In my last newsletter, I wrote about how a funeral home received negative Google reviews due to their website vendor’s memorial tree program. I also said that getting more positive reviews asap should be the top priority so that you can minimize the impact of negative reviews.
One of the things I do for my clients is to keep abreast of new technologies that we might use at their funeral homes. Last week I had a meeting with a vendor to learn about their automated after-care system.
Their program has some interesting features, but the one that piqued my interest was an advertised ability to increase Google reviews for a funeral home. One of the case studies they cited has a client who went from 20 to 90 reviews in 12 months. That got my attention!
I know of another vendor with a similar service, but there’s always room for more than one vendor in a market.
In this case, the vendor is a spin-off from a large preneed company. They’ve been offering this service to preneed clients and decided to launch it as a standalone business unit.
I asked the sales rep how they could collect so many reviews, and his answer was…
“It’s all about the timing.”
He said that their system never asks for a review until the person responds with a positive comment.
Someone from their team is monitoring the response messages, and when something comes in along the lines of “This has been really helpful. Thanks!” they ask if the person would be willing to share their comments on Google and includes the link to their review page.
Pretty simple concept, right?
Many funeral home owners struggle to increase their Google reviews. They know it’s important, but they don’t want to impose on the family by asking for something that benefits them.
One of my clients relayed a story about how he was delivering the death certificates to a family. They were very appreciative of their services and asked if they could do anything in return.
They complimented your services and asked how they could help you. That’s called the perfect timing!!
Fortunately, my client had a card in his wallet that we had created for just this moment.
The card says the following.
We Welcome Your Feedback.
Please leave us a Google review at
<ourfuneralhome>.com/review
That link is forwarded directly to their Google review page.
Whether you are using a printed card or some automated technology, the process is the same.
Step 1 – wait for some positive feedback.
Step 2 – make it easy to leave a review.
Step 1 is vital in the funeral industry because you never know where someone is on their grief journey. Asking everyone for a review could result in some hurt feelings or some lukewarm reviews.
Step 2 is important in all industries because, for some crazy reason, Google makes it difficult to find review links for a business. They’ve improved lately, but it’s still something that causes some confusion.
For some of my clients, we’ve designed a physical review card they can hand to a family member. For others, we’ve set up an email that they can save as a template and send it to people when the timing is right.
However you choose to facilitate the process, the goal is to become the highest-rated funeral home in your market.
People trust Google. They shouldn’t, but that’s a subject for another newsletter.
87% of people trust Google reviews as much or more than a referral from a friend.
Remember, you can’t prevent negative reviews, but you can bury them with 5-star reviews!!
The technology vendor said that they are getting about a 10% review rate so far. So if you give them 200 names to follow up with, you should receive 20 new Google reviews. Since the timing was right on the request, you can expect that most of those will be 5-star reviews.
I don’t know of too many 200 call funeral homes that wouldn’t benefit from 20 new 5 star reviews.
Sometimes, I talk to vendors who already have a substantial business. In this case, I would consider this vendor to be early in its growth phase.
If you are comfortable being an “early adopter” of technology or want to take this service for a test drive, reply to this newsletter, and I’ll send you their contact information.
Until next time
John
PS: I’m not getting anything out of recommending them. I just like how they’re solving an important problem.
