedback loop with your clients, providing valuable insights into their satisfaction with your team's performance.

By closely analyzing feedback trends, you can measure the effectiveness of your team's efforts and identify areas where they excel or where improvement is needed. Additionally, addressing customer feedback can enhance client satisfaction, reinforcing their trust in your business.

For instance, if reviews consistently praise a specific team member's helpfulness and knowledge, you can acknowledge and reward their performance, motivating the team to maintain high standards.

Depending on the way you want to analyze reviews - qualitative or quantitative - you may need to set quarterly or yearly reviews so you have enough data to find true insights. That doesn’t mean you can’t keep an eye on anecdotal information that trickles in from reviews as well.

In summary, mining customer review data is not just about gathering information; it's about taking proactive steps to adapt and improve, providing your customers with an even better experience and enhancing your business's overall performance.

How To Generate Leads As A Loan Officer

Now that you know just how valuable reviews can be for a variety of business uses, let’s get down to tactics.

Create a Review-Capture Email Campaign

Trade Reviews with Referral Partners

A type of review that lends a great deal of validity to your overall brand is non-customer reviews. These typically come from referral partners, including real estate agents, insurance agents, title agents, attorneys, financial planners, and the like.

When consumers can see that not only are you great with home buyers, but even your fellow business professional can vouch for your expertise, that means a great deal to anyone skimming your reviews to decide if they want to work with you.

We suggest asking for a review trade after a closed deal. Offer your referral partner to leave a review in exchange for one with you to make sure both of you gets the most out of the deal.

Plug Your Review Sites in Your Email Signature

As the loan transactions become more and more digital, what do consumers come in contact with the most? Your emails,

Add a call to action to leave a review in your email signature can help you generate reviews passively. That little button in your email signature can work on your behalf 24/7.

Ask For a Review At The Closing Table

Here’s where we suggest tapping into your EQ to use this tactic. If the closing experience is tricky, long, complicated, or tense, you can skip asking for a review here. If the consumer is in the middle of a high-stress situation, you don’t want to bother them with a review request in that moment.

But if your closing is going smoothly - as most do - you have a prime opportunity to ask for a review. Borrowers are happy, papers are signed, keys are in hand, and they have little reason to deny a good review.

Make it simple for them by offering a quick link or QR code to scan in their closing docs. This creates the lowest barrier possible to get them to a Google listing or your website.

Include a Review Request In Your Closing Gift

If you send a closing gift to your clients, you have a prime opportunity to ask for reviews (and referrals).

Include your review request in your note included with your gift. This can include an explanation of how you want to continue serving homeowners like them, and by offering a review, you (the homebuyer) can help you (the loan officer) keep serving customers

You can even get tongue-in-cheek with the copy, letting your buyers know “yes, I know this is silly, but that’s showbiz, kid.”

Give Exceptional Service

If you’ve ever perused the review section of a Yelp or Google listing, you’ll probably notice the wide distance between reviews. Either the reviews detail a bad experience, or they are glowing recommendations of over-the-top great service.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the review game. People will rarely leave reviews on experiences that are just okay.

But nothing will motivate someone to publicize their negative opinions like a bad experience.

If you need proof of this, just go take a gander at any local chain restaurant. Their reviews pages are fertile ground for dramatic and entertaining reviews.

But the ultimate goal is to not have those kind of reviews on your page. We want to see glowing, consistent reviews from your customers on those review pages.

So while this tip may seem obvious, it’s worth repeating.

Fabulous service, white-glove treatment, clear communication, reliable and expected timelines, and an open-door policy on questions and updates are the core themes of millions of positive reviews generated in the mortgage space.