[Webinar Transcript, February 2022]

Ben Leighton:

Thanks for joining us today. My name is Ben. I'm on the marketing team at Kenect today. We're going to talk about some of the biggest changes to Google Reviews in 2022. First off, we're going to talk about Kenect for about five minutes just so you know who we are and then we'll get in the meat of the webinar. Shouldn't be more than about 20 minutes. Don't want to take up too much of your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to type them in the questions bar over on the side over there, and I'll get to them throughout this webinar, or for sure at the end when there's more time. So with that, let's get started.

Who Is Kenect?

Today, we're going to talk about Kenect first. Who is Kenect? We're based the Silicon Slopes of Utah. We're a text messaging platform for equipment dealers throughout North America. And we were actually founded by dealers and built for dealers like you. So, we help you communicate more efficiently, generate new leads, collect payments via text message and drive online reviews. We're the 25th fastest growing software company in America and the 216th fastest growing company in America overall. That's according to Inc. 5000. We've seen tremendous growth over 2021. And we really show no signs of slowing down in 2022 as more dealers utilize this platform and realize the importance of texting, especially during the pandemic and especially as people shift to more personalized forms of payment, rather than in person forms of payment.

Why Text Messaging Works.

So why text messaging? Because your customers prefer. 89% of consumers would prefer to interact with businesses via text message rather than a phone call. 98% of all text messages are open with 95% of those read within three minutes. 96% of consumers find phone calls to be disruptive. And 78% of US consumers say receiving a text message is the fastest way to reach them for important service updates and purchases. Bottom line, it's quick, convenient and easy. And it's really what customers are looking for. They don't want to have a phone call with you. They don't want to leave a voicemail, play phone tag, spend hours, or even days going back and forth. You send them a text message, 98% are open and 95 are read within three minutes. So you're going to get a read really fast and a quick response back. This is a dealer who uses us saying, "We used to call customers, but 75% of the time they wouldn't answer. So now we text them with Kenect and they immediately text us back."

You're getting quick responses and it helps keep things flowing in your service department, in your sales department, and it’s also what customers are looking for. Simplicity and convenience. We also add a “Text Us” button on your website to help you capture leads. This is just a simple and easy way if your potential customer is looking on your website, they see something, they want to know more. Send us a text, and then it goes into this inbox that looks like this. Similar like in an email. You can see that it's all laid out to where you can see each number coming in, each customer coming in, what time, what they're asking about. And then you can actually assign sales people to it. You can also set up automated responses. So if a customer text in, and maybe after hours, you can set up an automated response that goes back to them that says, "Nobody's here at the moment, but we're going to get back to you as soon as somebody's back in the building." Or something like that. So that your customer knows that, "Hey, we still want your business. We're still monitoring all this stuff. And we're making sure that we're capturing all the leads that come in."

We also have a mobile app that's free in the app store. So this is what it looks like. Again, similar to email, but you can see it's all laid out and each little message that comes in each customer and all that, and what time. And then also, with your phone you can send photos, use your camera to do video chats. And then you can also of course, schedule messages and quick replies. But this is a good tool that you can have on your phone. The app's free in the app store. So your employees can download it and use this platform through your existing business line. All of this texting platform is built through your existing business line. We call your carrier, we set up the texting platform, add it to your phone number, and then customers can use that. And then anytime you're texting or using this platform, the number that's going back to them is your existing business line. So it's all captured in one line, one number. So it's easy and convenient for your customers, because they just have to remember that. Plus, if you are responding and if you assign to sales person, but they're not there today, you can respond to with the same number. So you're all responding in the same way. Anyone can pick up a customer and give a response back if they have a question or something, when somebody else isn't there. It's easy, simple, and convenient for you and a customer.

Top eight ways dealers are using Kenect. Scheduling appointments, setting up automated reminders and sending status updates. You can also send quick information like hours, maps, your equipment's ready for pickup, targeted warranty reminders and schedule maintenance notices. You can actually send a bunch of people the same warranty reminder if it all comes around the same time. So that you can say, "Hey, you might want to come in for service," and then your customer will respond as they need the service, but it'll keep things flowing because you're texting customers, trying to drum up business in your service department by texting a bunch of people about warranty reminders at the same time. Selecting payments via text message, video chat with customers, attach and send photos, videos, invoices, and PDFs generate online reviews on Google and Facebook and capture more leads from Facebook, Instagram, and your website.

Improving Google Reviews.

What we're here to talk about is Google Reviews, giving you a brief overview of what it's about and the importance of, of why you really should be paying attention to this especially in 2022. A lot of people, a lot of dealers kind of just pass this off because they spend a lot of time working on their website, which is great. Spend time, use the money for that, but you also want to make sure you're monitoring Google Reviews, because if you're not, then you don't know what people are saying about you and you don't know what people are saying about your business. You want to make sure that you are staying on track with this and making sure that your business' reputation is still intact.

So, what is Google My Business? It allows you to put basic verified information about your business on the internet. It's used by Google as a central location for verified information about your business and can be used for engaging with customers and attracting new customers. A Google My Business page typically receives about five times more views than your actual website. So people are actually going to Google to look up your business more so than they're going to your website. Think about how much you're paying to update your website to make sure it looks good, all that kind of stuff. Five times more people are actually going to your Google My Business page. It is the location where reviews are left and housed. It also allows your business to show up in Google results and Google Maps. And according to Google, businesses with verified GMB pages are two times more likely to be seen as reputable. Make sure you're setting up this Google My Business page, this is tied in through your email, or phone number or whatever you need so that you can set this up or make changes to it and make sure you're verified. And Google can verify you, that you are the owner, and this is your page.

If you haven't touched it yet, I would recommend you go check it out. I don't have a lot of time to get into Google My Business right now, but basically it's the thing that pops up when people are looking for you. If you haven't done anything like that, it's just going to pop up generally. There’s a little dot on the map and people can leave reviews still, but it's not going to be as prominent because you are not investing as much time in it as you want. So you want to make sure you're investing time in it and pretty much what it's all about is Google Reviews.

Some foundational information. It's the primary method for customers to share feedback about businesses and customers or anyone using Google can review your business and leave a star rating. So anyone can really leave a review, even if they aren't a customer. And that's important to note, especially if you are trying to drum up Google Reviews and trying to drown out bad reviews, and we'll get to that in just a minute. But you want to make sure that you are staying on top of this.

These reviews can just be star ratings. So they can be long or short. Generally they're about a sentence or two. So it's really quick, really easy. And usually people will leave good review. I would say, almost all of your reviews are going to be good. There's going to be a few out there that are negative. And you want to make sure you handle those correctly. Google does not verify to ensure their actual clients or actual customers. So that's your job to monitor this stuff and make sure that you're responding directly to bad reviews.

Importance of Google Reviews.

Why do Google Reviews matter? 93% of consumers use reviews as the first step towards choosing a dealership. And then 91% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That's a huge shift in what we've seen in the last just five years. People are trusting reviews more than personal recommendations pretty much. So your word of mouth is good, but they're also going to go to Google to make their final decision. 91%. That's a huge shift even just five years ago, like I said, we wouldn't be talking about this. It'd probably be in the 50's somewhere like that. Half people look at reviews and half use word of mouth. Now it's pretty much all Google Reviews. So you can see that that shift is happening and it's really not slowing down in this new year. 87% of consumers won't consider a dealership with a low online rating.

Make sure that you are actually keeping up with your reviews and making sure that your ratings are high is key here. You want to make sure that people looking at your Google page are going to see positive reviews, or they're going to see you responding to these reviews to make sure that you are monitoring it, you are looking at it, you are on top of it. So that's what the customers want to see is you, the owner, you the manager, doing something of it. Reviews matter to Google. 97% of people go to Google when they want to find a dealership and Google determines the order in which companies are listed by ratings and reviews. If you aren't in the top three, you're not really going to get clicked. 90% of clicks are in the top three so you want to make sure that your reviews reflect your order As you go into Google.

Google really doesn't care about your personal business. They just care about the reviews that customers are leaving, because their goal is to make sure that they're giving customers or people that are clicking on Google, the best option, and the best option the way they see it. They don't want to get into a battle with you over Google Reviews. Like, "This is not a customer. This is a bad review. Take it down." That kind of thing. They just don't do it. They don't take down bad reviews and they don't get into it with customers unless there's a really major problem, which is very rare. So you want to make sure that you are staying on top of these Google Reviews and making sure that customers are leaving positive reviews. And Google cares about it because they have one job and that's to produce results for the searcher, what they think the searcher wants to see. That's key when you're thinking about all this. And when you're thinking about what Google is all about. Yes, they are a private company, but certainly people go in and they are looking for your business through Google.

What do Customer Want to See in Reviews?

So what do potential customers want to see in your reviews? These are top four things. They're looking for: quality, star rating most important factor and five-star reviews are preferred. Obviously you're going to get a few fours, maybe a three, but you want to make sure you're keeping in that four or five range somewhere in there as an average, and that will help keep you up in the search. And also, it's quality. Right? People want to see that you have four or five star reviews, that your quality is good, that your customer service is good. And star ratings is the easiest way to see that.

Recency, 73% of consumers disregard reviews older than 90 days. Most don't read old reviews. So you want to make sure that keeping reviews up to date. You're keeping people giving you reviews, good customers leaving good reviews.

Quantity, minimum 50 reviews is necessary. 150+ is ideal. Google really won't put you on the list if you have below 50 reviews and that's just because they view you as a smaller business if you don't. And you might think, "Hey, this is not attainable. We're a small dealership in a small town," but it is attainable. And the way it's attainable is by texting people that you have done business with over the last three or four years and say, "Hey, can you leave me a review?" Or if somebody has left you a review in the last year or two, and it's old, you say, "Hey, can you leave me another one? Just so we're up to date. We just want to make sure that your voice is heard as you telling people that this is a good business to go to. And we want to make sure that we keep our reviews high."

And then owner response. Google says after review ratings, owner responses is the first thing that customers read. And why they read it is because they want to see how you're interacting with customers. They want to make sure that you are reviewing all of these things and you're looking at each comment and then you're responding to it. So making sure you take some time out of your day or every couple days to look at new reviews as they come in, just so you're putting your stamp on it, just so you're looking at reviews, and so people who are searching will actually see that you're responding as the owner or the manager.

Navigating Bad Google Reviews.

Some keys to deal with bad reviews; and this is probably one of the bigger things that is difficult to manage. How common are bad reviews? They're probably 1 out of every 50 reviews are bad reviews. So some tips for avoiding bad reviews, what not to do when you're getting bad reviews, is that you need to make sure that you're not responding in a negative way, in the sense that you don't want to tell the customer, "Man, you're wrong. This is stupid. I can't believe you left this. We did a good job.” You don't want to say that. What you do want to do is make sure that you're responding in a positive way, in a constructive way. If somebody texts in or leaves the review and says, "I waited for a half an hour and then I got overcharged. This place is terrible." You want to respond by saying, "Oh my gosh. That is terrible. I can't believe that happened to you. I'd love to get to the bottom of this. Please give me a call." Something like that. You are giving the customer or the reviewer a call to action. You're also showing people that you want to resolve it. And chances are this person that left the bad review isn't even going to respond to you. But you are showing potential customers that you are willing to look into it, make sure that you're not making any mistakes and you're willing to correct things as they come up if there is something to correct. There may not be, but at least you're showing people that you want to change this stuff. You want to make sure that your business is the best and that you're following what customers want.

The key is to bury bad reviews in good ones. And that's the key here for pretty much going forward is you want to make sure all of your positive reviews coming in, drown out any of the bad ones. 1 in 50, are negative. Google probably won't take it down because they really don't take down reviews, in very rare instances. So just bury them in good ones. And then make sure that you're responding in a positive way.

How not to deal with bad reviews? We did go over this, but I wanted to hammer this home. Don't ignore it. Always pay attention to it. Get to the bottom of it. Figure out what happened and how the interaction went wrong. Don't fail to reply. Always reply. Silence is consent. What that means is if people see that you didn't really respond, they probably think that you did it or that you really did leave that person hanging and you really did overcharge them. If you don't say anything, you're letting your angry client know they have the last word. And then don't plan on Google removing it because they won't.

Google almost never takes down bad reviews. And then we'll show you what that means in just one second. But start an online argument. Don't do that because you don't want to reply defensively and with frustration and nothing good comes from an online argument. Because what's happening is, sure, it might make you feel better and you're going to argue with this customer and tell them they're wrong and you are right and you win the argument. What is that looking like to potential customers? They're seeing this argument play out on Google in your review section, and they're looking like, "You know what? I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to be a part of a place that is arguing with customers, whether it's real or not." You just want to leave one line, offer a solution, offer to get to the bottom of it and see what happens. Again, chances are that customer won't even respond to you. But who knows? And maybe you did do something wrong and you do need to correct it. That's a great way to figure it out. So you want to make sure that maybe there was a break in the chain of command and you want to make sure that that customer's taken care of and it doesn't happen again for you.

Will Google take down these bad reviews? If you have solid evidence that this review is fake, you can flag it to Google and this will alert Google the review to get them to consider removing it. But in order for a review to be flagged, it should meet a lot of guidelines that Google's laid out. Contains offensive language, they will take down reviews that have offensive language, especially if it's laden with it. So you definitely want to flag those. If it's written by somebody with a conflict of interest, a current or previous employer, or friend or competitor, you can flag this for Google and then make sure that you provide evidence that this is from a competitor or is from a current or previous employer. Google doesn't know and they're not going to do a whole lot of research for you.

You want to make sure that if this is something you want to make sure comes down, or if you can't bury it in positive reviews, then make sure you're putting all the evidence you can when you're flagging this. Or if this is written by somebody who's never experienced a service or product provided. But think of it this way, Google really can't determine whether that person has ever experienced your service or product. So make sure that you're providing information or at least ironclad information. Finding ways to prove that to Google is going to be tough. So that just shows you how tough these reviews are to take down. And this is really for protection of Google and just think of it from their perspective. If you're having a bitter rivalry between two competitive places, they're not going to know whether they're leaving bad reviews because you guys are back and forth on bad reviews or there's some sort of rivalry, or if you haven't really proved that this person is a former current client. It doesn't matter. They're just not going to get into it. They're just not going to get involved. So, you want to make sure you're getting all the evidence you can, making sure you're flagging if you really want to, but just don't count on Google taking it down.

Increase Positive Reviews.

How to get more positive reviews? We just want to go over this because this is how you bury it and making sure that these are simple things you can do and it's really quick and easy. So you build a process for asking reviews. Who are you asking? Everyone or just those that like you? I would say probably just the ones that like you or had good experience. How do you ask? Texting, email, in person or phone? I would say texts. Obviously that's the fastest way to reach people as we showed you. Also, emails. They are opened about 1%-2% of the time. Whereas texting is probably responded to about 35% of the time. So that's 35 times more opens than email. It just shows you the difference. We used to email people and that was the best way to do it five years ago. Now texting is the best way to do it. Phone calls are just too long. You can't call somebody and say, "Here's a link. Leave a review," or, "I'm going to send you a link. Make sure you do it." Texting is the easiest way to do it. And I'll show you what that link looks like in one second. But texting, you can just text them. They click on the link and they leave you a review. So when do you ask? After a case, during a case, after your sale, after a service. All that kind of stuff, you ask them right when it's done, a little day after, right before they pay, that kind of thing. Just choose when you want that to ask. I would say obviously, right as they're walking out the door, you say, "Hey, I'm just going to send you a text. If you could leave me a review, that would be fantastic. It takes two seconds. All you do is click on the link and then you fill it out and it takes under a minute."

And then also who's in charge? Making sure you are designating somebody, giving him a bonus maybe, adding an Amazon gift card, or Starbucks gift card, something like that so that you're saying, "Okay, just monitor this. Keep track." So we're not texting everybody all at once. So if somebody texted this customer that just left and then you go back and text the customer again for the same review that just won't work.

You want to make sure that you're texting one customer one time to leave the review. Or if you're going back into the archives to text people that have had business with you in the last three or four years, that you know who you've texted. You're keeping a log, somebody's in charge of writing that down and making sure that they're doing it. And then determining the owner of the process, again, comp the owner, asking the right way, make sure that you are asking in the way that is for people that are enjoying your service so that you're getting a positive review. And then making sure you're asking the right way, as in, you're giving customers the easiest possible way to leave a review, sending them a link, all that kind of stuff, that that's easy to do. They get a link, they click on it, it takes under a minute. So here's what it looks like.

And when you set this all up, you can put your logo. We'll set it up. You can put your logo up at the top. So it's personalized when you send this. So you send them all this text and it can be automated or you can type it out, but then you can send them the link to the Google Reviews page. Actually they can choose which review they want. Obviously Google's going to be the top because that's the one that everybody goes to. Facebook really doesn't have as many reviews. And we used to have Yelp, which was very good, but they don't leave very many reviews there either anymore. Google's pretty much the way to go with businesses and dealerships. So you send them all this, they click their site and then they leave their review. They just click on the five stars, or four stars, or whatever they think and then they write a sentence or two. And that's it. It's over. Less than a minute, easy to do and quick and easy for them. So you're going to get positive reviews. They're going to drown out your bad reviews and it's going to be easy for them and easy for you.

So steps to success, just a review. Take control. Don't let angry customers determine your online reputation. Get great customers to leave reviews. Build a repeatable process. Find the point in process where you can easily ask happy customers for reviews. Making sure you're getting those customers that had a great experience. Using text messaging, not email. Again, we just talked about this. Kenect is 35 times more effective than email in collecting reviews. That's because emails are opened 1%-2% of the time and responded to, whereas texting is responded to maybe 35% or 40% of the time.

You want to make sure that you are capturing reviews through text messages and not email. I mean, there's a lot of spam out there. So think about you using your phone and what you get on your phone. I know I don't check my personal email as much because of spam. Or also, if you're not telling people, "Hey, I'm going to send you this review request," then they're just going to put it in their spam folder. Or it might get shoved into their spam folder. So texting is easy. It's right on their phone. It's easy for them to see. And if you tell them beforehand as they're walking out the door, "I'm going to send you this text." It's coming from your existing business line, so they know where it's coming from and they can see the link and they click on it and leave the review. Also, respond and start marketing. Always respond to every review. And then you can also use five star reviews from Google on your website for like ads and stuff like that. So all of this is helping you. And reviews used to be something that you didn't pay attention to, but now you can use it as a marketing tool. And now this is what customers are looking for. They are going to Google Reviews over word of mouth, over your website, so you want to make sure that you're giving customers a really good glimpse of what your business is all about so they can look at the reviews, look at your response and then pick you over other competitors. Make sure you're standing out, make sure you're monitoring reviews.

It's really key, especially in 2022. So with that, thank you so much for joining us. Please give us a text or you can call us if you want. We can also set up a demo that shows you how this process will work for your business, what the platform looks like and then what it would look like if you wanted to start setting up reviews.

Again, reviews are a big thing in 2022. So you want to make sure you're staying on top of it and monitoring these things so that customers know what you're all about. And with that, thank you for joining us. Enjoy the rest of your week.

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