Using SMS Messaging to Improve Your Google Reviews

What You’ll Learn

In a rare double-Andy podcast, Andy Henderson outlines a text messaging campaign that took his telco’s Google review score from the 2s to the 4s.

Guest Speaker

Andy Henderson

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns: How can text messaging help your Google reviews? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of StoryConnect: The Podcast. My name is Andy Johns with Pioneer, your host, and I’m joined today by another Andy, Andy Henderson, who is the sales and marketing manager at Shawnee Communications. Andy, thank you for joining me.

Andy Henderson: Hey, thanks for having me.

Andy Johns: It’s always dangerous to have two Andys on a podcast, but we’re off and running, so too late now. I ran across some some messages or kind of heard the story about what you guys have done to get your Google reviews up significantly. And I wanted to reach out, and I’m glad that we’re here together at the NTCA Sales and Marketing Conference in Austin, Texas. But before we get into it too far, let’s talk a little bit about where you guys were in terms of Google reviews. And if from our conversation beforehand, it wasn’t good.

Andy Henderson: When we started looking at our Google reviews in 2015, we had 2.7 Google rating off of a whopping seven reviews. So as we were finishing our fiber deployments in our ILEC territories, knowing that we were going to expand into new territories, we really wanted to put a focus on raising that score. We started using a company called Birdeye, and what they’ve allowed us to do is send that request for the review through text message. Historically, in the telco industry, customer service staff are typically order takers. They really struggle to get out of that proactive asking for the sale type of question. And what the SMS allows us to do is not have the actual conversation. We can click some buttons, send the request, and the customer can choose to give us that review or not. And it’s a pretty hassle free, stress free way of getting that score up.

Andy Johns: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about that more because I’ve heard folks, you know, talk about the Net Promoter Score. I’ve heard folks, you know, look at their different reviews on different sites, but the Google reviews, you all obviously just spent, you know, this kind of time and effort in there, you felt like it was particularly important not to have a low score that everybody sees every time they look up your name.

Andy Henderson: Yeah, absolutely. And when we looked at the comments, a lot of these reviews were made by people who weren’t brave enough to provide us with a real name. So we had no way of knowing who they were, whether they were an active customer. Maybe they were a disgruntled former employee. So we really wanted to take the initiative and get that number up, have accurate names associated with it, and really show how hard we’re striving to provide quality products and services in our rural communities.

Andy Johns: Yeah, you guys are working hard all day, every day. Might as well get noticed for it. Were there any, so Google is a big one, obviously. Are there any other – you talked about Facebook briefly. I know they’ve made a few changes, but are there any other platforms that you were paying attention to or looking at?

Andy Henderson: When we set it up, we really just focused on the Facebook and Google. Those were the two primary ones that we felt we could attack and really make an impact on.

Andy Johns: And those are, you know, the 800 pound gorillas in the room. But since then, you said Facebook has changed where it’s a little bit tougher to track.

Andy Henderson: It is. They went from a number scale to an approve or don’t recommend format. So we’re still good on that part. But the Google numbers are really what we’re most proud of.

Andy Johns: Got it. And so let’s talk it through again. So you mentioned a little bit earlier, but the way this works is right after an install, when –

Andy Henderson: When the customer is the happiest.

Andy Johns: When the customer is the happiest, that’s a key point. So when the customer is the happiest right after the install, that’s something that’s manually triggered, automatically triggered? How does it work to get it started?

Andy Henderson: It is a manual process. One of our customer service representatives will log into our Birdeye account. They will copy paste that customer’s cell phone number into the system. The options that are presented to the customer are already preloaded, so they just type in a number, type in a name, they hit send. What the customer has on their end, they get an SMS message with a link that says, “Hey, we’d love to know how we did.” When the customer hits the link, they’re presented with a web page where they are provided with three buttons. One is for them to be able to review us on Google, ones for the Facebook review, and the other is a, “Hey, you guys kind of missed the mark. We need to have a conversation,” button. That way we’re not driving unhappy customers to where they can give us a negative rating. And I will say the opt outs, the “I’m not happy button,” it doesn’t get pressed very much.

Andy Johns: That speaks to a lot of the other good stuff y’all are doing there.

Andy Henderson: That’s right. That’s right.

Andy Johns: So I guess it helps obviously, to have good service first. But I do like, you know, not really stacking the deck, but a little bit, kind of getting things in your favor just to where if they do have a, you know, a problem or something, they do, it allows them to reach out to you guys first before they broadcast it to everybody else.

Andy Henderson: You’re exactly right. We’d rather give them an avenue to express some displeasure so we can handle that right away, rather than us just wait for that negative Google review to get looked at and addressed later.

Andy Johns: We know that with a modern subscriber, a modern customer member, it takes a multi-channel approach. You know, there’s email. There’s social media. There’s all the different ways to reach people: print, magazines, newsletters. Text messaging is one that I’ve heard a lot of folks interested in, but they’re also a little bit afraid to get into it. Did y’all get any feedback on on using text? It sounds like it’s been positive. Nobody was upset that you were sending them a text message.

Andy Henderson: Since we started this in 2015, I really can’t remember anyone complaining that we contacted them via text. It’s kind of the standard nowadays. My wife gets text reminders for her hair appointment. We get them for doctor visits. It’s just kind of the new normal.

Andy Johns: I like it. And if you guys started in 2015, that was even earlier than I thought. So what has it changed? You alluded to it earlier, but that review you went from seven, and you said it was a two point something. Where are you at now?

Andy Henderson: We went from a 2.7 off of 7 reviews to –

Andy Johns: Now, we’re getting live numbers right here to where it is today.

Andy Henderson: Live numbers. We have a 4.4 Google score off of 276 reviews.

Andy Johns: Wow. That’s awesome.

Andy Henderson: Yeah.

Andy Johns: And you feel like most of those are real folks. You said those first seven, you weren’t sure who they were. But that seems legit to have that many of them and for them to be that positive.

Andy Henderson: Yeah, absolutely. With the amount of funding available in the broadband industry, companies like us are constantly deploying into new communities. So this is a great way for people when they look us up, we see, “Oh, Bonnie down the street. She left a review.” Maybe that helped sway their decision to come to us.

Andy Johns: Yeah, and that was one thing I was going to ask, is how do you guys use that? Obviously it’s out there for Google for everybody to see. But is there anywhere that you’re promoting, you know, we’re 4.4 or anything like that, or are you just kind of let the Google Review speak for itself?

Andy Henderson: The comments in the Google reviews, they do show up on our social media feeds, so that when someone is scrolling our page, or it just shows up in our timeline. So we use it for material on social media as well.

Andy Johns: Got it. Well, as we’re wrapping up here, you know, two last questions for you. Is there anything in the future, do you see – because this is all that you guys are doing for SMS or texting right now – do you see other opportunities or channels that you think you’ll do there? You think maybe this is as far as it goes with text messaging for the time being? If you got your crystal ball, you can dust off a little bit.

Andy Henderson: I would love to be able to integrate, have some type of integration with our billing system to where we can remind customers that they have an install appointment, basic communication, things like that. And maybe if Mother Nature is unhappy and wrecks a central office or a remote cabinet where we need to be providing kind of real time information on outage repairs, that would be pretty handy as well.

Andy Johns: Last question for you. What advice would you have if there’s somebody else who’s sitting there with a score in the low twos or worse and is thinking, “How do we get this up, and how do we improve those scores?” What advice would you have for them?

Andy Henderson: Start asking for the review. Whatever nerves we may have about asking how we did, you have to get over that. And not from just getting that score up on the Internet standpoint. One of the unexpected benefits from using this product was whenever we get the review, there are fields for the customers to provide comments. And we started seeing feedback that named technicians. So what I love – and this, I got a review yesterday that bragged on one of our technicians, Tommy. I love to get those reviews, so I can forward that to our CEO, our COO, that employee, their manager and be like, “Hey, Lucas got another attaboy.” And that really highlights to the executive staff, “Hey, we’ve got a great hire. We’ve got people out there doing great work in the field.” And it lets that employee know, hey, the people that I need to know or that need to know that I’m doing a great job, they’re getting that feedback.

Andy Johns: That’s awesome. So internal benefits, even beyond the external, their obvious.

Andy Henderson: Yeah, absolutely.

Andy Johns: Great. Well, Andy, thank you so much for joining me.

Andy Henderson: Thank you for having me.

Andy Johns: He is Andy Henderson, the sales and marketing manager for Shawnee Communications. I’m Andy Johns with Pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.