In today’s world, we are unlikely to purchase anything without first looking at reviews. Reviews are now a multi-million dollar industry, with major websites including Goodreads, solely dedicated to collecting reviews and companies offering to get you hundreds of fake reviews on Amazon in return for your hard earned cash. Even with all of this, many companies overlook the importance of a good review until that fateful day when they get one bad review. And then, all hell breaks loose!

At Abask, we are often contacted by companies asking, “How can I get rid of a bad review on Yelp/ Facebook/ Google?” And the simple answer is, “You can’t.” (The more complex answer is that you can, and should, make requests to remove bad reviews, but your chances of success are minute.)

The best course of action for a bad review is to bury it with good reviews. Knowing that your business will grow, you should start collecting good reviews as soon as now, because the more people you serve, the more likely it is that you will slip up and have at least one upset customer.

So, let’s talk about how to request a review… on Google.

Write a sweet email requesting a review.

It should go without saying that you only ask satisfied customers for reviews on Google. If you want to go one step further, you might ask every customer for feedback and then ask for a review from the happiest of the respondents. At least that way, you will learn from your errors AND get good reviews.

Collect the Google link for your review.

You are going to want to share the direct link for giving a review. Here’s how you get the link:

1. Go to https://support.google.com/business/answer/7035772?hl=en
2. Put in your business name and address
3. Copy the PlaceID
4. Put the Place ID in this address (replace all the italic text): https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=<place_id>

That’s your direct link to a Google Review.
For example, ours is https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJZx5TuKUH2YgRfz_IKxipKZE

5. Now, to make it easier, head over to Bit.ly and shorten that crazy-long url into something easier. Ours is now http://bit.ly/Abask-Google-Review

That’s it! Share away!