We all know how significant reviews are for our floral businesses—over 85% of customers base their purchases on reviews they see online.

Unfortunately, many satisfied customers will not leave a review, but you’ll always hear from the naysayers. This is why florists pull their hair out over negative reviews. Our goal is to encourage you to proactively seek customer reviews, not wait for them.

Online reviews are here to stay, and good or bad reviews are overwhelmingly important for the success of your flower business, the only way to grow your flower business is with reviews, and the best way to combat negative online reviews is with positive reviews.

With some florists now entering their slower months of the year, now is a great time to start building a strategy for garnering more online customers reviews.

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1. Offer Discounts for Floral Reviews

The power of a discount, don’t believe me, try it for your self. The task can be as simple as adding a notice on your counter or florist website. The sign can say something along the lines of, “Google & Yelp On-the-Spot Reviews get $5 off.” If you really need the reviews, offer a $10 discount. Remember, this is all part of marketing and can be written off.

Good to Know: While at a big box home store, at the end of the sale I was invited to leave my cashier an online review for a chance to win $500 gift card. Although the chances I would win this gift card were slim, it did encourage me to leave a review and the store only foots the bill for a single gift card.

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2. Be Direct—Request a Review!

While we’re thankful for the customers that give us positive online reviews without asking, let’s face it—most of the time customers are not privy to online reviews or aware of the impact they have, therefore we must be direct and simply ask.

• Ask customers after a sale, either by phone or in person
• Be sure to ask customers on your floral website
• Email customers with a link to review your flower shop with website order confirmation
• Be blunt and post links on social media to your review pages asking for reviews

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3. Make Leaving a Floral Review Easy and Accessible

We all think customers know how to leave reviews online, the fact is that some do and most don’t or rather not take so much effort. Make the process for reviewing your floral business easy and we mean as easy as ultimately possible.

• Have a direct link on your website to your review page; the home page is great, however using this link on multiple pages improves visibility
• Have an iPad or another device at your counter with your review page open and ready for action
• Send monthly or quarterly emails to your customers to review you with a direct link to your review page
• Add your social media address to your business cards—make sure your social media has all the appropriate links to your review pages

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4. Be Responsive When You Get a Floral Review

When getting reviews—good or bad—you must respond either with a grateful “thank you,” or with your version of the story. Nothing entices customers to leave a review more than when they see the business is acknowledging your interactions. Feeling they got the owner’s attention and feedback can be very gratifying to customers.

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Some Ways Reviews Help Your Floral Business Thrive

• High SEO impact, making your brand stand out from competitors on search engines
• Reviews can show on online search engines lists raising your placement
• Influences consumers into making a purchase
• Offers business credibility

Getting a Bad Review

This all said, we don’t want you to dwell on the occasional negative review. Yes, they can be annoying and even flat-out untrue, however having a good balance actually ranks your brand best. The key is a few poor reviews, with appropriate non-defensive response with good reviews, makes your business look legitimate, and also shows you care enough to respond and ultimately that is what customers want to see. Click here to learn more about the ways bad reviews can be helpful.

 

For florists who would never think of asking for reviews, it good to start building reviews into your everyday business tactics, just like asking a customer if they would like an add-on or upgrade. We cannot emphasize enough how important these are in building your online reputation and brand.

Florists, do you have any advice or questions regarding online customer reviews? Please share your feedback, tips, or questions in the comment section below.

Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

“Help, someone left me a bad review online!”

So what do you do? First, remember that any business on Yelp, Facebook, or Google may get an occasional bad review. It’s unreasonable for a florist to expect a perfect 5-star review every time. And sometimes a less-than-perfect review can actually be helpful to your floral business!

But even so, there are a few important steps you should take whenever you receive a poor review online.

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Bad Reviews Can Be Helpful!

Let’s touch on this briefly—unless all your business reviews are bad, a couple bad reviews can actually make your good reviews stand out and look better. It also shows customers that your reviews are real and creates a sense of authenticity.

And of course, a few poor reviews next to many positive ones are not going to deter customers—many shoppers are perfectly comfortable viewing a couple negative reviews as outliers.

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How Should You Respond if Your Flower Shop Gets a Bad Review?

No one is perfect or can be perfect all the time, especially in business when sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. There may have been miscommunication with the customer, late delivery, etc.

One course of action you should avoid is reaching out to the site itself (Google, Yelp, etc.) to ask that they remove a bad review. The ethics of this are questionable and it is almost always unsuccessful. Unless you know the review to be fraudulent or meant for another shop, we do not recommend this approach.

1. Respond to the Review

Regardless if the bad review is authentic you need to respond ASAP. Customers and readers (potential customers) want to see that a negative review did not go unaddressed.

2. Weigh Your Response

It is important to formulate your responses appropriately. You don’t need to offer a full refund in the poor review response, but be sure to read the review and determine the reason for the bad review—is the customer incorrect? Was there miscommunication between you? Was it simply an error on your part?

When communicating with the reviewing customer, consider the points below:

• Don’t be defensive
• Acknowledge the issue
• Protect your brand
• Highlight the positive aspects of your business in your response

If there was poor communication before, this could be an opportunity to make things right.

3. Offer a Resolution Offline

Always offer a resolution offline. There are many possible resolutions to a customer’s issue that can win them back for the long term. In your response, be sure to list contact information to continue the discussion privately. Below is a quick example:

Hi-

I’m the manager/owner of XYZ Flower Shop. We pride ourselves on maintaining the highest quality standards for our customers. We hope you will give us an opportunity to discuss this further. You can reach us at (235)867-5309 or email us at info@xyzflowershop. We hope to resolve this to your benefit and earn you back as a customer.

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4. Don’t Beat Yourself Up

No business owner is invulnerable to bad reviews. The most important thing is to learn something from a bad review and move forward. Florists often take a bad review very personally and should not. Use a bad review to improve your business.

And remember that the online review game isn’t just about waiting for good reviews and fending off bad ones: always encourage satisfied customers to review you. For better or for worse, reviews are often read by online shoppers, so they aren’t going away.

Florists, how have bad reviews affected your floral business? How have you resolved a bad review? Please share your feedback and questions in the comment section below.

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Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.