Online recommendations and reviews... best way to coordinate

[maxine]

I am starting to get in a bit of a muddle with online reviews and recommendations especially for our trades business (plumbing and plastering) as people can leave reviews everywhere!

What is the best way to coordinate these?

What I don't want is to ask people to leave reviews in several places, and neither do I want to become dependant on one review site.

I presume there is also things such as legal ownership of the content to consider.

Any thoughts, suggestions, options to have one central portal for people to leave one review/recommendation that gets fired off to several places?

Freeindex, trades sites, our own website, facebook, Mr Tweet, Linked in, ... the list goes on

Thanks everyone

 

[G. Lasagne]

This is what ive just done max, i have started putting the link on my invoices, reminder cards and emailing customers with it, its nice and easy, and is hassle free for the customers, i only put it on a few days ago and have had a few back already, will probably update it every month.
http://www.gasangelheating.co.uk/testimonials.htm

please feel free to copy the code if you wish.

Dave

 

[maxine]

Thanks Dave

What I mean though is like you have done here with having a place on your website for people to submit a testimonial, how does it then get to other places online such as freeindex without having to ask the customer to do more than one testimonial in more than one place?

 

[G. Lasagne]

Thanks Dave

What I mean though is like you have done here with having a place on your website for people to submit a testimonial, how does it then get to other places online such as freeindex without having to ask the customer to do more than one testimonial in more than one place?

Cant you not concentrate on the website testimonials and then copy them on to free index yourself and put a little ditty at the end i.e

"Max was brilliant turned up on time etc etc "
testimonial received via website by mrs smith, london

 

[G. Lasagne]

p.s do you get much from freeindex? its not something i have concentrated on.

 

[justinmarch]

Cant you not concentrate on the website testimonials and then copy them on to free index yourself and put a little ditty at the end i.e

Freeindex do not allow this.

 

[maxine]

Justin is right, freeindex don't allow this... just as well as everyone would be putting rogue reviews on... bit like adding your own feedback on ebay

Freeindex is starting to rank highly for terms plus it is geographical, there is a gadget to show live freeindex reviews on your webpage, and you can add photos, get stickers and all sorts.

But problem is, I don't want my reviews to ONLY be on freeindex as I want to use them in multiple places and cannot figure for the life of me how to do this. Is there RSS feeds does anyone know that can take say a freeindex review and also post it to facebook, linked in, mr tweet, and other places?

Sorry if I am getting ahead of myself with technology but I would like to get as much placement for each testimonial/review as possible not just have each one in one place alone

 

[G. Lasagne]

Youv'e lost me

ok well why not have the link on your website and then once the form is completed and submitted, you could have a message pop up with the links to the other places you want the feedback

e.g

"Thank you for completing the testimonial form"
If its not too much trouble we would very much appreciate it if you could leave a testimonial at the following locations also.

www.freeindex.com
www.example.com
www.geordiesarethebest.com


Also when the customer is filling in the initial form could you somehow tell them to copy it so it can be pasted later at the other locations.

Just some food for thought but you get the idea.

Maybe a 10% discount on future orders if they complete a testimonial at all the following locations, or summick like that

 

[justinmarch]

Sorry if I am getting ahead of myself with technology but I would like to get as much placement for each testimonial/review as possible not just have each one in one place alone

It would be great if there were but since freeindex and others generally require some contact with the person posting the testimonial via e-mail authentication or user registration I can't see it happening and haven't heard of any services.

The closest I could find was this http://www.business-networking-techniques.com/online-testimonial-request.html (under a search for testimonial request service) but I don't see this being easier than e-mailing your clients a bunch of links and a nice note asking them to help.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

 

[maxine]

Ah well

Back to the drawing board (scratches head about what to do next)

Little story about freeindex... We put a postcard up in the little village shop at the bottom of our road, whilst we were in the shop a day or so later we overheard a guy chatting about wanting a plasterer so naturally we introduced ourselves while he was buying his paper and gave him a business card. Did he telephone us or email us from the details on our business card? No. He went home, logged onto freeindex, then went onto our site, then contacted us via freeindex. Mad world