How a Coffee Shop Owner Can Get More Reviews

Today we talk about: 

• old methods of getting reviews
• new ways of acquiring reviews
• what works and what doesn't work

Christian: [00:00:16] Hey.Today we're going to talk about how a coffee shop owner can get more reviews.We're going to talk about some very simple things that you can do and alsomaybe some things that you've never thought of. Now before we get into this, Iwant to ask you to go to the podcast app, check out the library, go to theMarketing Natives, scroll all the way down, and leave us a review. Since we'retalking about reviews, right? It's only fitting that you leave us a review.

Aaron: [00:00:44] Andmaybe we'll send some cookies. I mean, actually, if you leave a review and youput your name on there, we'll definitely reach out to you and send somecookies.

Christian: [00:00:51] Yeah.Your favorite cookies and some pens because we have a bunch of pens.

Aaron: [00:00:55] Wehave a lot of pens. We'll send you a lot of pens.

Christian: [00:00:58] Weneed to get rid of those. All right. So starting off here, coffee shop owners.Aaron, I mean, you go to a lot of coffee shops around here.

Aaron: [00:01:10] Yeah,I do. So one thing that I guess would incentivize me is - and nobody has donethis really - is offer some kind of deal or special maybe like half off or likebuy one get one. I don't know. To give a review because I've honestly left onereview for a coffee shop, and that's because I want it to be Google Local Guidewhich just means you leave so many reviews online. That's the only reason I didit, but if they incentivize me with saying hey, get half off of this or halfoff your next purchase, I probably would have left a review right there.

Christian: [00:01:43] Right.And that's just a very easy way to get reviews. Just offer a deal. Offer somekind of special. I believe maybe even through Yelp. I'm not entirely sure, butI think you can offer some kind of discount for Yelp users. Don't quote me onthis, but I believe they have the ability to do that. Speaking of Yelp andGoogle which are basically the two powerhouses when it comes to reviews online,having a large number of positive reviews will allow you to come up, you know,at a higher ranking on searches on Google and Yahoo and all that stuff. So it'svery important, and that's why we're talking about this and specifically aboutcoffee shop owners is because reviews sometimes will even make or break yourbusiness.

Aaron: [00:02:38] Iwas going to say Brianna and I were looking for a place to eat, and this isdifferent. There's a difference between a coffee shop and place to eat, but Itold her to look for places that had at least 100 reviews and it was a 4.5 orabove because you know that it's good at that point. She's like well, I foundone place that has like 10 reviews and it's like 4.3. So I was like no. We'renot. No. Even if the food looks good or whatever like it still hasn't beenproven. I mean, I think a lot of people do that. Before we have some numbers, Idon't know we're going to or what exactly they are, but a good chunk of peoplelook at reviews before they actually make a decision. So not only will you rankhigher, but you'll also have people that are going to make a decision on it.You don't even- you know, you can't even get in front of to help persuade them.

Christian: [00:03:26] Yep.Exactly. Now, this is just a way that I didn't even think of. I was doing someof the research, and I didn't think of this. But to automatically ask customersto leave a review either after or before logging into your free Wi-Fi. I don'tthink I've seen that. I know I've logged into several Wi-Fi hotspots at coffeeshops, but I don't think I've ever seen a coffee shop ask for a review eitherafter or before logging into the Wi-Fi.

Aaron: [00:03:59] No,and they do have your attention right there because if you're going to a coffeeshop to work more than likely the Wi-Fi is the most important thing that you'regoing to do. I've seen a lot of cool landing page style coffee shop Wi-Fisign-ins like you have to do- like they have games on them before, and why notuse that to, like, have somebody literally sign in, says it's successful, andthen click a button and leave us a review on Google? At this point, they'veprobably already got their coffee or their food, and they're sitting down tolog into Wi-Fi. So I mean, you have it very, very fresh on their mind.

Christian: [00:04:33] Exactly.Yeah. And yeah, I've seen that too. I've seen a lot of just a little splashpages that you have to go through before actually log into the Wi-Fi. Anothergood thing to do - and I don't think I've ever seen this either - is havevisuals throughout the coffee shop. Either, you know, you can start with somelittle table tents that show your offer or special like we talked about in ourpoint number one, or even just to remind them. You know, people need multiplepoints in order to remind them and to take action. Another idea would be to havewindow decals. Something that shows how important it is to you to get some ofthose reviews, and something very unique while I was doing some of thisresearch was also to share positive or unique reviews throughout the store. Andthat one I really haven't seen anywhere.

Aaron: [00:05:30] Right.I was going to say the- and that could be depending on the way that you haveyour coffee shops set up. If it's a franchised place, probably you can't dothis as much or be as creative, but those who own their own local coffee shops,you could get pretty creative with how you put those on the wall. And it justcould add to the way that your coffee shop feels.

Christian: [00:05:51] Yep.Yeah, exactly. Another super important point, and like I said, I did the researchon this. And around 70 percent of coffee shops don't ask after a purchase.

Aaron: [00:06:06] Wow.That is- so most of them don't even- I mean, I was going to say I guess I'venever been asked. So there's so many people who are leaving reviews just rightthere. Even if one person out of the 10 you asked that day leave it review,that's 30 new reviews a month.

Christian: [00:06:22] Exactly.When I was going to Pizza Hut, I was a general manager at a store, and reviewswere a big part of, you know, basically our ecosystem if you want to say that.But we did encourage all of our, I think they were called, CSR people. Sopeople who were answering phones, people who were cashing out to ask forreviews, you know, at the end of it. Just leave us a, I think they were called,surveys. Fill out our survey. Go to our website, and just, you know, do it.Obviously, not all year, every day we would do it, but the times we'd run it,it was time to really push it. And I was telling all my CSR and all my cashiersto really push for surveys. We would see a spike. We would see a huge spike inreviews and surveys. So asking makes a difference. Definitely, asking makes adifference.

Aaron: [00:07:17] Iwas just curious. I mean, for something like as big of a brand as Pizza Hut-now we're getting a little off the coffee shop part, but let's say like evenStarbucks. I guess they would even benefit from more reviews even though peoplekind of have the brand name out there just from the SEO or the search engineoptimization, like, popping up on Google for, like, local coffee shops. But Iwould even think for you guys just getting customer satisfaction to know forpizza but even for coffee. Like hey, if we're not getting positive reviews, andI mean that's what we're talking about in this show is to get more reviews. Ifyour reviews are not good, I guess it's a good opportunity for you to fix theproduct before too many people don't come into the shop which is ultimatelywhat you want to do as more people come in.

Christian: [00:08:02] Yeah.Another big thing here is to make sure that you have everyone in the coffeeshop involved in these efforts to gain more reviews. I mean, as a businessowner, you have to make it a priority in order for other people to believe inthat. So you can't just, you know, want more reviews without implementing thatinto your, I mean, your culture even, and I mean, there's several ways that youcan do this. But again going back to Pizza Hut, I remember they sort ofgame-ify getting reviews, and you can do the same thing. As a coffee shopowner, you can have different employees who are at cash registers, you know,whoever gets the most amount of reviews or if you get mentioned by name on areview, you get some kind of, you know, incentive. You get a bonus.

Aaron: [00:08:51] Giftcard.

Christian: [00:08:51] Agift card or yeah, something like that, and that also will definitely increaseyour reviews.

Aaron: [00:08:57] Right.They're actually motivated at that point to start making sure that they askbecause that number still is astonishing to me that 70 percent of people don'tactually leave a review. So doing that just gets you that more reviews. Thenext thing is probably the biggest one. I think what we try to focus with withthese reviews on how to get more of them was to focus on organic. Somethingthat doesn't cost you any money. Something that you can do and implement rightnow, but this last one is something that we offer. And this is not like a plugfor us, but I know it's just a really cool technology now. Which is likereputation management where you can actually, any of your customers, you candownload from your POS system which is your point of sale system. Anytimesomebody swipes their card or anything like that, you could actually send thema review directly, and as of recently, they've introduced SMS. So that's textmessages that you could send somebody right after they made a purchase, andthey get it is a text message. 90 percent of text messages are answered withinfive to 10 minutes. So imagine that many people seeing your message thatquickly and then leaving review. I think this is maybe like an acceleratedapproach if you've already exhausted the organic waves and you've had tons ofreviews and you want to really accelerate it. Or maybe you just opened andyou're like well, we only have 20 reviews and now Aaron's never going to comeand check out my store because they only have 20 reviews. But this is a greatway where if you have 15, 20 customers a day, that's 15 to 20 people you cansend a text message to before they tell you to stop anyway and not beingevasive to get a review and a lot higher click-through rate and something likean e-mail.

Christian: [00:10:42] Yeah.And it's the same thing with- because I know I've seen this a lot where nowinstead of getting a paper receipt, you can get it through your e-mail. So justtype in your email and you get it that way, and that would be another way toone, collect e-mails and then use those e-mails to send out a review reminder.

Aaron: [00:11:03] Right.Exactly. We actually did that for doctor's office earlier this week, and I wasso surprised that they just collect these e-mail addresses from people, makesure that it's OK from them first. You've got to get permission, but they saidit was OK and they send it out. And the click-through rate or I guess the openrate is like 60 percent. For those who are not familiar with e-mail open rates,anything about 15 to 20 percent is really good. So for somebody to get 60percent even better because it's from a business that's really fresh on yourmind and it's more than likely very easy for you to click a button and leavethat review.

Christian: [00:11:42] Yeah.Do you have anything else?

Aaron: [00:11:45] No,that was last one for me. Go organic first is really what I would say. Go theorganic route. It'll cost you guys less money, and like we said and Christianmentioned perfectly, which is 70 percent of you who are listening to this thatare coffee shop owners, you're probably not asking for their reviews. So if youjust do that, we could have just stop the podcast after two minutes and saidask for more reviews.

Christian: [00:12:08] Yeah,exactly. Asking for reviews doesn't require any kind of special tools ortechnology. It's just you just have to have that commitment to see it throughand make that change within your company.

Aaron: [00:12:20] Allright. Well, that's all we have for this week, and we would really appreciateit, like Christian said earlier in the show, if you guys would go on to yourfavorite podcast app, click on there, leave us a review, subscribe that way youdon't miss any of these episodes, and if you know a friend who's opening up acoffee shop or you have a family member who has a coffee shop or you just wantto be nice and share your friends a BitBranding's podcast, we would appreciatethat. Go ahead and click those three buttons in the right hand corner, andyou'll be able to get that share option for you. And we will talk to you guysnext week.

Christian: [00:12:58] Bye.