Enhance Your Online Reputation
It might feel awkward, or even pushy, to ask customers for feedback, specifically in the form of reviews on Google. We often think that the customer wants as little bother with you after doing business with you, right? That’s what some people think when they get a bill of $6k to repair an HVAC unit, so getting even “more” Google reviews seems overwhelming. But learning how to get more reviews for your HVAC business the right way is crucial for your success.
In the world of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, getting feedback so that you get more online reviews can affect your ability to show up at the top of search results when clients are researching an HVAC company for support.
Here are the tactics that have changed how HVAC brands are positioning their business and getting Google reviews as a result.
Table of Contents:
- Why Online Reviews Matter for HVAC Companies
- Develop a Review Request Strategy
- How to Handle Negative HVAC Reviews (Because They *Will* Happen)
- Using Technology To Streamline It All
- Conclusion
Why Online Reviews Matter for HVAC Companies
Think about the last time you needed a major home repair. Did you just blindly call the first company you found?
Probably not. You likely asked friends for recommendations, and then checked online reviews.
With so much out there these days about finding information, there is a higher likelihood of getting insights from 85% of buyers on services based on previous experiences. This is standard for today’s consumers.
The HVAC industry deals with situations where individuals may not completely get it when the system isn’t working correctly. Studies show that most consumers would not even consider working with an HVAC business when it comes to making decisions if the overall star rating is below three stars.
HVAC Review Sites To Focus On
Your potential customer might begin looking up data about local reviews on Angie’s List each and every month according to a study by BrightLocal.com.
When a heat pump unexpectedly acts up, customers don’t want to dig too deep. They want to find information easily, and your reviews are a great source of it.
Here are the go-to spots.
- Google Business Profile: When someone needs furnace repair fast, where do they turn? Almost always, it’s Google. A strong profile, boosted by positive Google reviews, makes you visible.
- Google Business Profile pages tend to rank among the top when customers are looking for you on Google search. This can vastly improve your search engine optimization.
- Facebook: People ask for recommendations on Facebook *all the time*. If your business page has great reviews, it’s easy for folks to tag you.
- A robust presence, supported by reviews, turns those recommendations into new customers. Be sure to leverage social media marketing.
- Yelp: Lots of people rely on Yelp for local businesses, that is obvious at this point. According to their site, users have submitted around 244 million reviews to the platform as of December, 31st 2021.
- Almost 1/5 of those reviews are on services in and around the home. That includes businesses like heating, cooling and ventilation and so many more companies similar to that, such as yours.
Develop a Review Request Strategy
Solid service alone doesn’t magically generate reviews. Getting in the habit of client retention efforts has proven effective.
Consistently asking satisfied customers is vital. It can feel awkward, but it’s a simple numbers game, too.
But consider all the factors as they add up. Consider these proven methods:
- Face-to-Face Request: After finishing a job, especially when the customer seems pleased, have your service technician simply *ask*.
- Text Message Link: A quick text with a direct review link to your Google review page works wonders. Many customers appreciate this easy process, too.
- Services like Text Request give tools to HVAC business owners to help with their texting strategy.
- Email Follow-Up: Sending a personalized email within 24 hours, maybe even from the technician themselves, has a powerful impact. You can also include your email signature.
Friendly Competition Never Hurt
Sometimes it feels like only grumpy clients take the time to leave reviews.
Get your entire team invested in turning this perception around. Setting a leaderboard of reviews left for HVAC team members each month can keep it in front of everyone and help your HVAC company collect additional reviews.
Here’s how a bit of friendly competition might look:
- Set clear, attainable goals. For example: A specific number of reviews to get monthly.
- Offer tempting rewards. HVAC repair technicians might not compete for the same rewards that you might care about as the business owner.
- Think beyond company t-shirts or trinkets. Think more along the lines of gift card, paid time off, and so on.
- Celebrate achievements, not just for the top achiever, but those making noticeable effort, and maybe even consider shouting these individuals on social media for their contributions. This fuels motivation in most people.
Just keep it *positive*. The point isn’t creating cutthroat behavior that comes at a detriment to getting even greater positive online reviews.
Automate Those HVAC Review Reminders
People lead busy lives and we do things very, very fast these days. Maybe they intend to write a great online review, and forget about it moments later.
It is likely a factor in why positive reviews get pushed to the back burner so easily. Here’s where your CRM or field service software comes in with integrations to automate this.
Set up automated email marketing reminders if your HVAC customers don’t initially write an online review.
Leverage Social Media to Gather More HVAC Online Reviews
People find HVAC contractors through social media platforms. Did you realize you’re missing a significant opportunity to generate HVAC reviews if you’re not actively seeking reviews on Facebook and Instagram?
Here are ideas to increase online review collection with HVAC customers:
- Repurpose Existing Reviews: Turn those amazing reviews you’ve already collected into a shareable graphic. You might include some company branding along the edge.
- Before & After Photos: We’re visual people by nature. Share “before and after” HVAC shots of a recent project, with the client’s permission.
- Client Stories: Post HVAC photos, videos and quick text captions of jobs you have completed. These sorts of “human” touchpoints do more for getting future customer reviews.
- Easy polls & surveys: A fun quick question on a social platform, or in-depth survey to see the performance of employees gives quick feedback that can affect review processes. Use this for your content marketing.
Get More Reviews for Your HVAC Business on Your HVAC Website
Make it as convenient as possible for individuals browsing your HVAC website to submit reviews directly from the webpage of HVAC repair services they were seeking.
Here’s some quick ways to do that:
- Google Review Badge: Add an actual graphic image linked to your company’s Google profile that people are redirected to to share experiences. Add a Google review badge.
- Streamlined Business Cards: Print your company cards for customers with your profile links right on them, where people might see your name and think it’s easy enough to complete now. This can include a QR code.
- Consider also creating a review business card to hand out.
How to Handle Negative HVAC Reviews (Because They *Will* Happen)
Even the best HVAC businesses receive the occasional negative review. It’s how you address things publicly, that makes or breaks perception of the negative comments.
That is what shows how your HVAC company resolves those types of reviews. Consider these tactics:
- First Step, Stop. Before doing *anything*, take a deep breath.
- If your business receives multiple customer reviews, take the time to pause and read through those to gather the correct perception. A review with lower star reviews might just simply be frustrated, it’s possible too, that the client isn’t communicating what you consider “valid” in writing.
- Do NOT reply out of defensiveness. A reaction based on an emotional place may cause the situation to be perceived much worse by future clients reading about the HVAC business review, just on the initial impression you made by writing online publicly what feels like venting.
- Use the Facts First: Your service technician likely put service notes in about the particular HVAC customer and you’re able to see your team’s perception in writing too, so compare with those of your client before jumping to conclusions of wrong doing or misunderstandings.
Address feedback with clear evidence, a timeline if there were issues that escalated the resolution to make it clear why your HVAC company had certain processes with an explanation and reason behind it.
- Don’t Be Afraid To Address It Publicly: Public responses can feel like risk when you can’t completely take everything “offline” – but show potential customers reviewing a situation with a negative-type rating by making it right.
- Address online that the client might have felt your communication and your technician’s efforts in the HVAC repair services weren’t understood and acknowledge the gap – then fix it and follow up showing readers how well your company resolves these things for a future decision making process for the right business.
- Short responses: You’re not there to further ignite and increase the negative situation. You’re trying to acknowledge a bad situation to provide the client’s viewpoint without creating additional tension in a negative direction.
- Limit online feedback about your HVAC business to just several points so things don’t go too deep, in public anyway.
- Try Taking It Offline, Too: If the situation has been de-escalated on an initial touchpoint, invite them with an email and personal contact information, ideally to one direct individual who will focus on supporting and managing your clients’ situations and ensure follow through to the resolution.
- This shows customers that you really take customer concerns very seriously, and they can communicate the nuances to a dedicated customer service manager, personally.
What NOT to do?
- Don’t *ever* ask someone to delete a review, or offer them a “special deal” for writing any review. Those just put people off and gives your HVAC brand the wrong impression.
- You won’t, on occasion, fix everyone’s frustration with their situations they faced with your HVAC services. If the reviews have become very off on opinions or don’t give useful feedback, consider having them contact one of the other staff directly at the office.
Using Technology To Streamline It All
It feels like *a lot*, juggling service calls and customer satisfaction follow ups for feedback to increase online reviews.
It’s no wonder many HVAC business owners feel like they don’t have time. But the return on the time investment into this process has far outweighed companies doing any other form of promotion when you factor a lower expense for the client acquisition over other higher marketing investment needs.
Review generation platforms can truly help:
- Centralized Dashboards: Tools like Podium and BirdEye give one central “hub” that streamlines and automates multiple tasks for review responses.
- Review Requests: Instead of relying solely on handwritten methods for reviews, HVAC business can send direct invitations using text-to-review, email invitations or even more direct communication options.
- Be sure you are always making review requests.
- Review Monitoring: No one has time to obsessively check several HVAC company profiles every hour. These tools show how effective all those new invitations you are doing in “review collection efforts” and if changes in team behavior or training in collection processes need attention too.
- Direct Responses: Using some online solutions, like responding without going away from those types of pages and completing all reviews on the actual dashboards themselves.
- That might include top level comments with both Google or other social media accounts to keep the data consolidated where feasible for the particular customer, without leaving the dashboards. This is something most HVAC business owners find tedious to handle separately.
- Real-Time Reviews: Software in many programs that monitor reviews gives you better insights and data, such as if customers leave reviews for one location specifically, the type of location, whether it was positive and which employee they mention.
- This lets you know precisely where to give praise and provide future additional education for teams too, and which of those on-going processes may support and improve that, as well.
- Tracking Integrations: Review services can work across your entire brand identity in different aspects that might make more work, including email campaigns or HVAC promotions like e-product and website data across platforms for even deeper information and insights. You may want to also incorporate some digital marketing efforts.
Conclusion
Prioritizing gathering client experiences while learning how to get more reviews for your HVAC business becomes just as important as any other key aspect of any successful operation when all the right strategies are in place. Having a plan for online reputation management is key.
The online landscape will continue shifting how clients look you up online and pick top-tier organizations above competitors so implementing this isn’t an option these days.
You need reviews so you can rank higher on page 1, on Google – but at this point, it also increases your chance of turning readers into client conversions from readers checking into and reviewing ratings and comparing with others who’ve reviewed their own experiences. The long list of benefits makes it a critical part of business management today.
