4 Reasons Referrals and Online Reviews are Important For Our Business

In the collision repair industry, taking your business from a frustrating stop in a customer’s day to a helpful experience in an unfortunate time is extremely important. Referrals can set you apart from the competition. When a customer gives you a referral they’ve taken the time out of their day to spread news that your shop has exceeded their needs to thousands of potential customers. For many shops this can mean a huge increase in door traffic and billed repair time.

Referrals are much more than word of mouth, these days you have to leave a review online which essentially gives your “seal of approval” to thousands of people in your area. More than 90% of consumers say that their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews! 90%! So if you’ve been given exceptional service, wouldn’t you want to tell the whole world about it?

Here’s why Reviews and Referrals matter so much:

1. About 88% of consumers read online reviews to determine if a local business is a “good” business or not. If the business doesn’t have any reviews, it can hurt. If a business has a lot of quality reviews, consumers feel it represents what type of business they are and are more likely to trust your company. 
2. A personal recommendation is the only other referral process that people trust more than online reviews. If a business has a proven track record, you may get several recommendations for the same business. 
3. Reviews have a dramatic effect on the businesses search engine position! Yup, that’s right. The more reviews you have, the better your ranking will be with Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Yelp and any of the other search engine directories out there. Now you’ve helped us in more ways than one!
4. With a referral or even sometimes a review, it builds the trust in to the job. Trust can be hard to come by with a cold call, but with a referral or a review, you’ve already got an established base of trust to work from.