Producer's EdgeBy Kendra Budd, Editor
The reviews are in—and they matter immensely! Especially for insurance agencies.
Sure, you’ve probably heard marketing folks herald the importance of positive customer reviews. But why exactly do they matter?
Here are two primary ways that having positive reviews on Google can help your insurance agency grow:
1. Building trust with potential clients: The vast majority of customers look at online reviews before making a purchase.
2. Google search and map rankings: Whether an insurance agency shows up in the top results on Google, especially Google Maps, when a business or consumer searches for an “insurance agent” is massively influenced by the number of positive reviews that agency has.
Great reviews can help you grow, while bad reviews can cause serious damage to your business. (Especially with the growing influence of social media!) Instead of just letting negative reviews sit though, you can use them to better your business practices. In fact, criticism can help a business look at the parts in which your business could improve.
Here’s why reviews are so important and what you can do about it.
Customer Trust
Clients actively research reviews before making a purchase or choosing a service provider. According to the Harvard Business Review, 98 percent of customers look at reviews before making a purchase. This obviously has a huge effect on a small business’s revenue. “[In] 2021, online reviews were predicted to affect $3.8 trillion revenues worldwide,” the Harvard Business Review found. This means business is won or lost because of positive reviews, negative reviews, and even a lack of reviews. Meaning if you don’t have any Google reviews, or you have very few reviews, then many clients may steer clear.
Of course, many professionals, including insurance agents, speak to potential clients and highlight their decade(s) of experience and expertise at their craft, but imagine if you have 100+ reviews of happy customers showcasing your expertise and your ability to serve your clients? It serves as social proof and it makes a world of difference.
Google Rankings
If you can’t be found online, then you won’t be found at all.
When you look up a service on Google, especially if you’re looking for a local service provider (i.e. Google Maps), odds are you are going to see businesses with a plethora of positive reviews at the top of your search, while businesses with little reviews (positive or negative) will fall toward the bottom.
Give it a try in your area! If I search “Dallas Texas Insurance Agent” and go to Google Maps, I am not shown any agents that have less than 50 Google Reviews. The majority of insurance agencies that show up have over 100 5-star reviews, and many have over 500!
In terms of capturing organic search traffic of local businesses and customers who take to Google to look for a local insurance agent, building your customer reviews is an absolute must. If you’re in a competitive market, it’s likely that many potential clients that are looking locally for insurance will never see your business listing if you have no or very few reviews.
This also extends to more general Google search engine rankings if you have potential customers in your state, or even nationwide, who are searching for your specific insurance offerings. While Google reviews have an undeniably huge impact on local SEO, they also play a role in your website’s general search engine rankings.
Organic traffic is one of the easiest, lowest cost ways for you to grow your business. If you can show up on the first page of Google search or Google Maps and if you have many positive reviews, it’s a powerful combination that will help you grow.
Ignoring Customer Reviews
Many insurance agencies simply ignore customer reviews altogether. They don’t focus on getting reviews, and they don’t respond to positive reviews. In fact, there are many large, successful agencies that have grown sizable books of business and have very few reviews.
As a marketing professional working for an insurance agency myself, one fun thing I like to do is look up other insurance agencies (sometimes our own competitors!) on Google and see how many have a strategy around their Google reviews. You’d be surprised at how few insurance agencies pay attention to this.
So yes, you can build a successful agency with only two reviews on Google. But, in your own life, all other things being equal, if you were looking to buy from two different service providers and one of the companies had two reviews on Google and the other had 500+ reviews on Google (both with an average of 4.5 stars), which business would you be more likely to buy from?
It makes a difference. Here at OREP Insurance Services (the parent company of IBDPro Insurance), we have over 1,000+ 5-star reviews on Google showcasing our expertise in serving professional service firms with their E&O insurance.
How to Get More Reviews
Despite reviews being a great way for you to build your reputation, many business owners find themselves too afraid to ask for them. Many small businesses fear negative reviews, but the truth is that you are more likely to get a positive review if you ask for a review at all. People who leave negative reviews are typically going to leave them no matter what, but oftentimes, people who had a positive experience will only leave one if they are prompted to.
There is an art to review-solicitation. First, you want to ensure you’re asking for reviews at the right time. Within a few days after the service has been provided is generally agreed to be the best time to ask a customer for a review. This gives time for the client to think more about their experience.
Next, you want to ensure you’re getting the wording right before sending the email. Don’t say something along the lines, “If you’re satisfied, please leave us a review online.” This wording may make the client feel like they can only give positive feedback, making them feel like their opinion doesn’t truly matter to you. Instead, say something along the lines of, “You’ll receive an email shortly asking about your experience today. We’d really appreciate it if you took a couple of minutes to let us know how we did!” This invites the client directly and doesn’t pressure them to give feedback that they think you are expecting.
Keep everything simple. The more steps it takes to leave a review, the less likely customers will do it. Offer direct links in your emails to where they can review your business. If they have to search for it or answer too many questions in a survey, they’ll abandon the venture halfway through. The simpler, the better.
Review Software
There are a number of software platforms and tools that insurance agencies can now use to simplify the review collection process.
Here’s how to use review tools:
1. Once a week, pull a list of policy binds you did the week before and upload the first name and email address to the review tool.
2. The review tool will send an email to all of the contacts in the list you uploaded asking them to leave you feedback.
3. If a client leaves a 1, 2, or 3-star review, the review tool will prompt the client to write about their experience and submit it. The catch here is that the feedback comes straight to you, the business owner, instead of being posted to Google.
4. If the client leaves a 4 or 5-star review, the review tool will then prompt the client to post their review to Google.
This creates a dynamic of public praise and private criticism. If a customer has a negative experience, you are notified and are then given a chance to investigate your processes without having the negative review posted online. You can look into the complaint and determine what went wrong, where the process failed, and what changes you can make to ensure other customers don’t have a negative experience. This can be an incredibly valuable process that can help you serve your customers better.
If a customer has a positive experience, they will be prompted to post their review to your Google listing, and their review will show on your Google business page.
Final Thoughts
Customer reviews can be a powerful way to grow and improve your business, even the tough ones. Rather than fearing a negative review, see it as a chance to connect with clients and show your responsiveness. Addressing concerns directly and professionally can strengthen your reputation. The more reviews you gather, the more likely you are to appear in search results on platforms like Google, which can drive new clients to your business. People tend to trust reviews and actively seek them out, so don’t ignore feedback—embrace it. When you get a less-than-glowing review, consider it a way to refine your services and show potential clients that you care about their experiences. You just need to know how to wield them to your advantage.
