4 ideas to help accounting firms get more Google reviews

Try these to make your Google My Business listing stand out in search results

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Nov 18, 2022

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If you’re actively looking to take on more clients, then building up the number of Google reviews you have is something worth considering.

Not only does it serve as great feedback from your clients, but it also means that:

You appear more trustworthy to prospective clients (if you’re on Google are you more likely to click on the firm with 20 good reviews or 1-2 reviews?)
It helps to improve your local SEO and can increase the chances of appearing in the prominent Google Map Pack when prospects in your area are searching. This is shown below the ads and above the organic search listings (see screenshot below)

Why do this?

Well, all of the above should help to contribute to more enquiries* for your firm.

*This is probably going to be more relevant for firms operating locally vs. with a targeted niche. That’s not to say it won’t be helpful for any firm though.

So how do you get more reviews? Let’s start by looking at your Google My Business profile and how to get a review link.

Setting up your Google My Business profile

If you don’t have a Google My Business listing then set one up here.

It’s free to do and should only take a few minutes (although they normally send a postal verification which can take a couple of days).

If you already have a Google My Business profile there’s a free audit you can complete to see how optimised yours is + get some suggestions to improve.

Once you have your profile simply:

Log into your Google My Business profile
On the Home tab, look for the “Get More Reviews: Share review form” section
Click the “Share review form” button. Your Google review link will appear.

Here are 4 ideas to get more 5* Google reviews without having to remember to ask or manually send emails.

1. Add a review link in your email signature

Email tends to be the most common form of communication with clients.

And although this isn’t a direct ask, it serves as a subtle yet constant reminder to your clients.

Add your review link to your email signature with a short sentence. You can include a reminder about referrals as well here.

An example you can tweak for your own might be:

“Just like yours, our business grows from happy clients and referrals. If you know anybody that might benefit from working with us, please send us an email to connect. If you’re happy with our service, please leave a review on Google here.”

2. Add an auto-email in your practice management app

A great time to ask clients to leave a review, or give you a referral, is right after you’ve finished working on a job.

Ideally this is a bigger job like a set of accounts vs. the monthly bookkeeping. You could also do it right at the end of the onboarding process when your clients are still in their honeymoon phase.

If you’re using practice management apps like Pixie, Karbon, or Canopy, you can add an auto-email at the end of the workflow to go out to the client once the job has ended asking them to leave a review.

If your firm measures NPS (we’ll write another newsletter about that another time) then you could include this here as well for a double feedback sandwich.

3. Include in your invoice emails or set up a Zap for when invoices are paid

Another place to include your review link is in emails containing your invoices.

If you’re billing out of Xero, Quickbooks, or Sage, editing these emails is straightforward and you can include a review request in there.

If you’d rather not preempt, and wait until the invoice has been paid (and no complaints from the client) then you can set up a simple automation* with Zapier.

*If you’re not already using Zapier in your firm to automate manual processes then probably best to pass on this one.

You can build a Zap to send an email to say thanks for payment with your review link once an invoice has been paid. You could also add a filter to filter out certain invoices where it wouldn’t make sense to ask.

The Zap would look like:

Trigger -> Xero/QBO invoice paid
(Optional) -> Filter
Action -> Send email thanking for payment with a review link

4. Send out a review campaign

Ok, this is the only manual one, but can be a great way to kickstart the review process.

Create an email to send to your clients asking them to leave you a Google review if they’re happy with your service.

It’s not essential but you could incentivise this by offering:

A review on their profile in exchange
A gift card (or similar) for leaving one
Entry into a competition to win something e.g. an ipad

It likely won’t be an issue, but it’s probably worth saying to cover my own arse…

Just be careful which clients you send this out to.

I’m sure like most firms you do an amazing job, but if you do a blanket send to ALL of your clients, you might end up with 1 or 2 less than positive reviews from clients where you didn’t know there was an issue. It’s unlikely, but it can happen. Once you get a crap review they’re nearly impossible to remove.

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