Cleaning Business Life

CBL Episode #87-How to Get Five-Star Reviews: Proven Strategies for Elevating Your Cleaning Business' Reputation with Jamie Runco

• Shannon Miller and Kimberly Gonzales • Season 2024 • Episode 89

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Ever wondered how top cleaning businesses consistently score five-star reviews? Join us on "Cleaning Business Life" as Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco reveal proven strategies to elevate your business’s reputation. Discover how to seamlessly integrate low-tech methods like review requests in welcome packs and high-tech solutions such as Nice Job and Jobber. Jamie shares her personal experiences and effective techniques to leverage platforms like Google My Business and Facebook, ensuring you maximize your positive feedback, whether you're on a tight budget or ready to invest in paid services.

Achieving 100 reviews can significantly boost your business’s algorithm performance and customer acquisition, and we’re here to guide you through every step. From ethical considerations in trading services for reviews to incentivizing employees for an influx of positive feedback, we cover all the bases. We also provide practical tips for managing both positive and negative reviews, helping you maintain a stellar reputation. Plus, engage with us on Buzzsprout and join our community of listeners who have supported us through downloads and reviews. Listen now to transform your cleaning business' reputation and connect more effectively with your audience.

Here is the link for onboarding welcome paperwork: https://klean-freaks-university.newzenler.com/courses/basic-contract-bundle


Don't forget to apply for a full scholarship of the SSPCBA, sponsored by Klean Freaks University.com https://forms.gle/aVMS7GpLSkEsaoBM7 Dead line is 11.29.24

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Speaker 1:

recording in progress. Welcome everyone. This is shannon miller. I am your host of cleaning business life, and I am joined here by miss jamie runco of above all cleaning services in northern california. Thank you so much for co-hosting with me while um kim takes um her break for all of the things that are going on in her life. Yes, today we are going to talk about how to get five-star reviews, what the process is. We're going to talk about the low-tech method, the high-tech method, the automated service method, what you can do to get more five-star reviews, because more five-star reviews equals what More money.

Speaker 2:

A lot of leads A lot of leads More money, a lot of money.

Speaker 1:

Definitely.

Speaker 2:

So what are some of the things that you have done to get five-star reviews? I've done it all. I've offered in the beginning, well, a part of my welcoming pack because, remember, I don't call them contracts, I call them welcome aboard the Above All Cleaning Services family. I said we'd love to hear, we'd love to have a five-star review, or in regards to your cleaning tech, that really wasn't catching it, so I upped it. You know, I would do screenshots of people texting me and telling me oh, such and such is such a great cleaner and they make my life so much easier, so I'd screenshot it and send it over to Facebook.

Speaker 2:

And now I've also used Nice Job, which is a paid for platform, and because I am so rural, um, I get like a special circumstance, uh, price, I believe it's like 75 a month anywhere but this area, um, and that produced a lot of. That produced a lot more because with every invoice or with every I don't send out invoices, but with every completed I use Jobber. So every completed job that they would do, it would automatically send out a leave us a review and it would go straight to Google.

Speaker 1:

That's what it was called. So tell us.

Speaker 2:

No, it was called nice job, nice job.

Speaker 1:

Okay, nice job, that was probably one of the ones I did not write down.

Speaker 2:

Nice job.

Speaker 1:

There are a lot like. I did a Google search before we hopped on here and there are a lot of options. We're not affiliated. We don't have an affiliation link, we're not promoting one versus the other, but there's, um, there's, so tell us nice job, just review job, or had an option that you could get asked for a review. I tried that promo. It didn't work for me. Um, I believe you actually have to pay through their payment system format to prompt, to trigger it, to actually get the review. You cannot not be part of that to get the review. It won't work. Google and Yelp those are also helpful. True review, hot jar, trust pilot these are all trust pilots. Been around for decades.

Speaker 2:

Forever Trustpilot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're one of the grandfathered in review sites, so there's a lot of Bird's Eye. There's a lot of services now that are helping you to get the five-star review Now, which is great, but you have to have the budget for it. So sometimes we don't have the budget for it. So sometimes we don't have the budget for it. What are some of the ways that you you went to Facebook? Did you do any other promos to try to get reviews for free? The more organic, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I would. I would literally copy and paste and send out a text If they, if they left you know if they're texting me or emailing me about what great, wonderful help we have been. I always copy paste from Google and slap it on there On your business profile inside of google yeah, yeah and uh, it's real easy.

Speaker 2:

You just go into your google page, uh, or your website, where your website's at, and then um it'll say share, get more reviews, and you just click the link, it'll copy it and then you can either send it in a text format or an email, it depends. I tried to with Jobber and it was $40 a month. I did not get a single review. I've even tried their campaign and I just they need to iron out some of their kinks before I'll circle back around and consider doing it again.

Speaker 2:

It's real new to jobbers, so I think it's just a couple of months in, but I will say that for us, nice job was probably the best that we did, and I see a lot of people in the groups not just cleaners, but service companies. Service providing companies use nice job or Trust or trust pilot. I see that a lot. So but, uh, if you don't have the budget for that, then um get listed on google, um get some sort of website going. My website is not the best, but it it does the trick, right, it makes you look more professional and um, I just had somebody uh call me today and tell me that you know they went through everybody and um, they picked us because they went through all the reviews, and so um picked us because they went through all the reviews. And so, yeah, it helps a lot.

Speaker 1:

It helps a lot and you become a trusted provider you know, yeah, so the very first thing that you should start off with if you're going to start to collect reviews, and reviews should be just part of your sales process. It really does help with the algorithm. So if you're going to do it organically, you need to have a Google my Business profile. I think almost everybody has one nowadays. It can be a little complicated getting one because there's home address versus post office thing. There's a way to kind of work around that. They're not posting home addresses unless you're allowing them to do so.

Speaker 1:

So that made it really nice, because not everybody's comfortable, especially if you run your home out of your business, your your business out of your home, articulation yeah Right, um, nobody really wants your address posted on the internet, right? We live in interesting times. So there are a couple things that you can do. If you, for a while there, you used to be able to leave reviews on Facebook, I don't believe you still can anymore, can you? Yeah, you can. I have an option on my page.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's times whenever, yeah, you can turn it off too, right, you know you can turn it off too, right, you know, um, yeah, there's a lot of scammy things out there. You know, cryptocurrency, I, I, I'm like what this has nothing to do with, uh, or? Or, uh, here's a beautiful rose and it's like wait, what so? Um, so, I, you know, whenever that happens, I go in and they always say that they're from Facebook. A lot of the times, I should say, and I just go and block, block and ban them from my page and I can't tell you how many I have.

Speaker 1:

So it just a page. You should also have it where you have to approve all posts that go on your business page. Yes, that prevents a lot of issues, especially if you get someone who's not emotionally balanced and they're mad at whatever and you just happen to be the person in their path and they're just taking it out and vomiting everywhere all over you and that really does. And because you don't have to approve their posts, you can say sorry, you don't get to work.

Speaker 1:

You have to go someplace else, you have to put more work into it. But, yeah, there is an organic way. So you would have to have a Google my Business. Obviously you want to have your social set up. And then what you can do because, unless you're a constant customer of Google and or Yelp or Nextdoor or Angie's List I think those are the top four you need to screenshot the actual reviews and then use them organically in your social media and everything like that and the reason why you want to screenshot them.

Speaker 1:

You're going to create a little file on your desktop, on your Mac or your PC, whatever you're using, and you're going to keep those in a file and you're going to keep them on rotation. You're going to put them in your digital calendar. That does your social media posts, because what's going to happen is Google, they do updates I don't know three, four times a year and the algorithm searches for people who are they don't say it, but are taking advantage, and if you're not paying into the system, they consider you taking advantage. So you'll get to like you'll have 60 five-star reviews and they go. Oh, shannon's not paying for advertisement.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And you wake up one day and they're gone.

Speaker 1:

They do so. They'll let you have so many and then after a while it'll just wake up and then all of your reviews will be gone. So at least you have them in a file to use later. And then you have to decide. At that point, if they, you know, and there's no one to talk to at Google, you can't call them up on the phone and go, can you give me back my reviews? If I start to pay yeah, Like why, why'd you take those away? If I start to pay yeah?

Speaker 2:

Like why? Why'd you take those away? Yeah, yeah, so definitely have a file.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's the start of getting reviews. There's several methods of getting reviews, so basically, you could have a service that we mentioned I don't know 10 of them or you can say hey, if they say thank you, you guys did a wonderful job. You get your link from your Google my Business profile, put it in your notes on your iPhone and then you can just copy and paste into a text message and say we really appreciate a five-star review. You can do that. It's just that simple and you cannot harass someone. I don't know why this is such a hard concept for people. They ask for reviews and then they get mad and they harass the person to give them a review, which just causes resentment, which is not what you want.

Speaker 1:

What's the movie with the kid who's like he wants his. He's got a newspaper route and he's like I want my $2. Remember, give me my $2. And he gets all throughout the movie. He's like give me my two dollars and you get all throughout the movie he's like give me my two dollars so you, you don't want to be that kid, you want to be.

Speaker 1:

He's like hey, if you had time to give me, yeah, totally, um, a five-star review and if they do, wonderful, make sure you thank them. Stroke, stroke, stroke. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for taking the time. Absolutely, if they don't march on to somebody else, that's the very organic way, a very low cost, sweat equity type, of getting reviews.

Speaker 1:

Now, there are also structured periods of time. Should do this twice a year to get reviews. Now, if you're not using, so tell us. Or just review or trust pilot, or maybe you're using that, but you also want to have. We're having a contest for my cleaning tech. The cleaning tech who gets the most five-star reviews gets this 65, 75 inch flat screen TV is their prize. Please consider giving them a review on Google or Yelp or whatever it is that you're deciding and that really helps prime the pump, because, yes, we want the reviews and yes, it does directly benefit us, but you can't make it about you. You have to make it about them and how they're going to win this really cool prize. And then, after you do the giveaway and you can do a structured board on the wall with a dry erase thing and put their name Mary Susan, jamie Shannon, you know, jamie has 17 five-star reviews and Shannon has 19.

Speaker 1:

who's going in? And they'll come in and look at your board or you can post the board on social media and then, when they win the prize, make sure that everybody knows that you gave the prize away and document it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, document documenting. It is taking pictures. Uh, starting, yeah, taking pictures and posting it to your social media, showing everybody that you are investing into your employees. I think that's the biggest tip that anybody could ever give. You is a five-star review, right yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because it's it'll turn over to lots of clients down the road. Right, you know, people, people, people are reading them. I read them, I read to see how how well my um competitors are doing too. You know, I see, I, I and I'm sure they're doing the same with me and that's fine and that's great, um. But yeah, that's, the biggest tip any client could ever give you is a google, a google review, or even facebook.

Speaker 1:

Five star don't forget to ask for a five star. Sometimes we forget and we get lazy in our punctuation and our articulation and we just say review and then it's this passive aggressive one star review and you're like right, I had no idea.

Speaker 2:

Talk to me before you leave a one star review, please, by all means, come talk to me, let us try and fix the problem.

Speaker 1:

Don't leave it up to question. You're asking for five-star reviews because that's what you're looking for. You're not interested in the one-star reviews, you want the five-star review. So when you're three, or, or four or yeah, it's, it's.

Speaker 1:

You want the five-star reviews because that helps push your business name in the algorithm. So when they search above all cleaning services in northern cal, jamie pops up on top, so it just makes it easier for you to get found. It helps the algorithm with your website as well, cause they're all connected, cause the spiders read all that stuff. So those are some of the things that you can do. Usually in October and right after Easter is a good opportunity to have a contest twice a year and you're like, oh my God, I can't afford a $500 TV. Tvs have gone down in price.

Speaker 2:

Well, not even if it's not a TV. A day at the spa, a paid day off or two, or a dinner for you and your family to a nice restaurant, right, um, it don't have to be a tv. I mean, tvs are nice, don't? But uh, it can be. It can be any of those things. It's, it's whatever you decide, but uh, you can trade for those items as well. Yes, you can.

Speaker 1:

So that way you're not putting out any cash with the TV, though. The best opportunity to catch a TV on sale is black Friday, and we don't even have to go. There's no more beating down the door at Walmart, right.

Speaker 2:

No more deaths because we may break the internet.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, yeah, so you can totally do it that way, and I'm not. I don't think that people being trampled at Walmart is funny. The situation was utterly ridiculous and I'm glad they're finally getting it back under control. You know there was an that just kind of left you, gone Right. Definitely it's like the shock Look a shock.

Speaker 1:

Those are all options that you can do. I recommend that you do it twice a year. The whole goal for any business is to get a hundred um five-star reviews. Once you hit the, the threshold of a hundred, the algorithm works better and it's easier for you to acquire the. The five-star review so it does. The first initial 25 are the hardest, in the middle gets a little bit easier going and then towards the end, when you get there, you can go oh, I made it right, I've done it. I've done it. I've done it Cause it's not easy to get five-star reviews. If you go to my husband's website or um, he has stellar plumbing in Northern Arizona, not the one in Southern Arizona. That guy doesn't operate his business the same he has. I believe he has 300 five-star reviews, but that's a succession of years of hard work, patience, getting them. So that was a lot of jobs he had to nail Right. So there are those options as well, and you can always trade Services for services. Make sure that you're really clear on what that entails.

Speaker 2:

And their welcome packets Don't forget to have. Even if it's a trade for services, make sure you have people sign your contract, basically.

Speaker 1:

Right, and because they don't they've typically not had house cleanings. They don't know how it works. They cancel on you at the last minute. We had someone reach out the other day who's trading for advertisement and they canceled. The last minute on my head counts as a ding. They either did you get them to sign the paperwork. I never found out that she'd get the paperwork signed. Yeah, my, my people sign the paperwork.

Speaker 2:

I never found out that she get the paperwork signed. Yeah, my, my people sign the paperwork.

Speaker 1:

Right Another individual, I believe you were in that message. Oh, without naming names, of course.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I believe so. It's always after the fact, it's always after the fact that you know we walk through that. And then you, they come, come to you and like, oh, I did this, what do I do? Right, well, what's your policy? Say Right, oh well, I don't have. Well, that, this is why you get one. And from from this day forward moving on, make sure you have those policies in place. And but trade for services is such a great, great way to trade for five star reviews, huh five-star reviews.

Speaker 1:

Huh, that's pretty good. There's a great area with that, but, yes, you can do that Legally. There's a whole ethical thing For me personally and this is just me in my opinion, if you are in my group and you have been a student of mine, like you've gone through the Structure, scale and Profit Business Academy, I'm happy to do that. But not everybody thinks that's ethical and I'm hoping that.

Speaker 2:

I was meaning in in your town. Yes, you know, trading for services trade you know, I will say that if people have seen you, your integrity, your work ethic, they've seen you actually work or they've seen you put in the hard work, they can leave you a five-star review. They've watched you, they've interacted with you, they know your integrity. It is a fine, it's a great. Like you said, it is a gray area, but just make sure you know you're not going on Facebook asking for five-star reviews from somebody over in New Jersey.

Speaker 1:

Right, so it's. It's a dynamic that has to be managed and it can go the opposite way. We have a place here called Mortimer's Farm. It's a family run farm and the kids go there in the fall and we usually, you know, we're, you know country bumpkins, we, we, you know we're not supposed to be eating, but they're like shoving strawberries or blackberries in their mouth as we're going along and they're, you know, it's all covered in their face. No, I haven't been eating. I'm like, yeah, they're really good.

Speaker 1:

But a review that was given to Mortimer Farms about how they were glad they decided not to go. I don't think those reviews are fair at all. That's not based on their experience. They happened to drive by and see how busy it was and that was their like review. I'm like I can't even believe that's even legal. So there's a lot of do's and don'ts with reviews. You're not supposed to technically pay for reviews. You're not supposed to. You know you want genuine reviews, so just make sure that you correlate that into your marketing so people understand what the dynamics of that is. And one of the ways to get reviews is to have a contest for your cleaning techs. Hey, we're giving away this spa day and whoever gets the most reviews in the next 30 days gets to have them a day of luxury at.

Speaker 2:

And paid for.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know so-and-so spa where they get the mani-pedi and a facial and maybe a massage and maybe some champagne, whatever it is that you've traded with or you've purchased, and that makes it real simple. But being and having reviews five-star reviews is part of your marketing plan. It's just one segment of the marketing that needs to facilitate for you and your business. The first one, obviously, is going to be social media. Your second one is going to be your website. Your third one that you're going to focus on is going to be the reviews, and it's super important. Don't think that it's not.

Speaker 1:

And remember when I first started, I didn't have any reviews for years. When I had Castle Keeper Cleaning, I was just like because I didn't want anyone to stick it to me, right, because I didn't want anyone to stick it to me, right? Not that I operated half-cocked. It just only takes one person who is volatile, who's working through their issues on you, that it does its thing and invariably you always get one. Remember, if you do get a bad review, it's how you respond to the review that people are looking at and you want to make sure that it's professional. You respond to the review that people are looking at, and you want to make sure that it's professional and that you're not flinging out curse words and it's a tit for tat. You want to make sure that you're professionally responded to, and when you get reviews, too, this helps the algorithm. If you get a five-star review, make sure you thank the person back. That helps with the algorithm as well.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Always make sure that you answer back, Always, Like you said, it bounces. It bounces you up. Like you said, the algorithm, it gets you up. It's like, yeah, on the on the, when somebody Google's cleaning businesses near me, I know that I'm the first to pop up in my area.

Speaker 2:

But it's work to get there, that's for sure. Yeah, it's very hard work and um, patience, a lot of patience and and um, you're not trying to kick in doors to get give me a review. You know you just sit back and you got to kind of wait it out. And you know, every couple of months check in with the client and make sure, like hey, did you want to leave this? You know a review, we're not asking all the time. Yeah, that's a great idea. That's definitely twice, twice a year.

Speaker 1:

You should round those up, have a 30 day contest. Um, that way it really will help push your ogler up. And then there's the dreaded Yelp. And if you guys are in Yelp, I don't love you. Everybody love hate you. Yelp, yelp. You know who you are? Ask anybody we. We love you but we also hate you.

Speaker 2:

It's I don't want to be a person, but they're really.

Speaker 1:

There's a couple of things that have changed with the Yelp dynamic and even Angie's list or next door that you guys need to fix. Own it. You know we don't appreciate the calls where you pretend that you're a client to get us to call you back and then you want to pitch to us about how we should have your advertisement. And then when you get the Yelp reviews because those can be a little more depending on how it works out with you not everyone is recommended. If they have like my area is a total transient area. We have people who move in and we're a retirement community so they often retirement retirees don't change their phone number, so Yelp, it comes up even though they leave you a five-star review. If they don't have a local number, then it comes up as not recommended. So you might have 500 reviews on Yelp but only a hundred of them are going to be recommended and 400 of them are going to be non-recommended.

Speaker 1:

It's not something that they fix. It can be really frustrating and constantly you have to constantly post into your Yelp account as well. Make sure that when you're putting your photographs in your Yelp account that you are labeling them, above all cleaning services so that that helps with the algorithm. Same deal with Angie's list. Angie's list is a little like nerve wracking because the people who leave the reviews inside of Angie's list have put their address out for all to see. Right? That's kind of the I'm burying my soul to you type of thing and you want to make sure that you know you are getting genuine reviews and it. It took a while and Angie's list has changed the dynamics. Now They've done a lot of things with reviews in the process with them. I'm not going to discuss that here, but just know that there are things that you can Google about Angie's list to make yourself educated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, research, do your research on these places you don't want to be like I was and Yelp, I had no idea what I was doing and I guess I signed up and I had a $600 bill, $500 bill at the end of the month and I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute here. And never, never, not one client did I ever gain from there. So I got to figure that out myself. But research, you know, do your research.

Speaker 1:

Research with my latest experience with yelp I believe I tried it again last year and um I got a bunch of phone calls but 99.99 of them were all telemarketing calls because there's some sort of software that came up. So, like all of them called me and I was all excited, like I got 75 calls right. Like I got 75 calls right. Yeah, yeah, I got 75 calls that were telemarketing calls.

Speaker 2:

My car warranty is fine, it's just you know some people don't have really tapped in and figured it out, like it clicks. How many clicks in it? It's just, I have not yet and I, you know, that's my experience and I will. I'll figure it out one day, whenever I actually have time.

Speaker 1:

It's totally a love-hate thing. Everybody loves it and keeps it around, but they only do, they only get the minimum that is required, because anything more than that it just doesn't. It's not worth it. But Yelp knows this. They've it's've. That's pseudo aggressive and I wish that they would fix it. If you want to call me out on it, by all means, this is my experience. We can have a chat. It's totally my experience, right? So you know, it's just. You know tiptoeing through the posies, so to speak. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

No, no, that's it. That's exactly tipto tone around the experience.

Speaker 1:

And then I don't believe that you can get any reviews on next door unless they're genuine referrals. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

I don't use next door that much. That was just something I just I in the beginning I messed around with it a little bit and it really wasn't. Whenever you live in a small town, like I do, I have people that come up to me in church mostly, and say, oh, I seen such and such on next door. I'll refer them to you. Oh, okay, so that works. I really yeah, yeah, it works, and um, that's so. I have people out there helping me, you know, always referring me and um, I don't know I'm, I'm out there everywhere I have. Um, my next is trying to do a billboard, but we'll talk about that later next year, 2025.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, space with the feather duster there's one for rent right now, so I'm like, oh, that's pretty good billboards are expensive.

Speaker 1:

The graphics can be expensive, so it's definitely a money maker, but it is an expense as well, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Very expensive, so but yeah, I think we've covered the whole gamut of the reviews. I think we covered all of them, and that's how you facilitate getting a five-star review. So you can do it organically. You can sign up for a service, you can do a combo of the both, but the best way is to, twice a year, ramp up a contest, make it a big deal, launch it, put postcards with a QR code on the front. It says help Sophia win the 75-inch screen TV or the spa day or whatever it is that you're doing. And this really does prime the pump for them, because they want to be part of a bigger thing. Right, they don't really care that your business wants the five-star review, but they want to make sure that Sophia wins the five-star review.

Speaker 2:

So it's something to keep in mind. That's so true, yes.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you for joining us. If you guys have any questions, we totally love them. You can go right to Buzzsprout and leave us a text message. We're going to be answering those very soon and we're actually posted on every hosting website that there is, I believe, and we love those downloads and we love our five-star reviews. So please feel free to leave us one and we look forward to hearing from you guys soon. Take care, bye, bye, thank you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jamie Runco

Host
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Shannon Miller

Host