Phil Risher's tactic of handing out QR codes linking to individual technicians generated over 5,000 five-star reviews, but Google banned asking customers to name employees in reviews. He now recommends team-wide review goals with shared rewards, or using QR codes tied to team members in the backend so you track performance without asking customers to name them.
Yeah, I don't know if you heard, but Google just banned the strategy that I used to get over 5,000 5-star reviews. Before, we would go out on a job site and we would encourage our technicians to build a relationship with the client, and then at the end of the job, we would give them a QR code and we would say, "Hey, do you mind leaving me a Google review? My name is Phil, and it helps me out, lets my boss know that I'm doing a good job. You can leave me a review right here." Google has now banned that. You cannot ask someone to leave you a review and mention your name. So what does this mean for businesses? One, you can do a team goal review. So that way it's not a specific person's name, it's more so, hey, if we get to 100 reviews, then we all get this prize pot. Another way is setting up QR codes for each individual team member, so that way when someone scans your QR code, it's attached to that team member, and then you know whose QR code got scanned and a review was left. Now, I don't think Google's gonna go back to all of your reviews and get rid of them or take them off if you have mentioned people's names in there. I think that's crazy. But going forward, it's something that we need to be mindful of, how we are asking for reviews and making sure that we are in the guidelines that Google recommends.
