If you own a roofing company, it’s important to understand how home and commercial building owners view their roofs. For many, the roof is something they don’t think about unless or until there’s a problem. Property roofs are ultimately a shield and critical line of defense in protecting your property from rain, snow, hail, and other weather elements. Therefore when they need roofing work, they only want to hire a roofing company they know they can trust with 100% certainty.
Besides word of mouth, the best way to prove you’re a reputable and reliable roofing company is with online customer reviews. Firsthand, positive reviews from happy customers will make a world of difference when it comes to finding new ones. In fact, over 70% of customers say that they’re more likely to trust a roofing company that has positive online reviews.
While word-of-mouth referrals from people are important, they aren’t necessarily more important than online reviews. Almost 50% of people who are looking for a new roofing company say that an online review means as much to them as a personal recommendation. If your business has at least a four-star customer rating, that number jumps to nearly 90%.
The Effectiveness and Importance of Business Reviews Versus Project Photos
Many businesses have the option of showing off their handiwork as a free form of advertisement by taking photos of completed projects and posting them on their website. Roofing companies, however, don’t usually have that option because most roofing projects look similar to people without roofing experience. Rather than worrying about aesthetics, homeowners would rather have a leak-free roof that lasts a lifetime.
Therefore, prospective customers looking for a new roofing company are more likely to turn to customer reviews for advice than look at photos on your website or social media. Any roofing company can stage and arrange photos to look appealing, but it’s much more difficult to fake customer reviews. As such, online company reviews are one of the best ways to attract new customers, so they can see the quality of your work alongside genuine customer service experiences.
Reviews Help Your Google Rankings
In the modern age of the internet, building an online presence is crucial to the success of any business. Over 60% of people use Google when trying to find a new business, and many of them look at customer reviews first. So, if you have positive customer reviews, your business is more likely to be one of the first businesses listed when someone googles “best roofing companies near me.”
Builds Trust and Credibility
Roofing company reviews from former customers help to build trust and credibility with your community. People in search of a new roofing company will feel better about hiring you once they see how satisfied your former customers are with your services.
Forms a Connection With Customers
In addition to building trust and credibility and increasing your sales, reviews also help form a connection with your clientele. They give you the chance to be more than just a roofing company performing a service. This is especially true when you take the time to respond to reviews and acknowledge your customers.
Shows Customers That Their Opinion Matters
Finally, the option to leave a review about your roofing business helps customers feel like their opinion matters. It also makes them feel as though they have an impact on your business, which makes them more likely to return to you in the future.
Don’t Cut Out Negative Reviews
While it might seem counterintuitive, negative customer reviews are just as important as positive ones. No, you should never deliberately try to fail so that you get negative reviews. Instead, you should make the most out of negative reviews and turn them in your favor.
To do this, simply respond to the person who left the negative review, apologize, and ask how to remedy the situation, This will show current and future customers that you aren’t satisfied until they are, and you’ll do whatever is necessary to meet their demands.
How to Increase Customer Reviews
Now that you know how important customer reviews are, let’s look at how to get customers to leave them.
Ask Former Customers for Reviews
Many customers are more than willing to give you a review if you simply reach out and ask them for one. Although you never want to appear pushy or intrusive, most people won’t mind if you politely ask them for an online review. Also, make it easy for them by sending a link to the review site for your business profile there, by either email or text message. But you should talk to your customer first, call them, and get their feedback to know if they had a positive experience. You don’t want to blindly send upset, dissatisfied customers to your review profiles.
Entice Customers to Leave Reviews
While many customers are more than happy to leave a review, not all are willing to take the time. Therefore, by offering customers a small incentive, such as a free roofing inspection or a percentage off of future repairs, they’re more likely to take a few minutes to leave a review.
Follow Up With Your Customers
In addition to asking for reviews from customers of long ago, you should also follow up with recent customers. In most cases, the sooner you follow up with people after having performed a job for them, the more likely they are to leave a positive review.
Automate Customer Review Requests Free
Start an Email or Newsletter Club
Rather than manually following up with each of your customers, it’s much easier to ask for reviews via email or a newsletter. You can do this by setting up your system to automatically email customers and ask for a review when you send them an invoice or confirmation email. Because effectively setting this up is tricky, it’s helpful to enlist professional assistance from FieldBin.
FieldBin offers some of the best Roofing Business Management Software in the roofing industry. Using our software, you can increase communication with your customers by easily sending them emails and texts to request a 5-star review. You’re sure to see improved communication and customer reviews with FieldBin as your field service management platform.
What About Reviews for New Roofing Companies?
If you’re just starting out with your roofing company and haven’t had time to build up reviews from customers, you have other review options. For instance, it’s perfectly ethical and acceptable to ask friends, family, and even employees to leave reviews on your website. As long as they boast about your reliability, dependability, and integrity rather than the work you’ve done for them, their review is valid and true.
Final Thoughts About Customer Reviews for a Successful Roofing Business
The importance of online business reviews from customers can’t be overstated. Customer reviews are one of the best ways to build your business and are foundational for developing trust and credibility with your community. Whether you’re a brand new roofing business or have been in the industry for decades, you should place a high emphasis on customer reviews.