[Webinar Transcript, January 2022]

McKay Allen:

Hi, everybody. Thanks for jumping on today. We're excited you're here. We've got a great crowd and a great webinar. And again, thanks for being on today. My name is McKay Allen. I'm on the marketing team at Kenect. Today, we're going to talk about the four things to do when you get a negative review. This is specifically for event venues. And we'll dive into a little bit of basic training about Google reviews, and then also just give you the four things you should do when you get a negative review. And then we'll take your questions. So please go to that little question dropdown, type in your questions if you have them. I'd love to walk through any questions you've got and make sure that you feel like your questions were answered and heard.

Who is Kenect?

Okay, let's get started. First of all, who is Kenect? We're a text messaging platform built for the event industry. We help about 5,000 businesses that use Kenect every single day. Basically, what we help you do is we help you communicate with your customers. We turn your main business number into a textable line so you can get the benefits of texting without having to give out your personal cell. This helps you generate more leads because we put a “text us” button on your website. It helps you communicate really efficiently because you're able to text your clients and your customers to conduct video consultations, and to drive online reviews as well.

We were recently listed one of the fastest growing companies in the world on the Inc 5,000 list. And how do we do it? Two-way text messaging for your business, so you don't need to give out your personal cell number. We do this with your business phone number. Web leads straight from your website. You put a little “text us” button on that website. Video chat for virtual consultations, which is really cool. And then online review generation, which is important as well.

Your clients prefer text messaging. So 89% of your customers say they would prefer to text a business. 98% of all text messages are opened within three minutes. 96% of customers find phone calls to be disruptive and distracting. Bottom line is if you're not texting, you're missing the boat. Your customers want to text you. Your customers want to text you. And if you're not able to text with them, they're going to go to somebody who can communicate in a more clean, and clear, and simple way. It is much better to have a 20-second text conversation than a 20-minute phone call, even when you can reach the person, much less, the times that you're playing phone tag and you can't reach them at all.

Top eight ways the wedding and events industry uses Kenect, scheduling consultations, sending appointment reminder, streamlining the process to validate info more efficiently, sending updates and communication faster with 98% open rate. Keep in mind, if you send an email, at best, you're going to get 11% to 16% open rate. With texting, you get a 98% open rate. You can video chat with clients. You can send and receive photos, videos, PDFs, and attachments, generate online reviews, capture more leads from Facebook, Instagram.

We also help you put a “Text Us” button on your website so you can generate live leads from there. The really interesting thing is if you put a “Text Us” button along with the contact button and a phone number, about 75% of people are going to opt to text you. That's how can convenient it is.

We also combine all your messages from Facebook and Instagram in the same place as a text message. That's via this inbox right here. So you log into this inbox wherever you are in the world, you can send and receive text messages to, and from your main business number, same thing directly with your smartphone. You can download the Kenect app and you can send and receive text messages. You can assign leads to other people at your business or other subcontractors. You can even request reviews, send quick replies, send photos, videos, PDFs, attachments, request payments, schedule messages, all with texting. And then video chat, I mentioned as well. You just hit that video chat button on the bottom right hand corner of the screen there, and it starts an instant video chat between you and the person that you're texting. And it's all in line in the text thread, which is key.

Keys to generating Google reviews.

All right. Google Reviews 101, and then I want to talk negative reviews. So first thing we've got to understand is about Google My Business. Google My Business allows you to put basic and verified information about your business on the internet. It's used by Google as the central location for verified information about your business, and is used for engaging with customers and attracting new ones. The really interesting part about this is your Google My Business page generally receives five times more views than your actual website. That's crazy. That's a crazy statistic. Receives more views than your actual website. It's the location where reviews are left in housed. It allows you to show up on the Google results and in Google Maps with that red dot. If you're wondering why your business doesn't have one of those red dots on Google Maps, it's because you're not verified. And according to Google, businesses with a verified Google My Business listing are two times more likely to be seen as reputable.

Foundational information here. Primary method for clients to share feedback about businesses. Anyone using Google can review your business and leave a star rating. And these reviews can be just star ratings. They can be long or short. Now, the key here is that Google does nothing to verify that they're your actual client. So why should you do it? If it's that risky, then why should you do it? Here's why. The reason is simple. 93% of customers use reviews as the first step in choosing a venue, 91% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. If you would have done this webinar, say, five years ago, these numbers would've been in the 50% range. That's how much this has changed. Customers really do care. They will not take action until they read reviews and they need a validation for their decision.

Now, the second reason you should care is because they matter to Google. 97% of people go to Google and they want to find a wedding venue. Google determines the order in which these venues are listed based on ratings and reviews. So the reason that the Summerour Studio, and The Winbish House, and Ventanas is listed there is because they have great reviews and a lot of reviews. It's that simple. That's why they're listed there. If you are not in the top three, it's going to be very difficult for you to get clicked. You'll also see instances where they list the map first, then list the Google My Business listings. You'll also see the map, then the listings, then something like WeddingWire or The Knot. Why does Google care so much about reviews? That's because they really have one job, that's to produce the result the searcher wants to see.

How to deal with negative reviews.

All right, let's dive in here. What do you do when you get a negative review? That's the question that we wanted to answer today. And I want to answer that in the next 10 minutes. First, how common are bad reviews? It depends on the market, depends on the exact type of venue you are. But generally speaking, it's about one in 30 are negative, one in 30. Do me a favor here, go to the question area and type in whether you're doing better or worse than that. Are you doing better or worse than one out of every 30 reviews being negative? Go to the questionnaire and just type in better or worse. Better. Probably the same. Better, better, better, better. Good. We got people doing better. That's wonderful. So you're better than average, which is probably why you're on this webinar, right? Because you care.

How can you avoid bad reviews? So I'll be really honest. Avoiding is almost impossible. Just really challenging. That is important, I think, to note that you can't really avoid them, but you can reduce them. Now, the number one reason that venues get bad reviews is because of the perception of poor communication. So when we go through with our new clients and say, "Hey, let's go through your negative reviews and see how you got them." 95% of the time, it is because of poor communication. It is them saying, "They didn't tell me about this or this charge. Or they didn't hear me when I said this or they misunderstood." It's about communication.

Now, we're totally biased, but we believe texting can largely solve those communication issues. No more phone tech, no more trying to figure out what somebody means, or, "Hey, I said this on a phone call." It's like, "Well, I didn't hear that or remember that." It's in writing if it's in a text. So text, then you will get fewer bad reviews.

Now, what not to do when you get a bad review. There are four things here. Well, I'll do what not to do first, then I'll do what to do. So what not to do is really only one thing. And that is do not reply and start an argument in public on Google, just don't. I know you want to. I know that it may make you feel better, but do not start a public argument on Google, and argue with them and tell them why they're dumb, all that stuff. Don't do that. That's just going to make the situation worse. It's going to make them angry. No one in the history of the internet has ever read an argument they disagreed with, and then been like, "Oh, I changed my mind then. You're awesome." No one's going to do that. So, do not argue with them.

What should you do? First is figure out what happened. Get to the bottom of it. You've got to figure out what happened. Was this person correct? Did your business do something wrong? Get to the bottom of it with whoever you have to talk to. Second is be introspective. Figure out if there's some truth in what they said. And if there is, how can you fix it? I think a lot of businesses skip this second step, is they find out what happened and immediately go into, "Well, we've got to deal with this negative review." It's like, "No, you probably should fix the problem." Be introspective and fix the problem.

Three is reply with respect. That's the hardest thing to do because your natural inclination is to light them on fire with your rage and reply with anger. Don't do that. Reply with respect. Say something like, "I'm sorry that happened. I can understand that that would be frustrating. My name's McKay. I'm one of the owners of the business. I really want to handle this. Please text us and I'll respond personally, and we'll see if we can resolve it." That's it. That's all you got to do. And then finally, is get more good reviews. If you remember nothing else from this webinar today, the key to deal with bad reviews is to bury them with good ones. So if you don't have a strategy or a process to go get good review are going to be in big trouble.

How to get more positive reviews.

So how can you go get more positive reviews? Let me give you a couple bullet points on that. First is build a process. You don't need some 12-page document that's a process document to get reviews. You need four bullet points. Number one, who do you ask? Do you ask everybody or just those that like you? I would just ask those that like you. Don't ask everybody, or you're asking for negative reviews. Two is how do you ask? Text, email and person phone, what's your process for asking? Most businesses, you email, and you get a 1% to 2% response rate. But if you're smart, you text. And texting will get you reviews between 35% and 45% of the time. Again, if you email, you'll get reviews between 1% and 2% of the time. If you text, you will get reviews between 35% and 45% of the time.

When do you ask? This is time-dependent on you. You can ask during the process. You can ask after the event's over. Just make sure they're half be when you ask. And then finally, who's in charge of asking? Make sure someone is in charge of it. And that goes to number two, determine an owner. Determine somebody who's in charge of asking as part of their job. If nobody knows that it's their job, it won't happen. And then finally, ask in the right way. Make sure you're asking in an appropriate way. And we recommend texting to do that.

How to ask for Google reviews.

Here's how it works if you use Kenect. Has your logo, it has a custom message here that you completely customize. They then see that. They click on the link. They click on Google. They leave you the review. It's that simple. That easy. Steps of success here. Don't remember anything else from this webinar, remember this, you've got to take control. I know you didn't get into this business to be a salesperson and go get a bunch of reviews. I get it, but you've got to get reviews. If you just sit back and wait, you're going to get eight or nine positive reviews every year, and four or five negatives. Go get good reviews, be aggressive and go get them.

Okay. With that, let's take some of your questions. Type those into the question area. I'd love to answer as many questions as we can in the time we have. So please go to that area and let's do some question and answer here.

What types of businesses does Kenect work with? So we work with everybody from law firms, to dealerships, to event venues. We're building integrations with tools like Triple Seat and BBL. Those integrations will be done later this month. So you will have the ability to integrate with the tools you're already using, which I hope is helpful. But we are really focused on the event and wedding industry right now. It is our focus. And so, we have a ton of clients who have onboarded in the last 90 days, customers in your space, and we'd love to work with you. If you're interested, just text us or call us at that number or just go to kenect.com, and we'd love to talk with you there.

So thanks again for your time, everybody. And yes, I'll send out a presentation, a copy of the presentation, and the recording. So thanks for that question. All right, everybody. Have a fantastic day, and a great week.

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