Host Bio
Diane Gardner is a profit and tax coach focused on home service businesses, and her work sits at the intersection of leadership, financial discipline, and day-to-day operational performance. Through Adept Business Solutions, Tax Coach 4 You, and Profit Coach 4 You, she helps owners understand their numbers, price strategically, improve cash flow, implement Profit First, and build teams that support growth instead of draining it. Gardner also hosts the Profitable Home Services Podcast, where she brings operators and advisors together around finance, hiring, sales, management, and systems that protect margins. Her website describes her as a speaker, bestselling author, Quilly Award recipient, Tax Strategist, and Enrolled Agent, and her content consistently centers on helping service-business owners keep more of what they earn. That makes her a credible voice on service leadership and customer-facing performance, because she connects reputation, retention, and execution back to what owners care about most: dependable profit and a healthier business. (Profit Coach)
Summary
Diane Gardner frames this topic as important because, in her view, reviews and reputation management “can make or break a company” in home services. That fits the core lens of her show: finding hidden profit leaks and turning overlooked parts of the business into bottom-line improvement.
From the start, Diane reacts to the category with real curiosity and validation. After visiting the RightResponse AI website, she says, “big wow, where has this been all these years?” That reaction sets the tone. This is not a conversation about reviews as a housekeeping task. It is a conversation about whether good businesses are doing enough to turn customer satisfaction into visibility, trust, and revenue.
George Swetlitz immediately meets Diane on that ground. He says RightResponse AI is not really in the review-management business but in the “revenue growth business,” and Diane instantly connects that back to profit. He explains that this view came out of operating experience, especially as the CEO of a large consolidation of hearing-aid clinics that grew to 220 locations. His point is that every location had its own local reputation, customer base, and competitive set, so review performance was not abstract. It affected whether that location lived or died. Diane’s reaction is practical: she calls the operational side of that “the logistics nightmare behind all that.”
That experience leads to one of the clearest frameworks in the episode: “reviews are for rankings, responses are for conversion.” Diane stops him and says, “I like that. Say that again in case anybody missed that one.” The distinction becomes the backbone of the entire discussion. Reviews matter for Google Maps and local visibility because volume, rating, and recency all send a signal about whether a business is popular and performing well now. George argues that many owners oversimplify this by looking only at the all-time star rating. A business may see its 4.6 and assume it is equal to a competitor’s 4.6, when recent performance may actually be very different. Diane’s response is one of the episode’s strongest host moments: “I had no idea that recency was that important.”
From there, the conversation shifts from visibility to trust. Showing up on the map is only one battle. Converting a prospect after they click is a separate one. George argues that many companies lose at this stage because they either do not respond to reviews at all or they use generic AI replies that add no value. His example is intentionally blunt: a customer says the window installation was great, and the reply says they are glad the window was installed great. Diane’s response is immediate: “Right. Boring.” She also quickly understands the conversion consequence. If one company has a 4.9 but no meaningful responses, while a 4.7 competitor writes personal, useful, human-sounding replies, she says she would choose “the second person.”
That is where George introduces the idea that a public “conversation” is happening between existing customers and future buyers. The business can either participate or be absent. Diane clearly buys that logic. She says, “I never even thought about that side of it,” and later goes even further: “I’m gonna say I’ve never even thought of reviews as being part of your marketing.” George then delivers another memorable line: “More people read reviews than visit websites.” His conclusion is that businesses need to “bring your website to the review.” Diane’s reply—“And that makes so much sense”—is exactly the kind of host validation that makes this episode feel less like a pitch and more like an operating insight clicking into place.
The product explanation stays grounded in that same distinction between generic and relevant. George says that when RightResponse AI onboards a client, the system reads the reviews, the existing responses, and the website. The goal is to understand both what customers talk about and how the business defines itself. Then it creates reusable messages or facts tied to the business’s real strengths, values, experience, and positioning. The client refines those messages rather than starting from scratch. When a new review comes in, the system identifies the theme and pulls in the relevant business facts. His cabinet-installation example is simple but effective: if a customer praises craftsmanship, the reply can mention the company’s long history and focus on quality. Diane’s reaction says a lot: “Wow. What a difference.”
The episode also spends meaningful time on getting more reviews, not just responding to them. George criticizes the standard pattern where an invoice triggers a bland review request that customers ignore. He says those requests often convert poorly because they feel generic and emotionally empty. In contrast, a better request can include the installer’s name, the type of job completed, repeat-customer status, or even a photo of the finished work. Diane sees the contrast right away and calls it “completely different.” In home services especially, photos matter because they make the request feel tied to a real result, not an automated nudge.
One of Diane’s strongest stretches comes when George explains employee-level QR codes. Instead of only tracking review requests at the business level, the system can attribute scans to the specific employee in the field. George shares a restaurant example where a location went from about 350 all-time Google reviews to 85 new reviews in two weeks after moving to employee-level QR codes and incentives. Diane does not just admire the lift in review count. She “runs the thread out” operationally: if employees feel bought in, recognized, and rewarded, that could improve productivity, reduce mistakes, and plug multiple profit leaks at once. That is classic Diane Gardner framing—turning a reputation tactic into an operations and profit conversation.
The later part of the episode broadens into analytics and multi-location management. George explains that RightResponse AI can track recent ratings and volume against competitors, but also go deeper through voice-of-customer analysis. For each client, the system creates KPIs based on what matters in that industry, then codes review phrases against those topics. The result is a percent-positive view by theme, showing where customers are consistently pleased, where sentiment is mixed, and where performance is weak. Diane immediately sees the practical use. She notes that if competitors keep getting criticized for not being on time, a company could emphasize its own punctuality, even turning it into a stronger sales promise or on-time guarantee.
The episode also addresses a real tension around AI. George openly acknowledges that people are skeptical because AI often feels fake or generic. Diane agrees that AI shines most when it helps with analysis, drafting, and process support. George’s answer is not to make AI “feel human” in a vague way. It is to make it relevant, controlled, and rooted in real business facts. He even says the system does not simply get “smarter” over time by learning from whatever replies a company has already used, because bad responses can teach the wrong lessons. Instead, he prefers a structured message system that owners can edit, refine, or turn off.
The closing sections bring the conversation back to Diane’s core worldview: organic growth is the best growth, and reviews are a missed opportunity for many owners who are too busy to build a consistent process. George says reviews are not a task; they are a marketing opportunity. He also notes that many home service clients use a done-for-you approach because they do not have time after a long day to manage requests and responses themselves. Diane connects that to a larger pattern she sees often: profitable improvements usually require a mindset shift. In this case, the hidden profit leak is not leveraging the review ecosystem fully—through volume, consistency, responses, competitor insight, and employee buy-in—to let good work generate more good business.
Q&A
- I’m busy and already ask for reviews. Am I still leaving money on the table?
Yes. Asking is only one piece of the system. Reviews help you rank, but responses help you convert, and weak follow-through leaves organic growth underused. - My business and a competitor both show a 4.6. How can I tell who is actually stronger?
Look past the all-time star rating. Recent review volume and recent ratings can tell a very different story, so matching stars do not always mean matching performance. - If I have a higher rating than a competitor, can they still win the customer?
Yes. A competitor with slightly lower stars can still win if their review responses feel personal, helpful, and real while yours feel absent or generic. - If I can only fix one thing first, should I chase more reviews or better responses?
Not directly answered as an either-or choice. The practical split is that reviews drive rankings and responses drive conversion, so the first priority depends on whether your bigger problem is visibility or trust. - Should I respond to positive reviews or only negative ones?
Respond to positive reviews too. Readers use those replies to judge whether the business cares, and even a simple five-star review can become a chance to reinforce what makes the business worth choosing. - Why do generic AI review replies feel risky?
They add little value, often repeat what the customer already said, and can make the business look fake or disengaged from the actual conversation happening in public. - What should a strong review response actually include?
It should include business-specific information that fits the review. Useful responses can reinforce craftsmanship, experience, family ownership, values, quality standards, or other details that help a future buyer decide. - I get a lot of star-only reviews with no text. Can I still say something useful?
Yes. A reply can still thank the customer and add a clear message about what the business stands for or does well. - My review requests get ignored. How do I improve conversion?
Generic invoice-triggered requests are easy to ignore. Personalized requests are stronger when they include real details such as the technician’s name, the work completed, repeat-customer status, or a photo of the finished job. - Can employee-level QR codes really work, and what happens if the employee leaves?
They can work very well because they let you attribute scans to the person in the field and build incentives around that activity. The reviews still belong to the business even if the employee later leaves. - I run multiple locations. How can reviews help me spot operational problems early?
Topic-level analysis can show percent-positive performance by areas such as professionalism, timeliness, safety, or effectiveness. That makes it easier to see which location is underperforming and where management should intervene. - How can competitor reviews change what I say on my website or in sales?
They can reveal where competitors are weak and where your business should lean in harder. If others get hit on timeliness or care, that can become a stronger positioning point in sales conversations and on your site. - We do occasional big pushes for reviews and then stop. Is that enough?
No. A short burst is weaker than a steady pattern. Consistency matters because ongoing review flow signals sustained popularity in a way a one-time spike does not. - I’m skeptical of AI. How do I use it without sounding fake?
Use AI to organize, analyze, and draft around real business facts and real customer details. The goal is relevance and truth, not empty language that only sounds automated. - I’m worried AI will learn from our old bad responses. What is a safer setup?
A controlled message system is safer than open-ended learning from past replies. If a message is weak, you can turn it off or replace it without teaching the whole system the wrong habits. - How can RightResponse AI help if my team is too busy to manage reviews every day?
It can support a more active or done-for-you process so review requests and responses still happen consistently without forcing already-busy owners to handle everything after hours. - How can RightResponse AI help me compare my locations or competitors more clearly?
It can track recent ratings and review volume, then go deeper with side-by-side topic analysis showing percent-positive performance by area. That gives a clearer picture than a single all-time star rating.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Diane: Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Home Services Podcast. This is the podcast where we dig deep into businesses as we're always trying to uncover hidden profit leaks. We're always looking for ideas and suggestions and ways that we can put more profit, more cash. Back into your pocket, because that's what it's all about.
[00:00:26] Diane: It's all about how much you get to take home outta your business, not necessarily that top line revenue, because top line revenue can be very deceiving. So I'm hoping that you are buckled up ready for another amazing episode as we bring on George Swetlitz, if I said that right. Um, he is the owner. And the CEO of RightResponse AI.
[00:00:54] Diane: They're a reputation management company. And when I went out and checked on their website, I said a big wow, where has this been all these years? So with that, George, welcome. Thanks for coming on the program today.
[00:01:09] George: Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:12] Diane: You are welcome. 'cause I know that reviews and reputation management.
[00:01:18] Diane: That stuff is so important in the home services industry. It can make or break a company and the fact that you've got this amazing program, I first, let's just back up and tell the listeners what you have and then we'll go from there.
[00:01:34] George: Okay, so we, we have a reputation or review management platform. That's, I like to tell people we're, we're not in the review management business.
[00:01:45] George: We're in the revenue growth business.
[00:01:47] Diane: Yes. Right.
[00:01:47] George: And I like And you talked about profits. Yes. You talked about profits.
[00:01:51] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:51] George: But, but we really focus on, you know, how do you take advantage of every revenue opportunity in front of you. Right. There's a lot of leakage Right in. When you bring people to your Google business profile or on maps or whatever it is, and they choose someone else.
[00:02:13] George: And so we're all about how do you get people to choose you? That's what we're all about. And so this is very, you know, this is a lived experience for me. So I'm, you know, I have a software company now, but I used to be the CEO of a, of a consolidation. Of hearing aid clinics and we grew that business to 220 clinics and these issues.
[00:02:42] George: Now we had 220 clinics, but every clinic is its own little business. It's its own business in its own town with its own customers and its own reputation. And that business lives or dies on its own. And when you have 220 of those. It's pretty complicated. And so I was
[00:02:58] Diane: just
[00:02:59] George: thinking the
[00:02:59] Diane: logistics nightmare behind all that.
[00:03:01] George: Yeah. Yeah. And so you can spend a lot of money on ads or you can try to make sure that when people get to you, they buy from you. And that's a lot more cost effective than throwing money at ads. Not, I'm not saying that. Advertising isn't important. It is,
[00:03:21] Diane: right? It is. It has its place. Mm-hmm.
[00:03:24] George: But you want to make sure that when you spend that money on advertising, you are converting them to you and not somebody else.
[00:03:33] George: Right. One of the things that we learned in our business was that sometimes we would advertise for one of our locations, and the conversion rate of that advertising was very low. So essentially we were bringing people. To do research and pick somebody else and you don't wanna do that.
[00:03:51] Diane: That's sad.
[00:03:53] George: It is very sad.
[00:03:54] George: It's very expensive.
[00:03:55] Diane: Very expensive. Yes. Huge profit leak.
[00:03:58] George: Yeah, that's right. So, and that's what RightResponse is all about. It's trying to help people leverage the reputation mutation, you know, cycle. To drive revenue inexpensively. That's what reputation management is re really should be all about.
[00:04:17] Diane: Yes, it should.
[00:04:18] Diane: Yes. And how does your program work? Because when I looked at it, I thought, well, that's different from any, so most of the other ones that I've looked at from my own business.
[00:04:29] George: Right. Well, so, so there's a couple of different elements. To, to reputation management, review management. One is getting, getting reviews.
[00:04:42] George: You gotta get reviews. Really, really important to get reviews because reviews drives your rankings, right in Google Maps. So I always say to people, reviews are for rankings, responses are for conversion. Two different things.
[00:05:04] Diane: I like that. Say that again in case anybody missed that one.
[00:05:08] George: Yeah. So reviews are for rankings and responses are for conversion, so let's kind of unpack that.
[00:05:18] Diane: Yes. Yeah.
[00:05:19] George: Okay. So reviews matter in two ways. Volume and rating, right? So the more reviews you get. The more Google thinks, Hey, these guys are popular. How else do they know if you're popular? Right. They're not, you know, walking, you know, watching you walk around. Especially in home services. It's not a restaurant.
[00:05:44] George: You don't go to, like, you don't go to Google. And there's a little, you know, you know how Google has those things more busy than usual? They don't know that for a PEs control business. Right? They don't know that.
[00:05:53] Diane: Nope.
[00:05:54] George: So reviews tells them whether you're popular. So you need a lot of reviews. And of course you need good ratings.
[00:06:04] George: Can't have bad ratings. Now in every area, there's a different competitive environment. A 4.7 might be terrible in one area, might be greater than another, so you have to know who your competitors are and where they are. The other thing that matters is recency. So all you see when you go to Google is that all time rating is 4.6.
[00:06:30] George: So you might look at you and you say, I'm a 4.6, and you go to your competitor and they're a 4.6, and you're like, we're the same. Might be true. Might not be true. Okay. 'cause in the last six months, your rating might be 4.4 over the last six months, and theirs might be 4.9 over the last six months.
[00:06:52] Diane: I had no idea that recency was that important.
[00:06:55] Diane: Wow.
[00:06:56] George: Yeah. I mean, Google doesn't care that you were a great company seven years ago.
[00:07:02] Diane: Okay?
[00:07:02] George: Right. They don't care. They care. Are you a great company now?
[00:07:06] Diane: Okay,
[00:07:07] George: well that's really hard to figure out, right? Because if, if you were trying to figure that out, you'd have to go in, you'd have to like, look at the stars, look at the date, write it all down, calculated
[00:07:17] Diane: who's got time.
[00:07:19] Diane: Nobody's
[00:07:19] George: got time, right? We do that, right? We do that. We automatically do that. We download them all and we calculate the ratings over the last two months, over the last six months, all time you can see how you compare to your competitors.
[00:07:34] Diane: Wow.
[00:07:36] George: So the first thing you have to do is you have to get a lot of reviews, a lot of great reviews, so that you are higher in the rankings and people see you when they Google.
[00:07:49] George: Pest control near me, window replacement, whatever it is, right? Mm-hmm. You gotta show up on the map.
[00:07:59] George: Showing up on the map is one thing. Converting them is something completely different, right? So imagine you have a 4.9 lot of great reviews, and you don't respond to reviews, you don't respond, you don't say anything. Or you have a system that provides these generic AI reviews. You know what I'm talking about?
[00:08:26] George: It says, oh, I really, the window was really installed great. And the response is, we're glad the window was installed. Great.
[00:08:33] Diane: Right. Boring.
[00:08:35] George: Right. It's, it's, it's generic. It doesn't contribute. It's fake. People are kind of rebelling against those kinds of things. Right. You know, because it kind of. You know, the image of AI and the Yeah.
[00:08:51] George: You know, you go on social media, you don't know whether things are true or false. So you're, you're confronted with AI everywhere, everywhere. And then you're trying to make a decision, who am I gonna trust with my window replacement? And you get these kind of stupid responses and you're like, ah. So imagine you have a 4.9 or 4.8 and, but you don't say anything.
[00:09:11] George: Or you have generic AI reviews and. There's someone else next on the list that's a 4.7, but they actually write the responses themselves, and they're personal, and they're helpful, and they're interesting. Who are you gonna choose?
[00:09:33] Diane: Oh, the second person. Right. I never even thought about that side of it. Wow.
[00:09:37] George: It's just a natural thing.
[00:09:39] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:39] George: You get drawn. It's not only about the review. But it's about the response. Are they real? Do they care? Is it a person? Right? Who are they? And so you can have better, better ranking, but lose customers because of the way you engage in that conversation. Mm-hmm. I like to tell people there's a conversation taking place.
[00:10:08] George: Between your customers and everyone else who's looking for your service, there's a conversation taking place. And the question is, are you in the conversation? Are you there or are you absent Your choice.
[00:10:24] Diane: Okay. And what do you see normally when you're working with companies?
[00:10:29] George: Responses are terrible. Okay.
[00:10:31] George: It's, it's a huge opportunity.
[00:10:32] Diane: Okay.
[00:10:33] George: Huge opportunity.
[00:10:34] Diane: So bar's pretty low.
[00:10:35] George: Bar is very low.
[00:10:37] Diane: Very low. Okay.
[00:10:38] George: Very low.
[00:10:38] Diane: Right. I'm thinking the agency that I've worked with a few years ago, they never even said anything that we need to go out and, and respond. Not one person said anything.
[00:10:49] George: Yeah. Well,
[00:10:49] Diane: wow.
[00:10:50] George: You know, I know.
[00:10:51] George: It's, it's true. I mean, we work with a lot of agencies that care. Right. They get it.
[00:10:58] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:58] George: And, uh, and, and so they, they like what we do, and so I'll tell you what we do. On the, on the response side. So what happens when we onboard a client? We reviewed all, we read our ai, right? Reads all the reviews. All the responses and the website.
[00:11:21] George: We read the response, the reviews to I to understand what do customers talk about.
[00:11:27] Diane: Okay?
[00:11:28] George: And then we read the responses, which are usually terrible, and the website, which is usually better. To understand what, what, how do they, how does the business define itself? So, you know, there might be a, a cabinet installation company and it's a family owned business and they've been doing it for 46 years, and the whole family's involved and they talk about that on their website and the pride and the craftsmanship and all of those things.
[00:12:03] George: So we take that and we create messages, right? And so with that goes into our system and, and the business, our customers go in and they refine those. They add some, you know, they, well, we give them 80%, right? We give them like 80% of what they need, and then they have to go in and do the 20%.
[00:12:25] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:27] George: And then what happens is when a review comes in.
[00:12:30] George: We look at that review and we look at the theme, and we identify these messages that are relevant to that particular review, and we incorporate those messages into the response. So if somebody said the, the installation of the cabinets was really amazing, I can't see, you know, any flaws. There's a fact that talks about the pride in craftsmanship and how they've been doing this.
[00:13:00] George: So the response says, wow, we'd love to hear that. You know, for anyone who doesn't know, we've been in the business 46 years and craftsmanship and quality is central to what we do.
[00:13:14] Diane: Wow. What a difference,
[00:13:16] George: right? What a difference, right? So, you know, you're community, you're engaging, you're teaching, you're helping.
[00:13:25] George: Right. That's the difference.
[00:13:27] Diane: Wow.
[00:13:28] George: And so in, in, for our customers, we, we want them to get on the page through more reviews, and then we want them to just convert like crazy because they have great responses. Right. And that's the secret to growing revenue without spending a ton of money on ads. All the work they've done, making people happy gets them the opportunity to get new customers for free.
[00:14:06] George: Right.
[00:14:06] Diane: That is so cool. Yeah. What a, what a neat, use the word marketing concept 'cause that's what it is.
[00:14:13] George: Yeah.
[00:14:13] Diane: That other people are not even thinking about. Yeah. We all know you gotta get reviews, get get the reviews, get the reviews, get the reviews.
[00:14:23] George: It stop there, but stops
[00:14:24] Diane: there.
[00:14:24] George: We, you know, we, we do all the normal things, email, text, and then we do interesting things.
[00:14:34] George: So in home services, photos are really important. You know, you do a, you do a really nice install for somebody. You can include the photo in the request.
[00:14:48] Diane: Okay.
[00:14:49] George: Right. Like, you know, the, the, the days of the minute you, you know, you generate the invoice, boom, boom, boom, on your little system, and then boom, a request goes out.
[00:14:59] George: Thank you. Leave us a review.
[00:15:01] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:02] George: How many of those do you get? Do you even pay attention to them anymore?
[00:15:06] Diane: Not very often. I mean, I get 'em, but I don't, I rarely go out. I'm usually busy. And you just, you click the button to pay it and you move on and, yeah, yeah,
[00:15:15] George: yeah. Conversion. On those kinds of requests is very, very low.
[00:15:21] George: 1%, one and a half percent.
[00:15:23] Diane: Wow. Yeah.
[00:15:24] George: Right. And so people just like, that's their lived experience right now, very low conversion rate.
[00:15:31] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:31] George: Well, what if you, what if, what if your request, so we can use AI in requests too. So if you know things about your customers, have they, are they a repeat customer? Do you have a photo?
[00:15:45] George: What was the installer's name? What did you actually do? Those things can create a wonderfully personalized request. Hey, we just wanted to send this out to you on behalf of Jim. You know, after installing or you know, renovating your bathroom, we enclosed a picture because it's just such a nice thing. We thought you might like to have it.
[00:16:14] Diane: Wow.
[00:16:15] George: You know, we really value your loyalty and the fact that you've been our customer three times. It's so important to get reviews, and we would love the opportunity to get one from you versus completely
[00:16:28] Diane: different. Then,
[00:16:29] George: you know, hey, click
[00:16:30] the
[00:16:30] Diane: box. Yeah.
[00:16:32] George: You know, would you give us a review?
[00:16:36] Diane: Right.
[00:16:36] George: Wow. We do, we do QR codes at the employee level.
[00:16:42] George: So most people think about QR codes at the business level.
[00:16:45] Diane: Uhhuh,
[00:16:46] George: right?
[00:16:46] Diane: Right.
[00:16:47] George: So here's a QR code, and when you scan that code, it opens up for the business. You go to the business,
[00:16:54] Diane: a landing page of some sort, right? Yeah.
[00:16:55] George: Right. Google, whatever. Okay. What we do is we do it for the employee. So every. Every, you know, in a, in a business, like a pest control or whoever, when you're out at the customer's location
[00:17:07] Diane: mm-hmm.
[00:17:08] George: Their QR code is, it opens to the Google page, but we record it as coming from Mary. Right.
[00:17:19] Diane: Okay.
[00:17:19] George: And so now you can incentivize people. You can say Mary, okay. Had 25 visits over the last, you know, 25 customers over the last, this last week.
[00:17:30] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:31] George: And she got scans from 20 of them.
[00:17:36] Diane: Okay.
[00:17:36] George: Congratulations Mary.
[00:17:37] George: You get
[00:17:39] Diane: X, Y, Z. Yeah.
[00:17:40] George: Or this, or whatever it is, right. Something so you can get your folks excited. I just, we have a restaurant customer, a little different industry, but I convinced him. So we have a done for you service where we do, we take a much more active role. And so we have a restaurant group that engaged us and I've been pushing him to do this, to get the QR codes to the servers.
[00:18:07] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:08] George: Okay. So all time reviews as of two weeks ago was like 350. So his all time number of reviews on Google two weeks ago, 350. In the last two weeks he got 85.
[00:18:24] Diane: Whoa.
[00:18:24] George: 85.
[00:18:25] Diane: Because he went to the employee level.
[00:18:27] George: Yeah, he went to the employee level, did a competition, incentivized people, got him excited. 85 reviews.
[00:18:37] Diane: Wow.
[00:18:38] George: Right. And that was like on maybe 120 scans. Think about that. Conversion rate
[00:18:45] Diane: six. That's huge.
[00:18:46] George: 60% of those scans converted to a review.
[00:18:49] Diane: Wow.
[00:18:50] George: Right. So these opportunities are there. It doesn't co it didn't cost. I, we give him, we charge 50 cents per QR code per month. You know, it's like nothing. Right. We doesn't cost anything, it's free.
[00:19:05] George: So, but with that, he got, you know, in that particular location, 85 reviews over the course of two weeks.
[00:19:15] Diane: That's amazing. Now a question that's rolling in my head is what happens when if, well, you know, especially in a restaurant, they have a fairly decent turnover. Mary's no longer there. Do those reviews still stay on the site?
[00:19:28] George: Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:30] Diane: Do those, they're
[00:19:30] George: the businesses reviews. Okay. The businesses reviews. Yeah.
[00:19:33] Diane: Right. Okay.
[00:19:35] George: Yeah,
[00:19:35] Diane: because I could just hear somebody in my head going, but wait a minute, what happens?
[00:19:40] George: Yeah, yeah. '
[00:19:41] Diane: cause they're not used to the anything on the employee level. Right. Or rarely do you see it on the employee level.
[00:19:46] George: Right? Yeah. But that's, they're the ones out in the field. They're the ones visiting the house. They're the ones installing the sink. I mean, they're the ones who were there.
[00:19:54] Diane: Yeah.
[00:19:56] George: They take pride in what they do. That review is meaningful to them.
[00:20:01] Diane: Oh, you bet it is. Right? Yeah.
[00:20:04] George: And it should be meaningful to the business
[00:20:07] Diane: and so.
[00:20:09] Diane: Run that thread out. You get your employees buying in, they're getting these reviews. What did that just do to the way they handle the future jobs? If there's an incentive program out there and they're, they're getting their, they're ego stroked and things like that on these reviews, I would think that your productivity would go up.
[00:20:32] Diane: Mistakes would hopefully decrease because they care, you know, they, they're bought into this, which plugs a very big couple big profit leaks out there.
[00:20:42] George: Right?
[00:20:43] Diane: 100%. And so now we've just added money back to the bottom line. And it sounds like it didn't cost that much to get there.
[00:20:48] George: That's right. Right.
[00:20:50] Diane: That's pretty cool.
[00:20:52] George: Yeah.
[00:20:54] Diane: Wow.
[00:20:56] George: I know people don't think about the power, you know, the leverage that they have over this part of their business. No. They view it. I always say people view it as a task that has to be done.
[00:21:08] Diane: One more thing to be checked off of the checklist. I did it. I asked for a review next and move on.
[00:21:14] George: That's right.
[00:21:14] Diane: Yeah.
[00:21:15] George: It's a task, Uhhuh, and I tell 'em it's not a task, it's a marketing opportunity. Not a task. I get a lot of that, you know, big companies come to us and it'll be, you know, someone who's responsible for review responses most of the time in big companies. And what I'll hear is, you know, management decided that they wanna respond to every review.
[00:21:37] George: Management didn't say we wanna have a quality response to every review, right? They just said, we want a response to every review. And then I have to educate and I have to say, well, look, it's. If you're comparing us to someone else, the difference is you can get a quality response to that review with us as opposed to a response.
[00:22:02] Diane: Right.
[00:22:02] George: And, and here's why that matters.
[00:22:04] Diane: Right? Yeah. And I'm gonna say I've never even thought of reviews as being part of your marketing. Yeah. Minimally, but not a big part of your marketing, um, project.
[00:22:17] George: Yeah.
[00:22:17] Diane: Wow.
[00:22:19] George: More people read reviews than visit websites.
[00:22:23] Diane: Okay.
[00:22:24] George: Right. So you gotta bring your website to the review.
[00:22:30] George: Right? If people aren't gonna go to the website, you gotta bring their website to the review. Right.
[00:22:34] Diane: And that makes so much sense. Yeah. Wow. So, no, most of the time when I'm reading reviews, they just, they don't really tell you anything. So it's like, okay, whatever. I gotta go find some other information somewhere.
[00:22:46] George: That's right. And so even with, so we have these things, we have facts, right? These messages, and we have these things called pillar messages, kind of a, a subset of the messages. And so it would be something like if the review is a four or five star review, then include in the response somewhere, and then there's a whole list of 15 things that you love about your business,
[00:23:09] Diane: Uhhuh, right?
[00:23:10] Diane: Okay.
[00:23:10] George: So even if it's a review with no text. You'll say, it was great to get this five star review. You know, we love the fact that we can bring quality craftsmanship to every job, you know, and we've been doing that for 46 years. So even in a review, that is just a, a rating. You can still
[00:23:36] Diane: Yeah.
[00:23:37] George: Provide a marketing message.
[00:23:38] George: Why not?
[00:23:39] Diane: Because if you had to, if you had to do that manually, you'd be sitting there going, I have no idea what to say. And that would just be painful. So then you wouldn't do it.
[00:23:50] George: That's right.
[00:23:51] Diane: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:52] George: And we have some people and they're like, well, I don't, you know, I don't like exactly the way it's written, but they value the fact that the AI proposed things.
[00:24:03] Diane: Uhhuh
[00:24:04] George: right. Here are three things that you could put in here. And then they can go in and edit it.
[00:24:10] Diane: Okay.
[00:24:11] George: And, and put it in their voice. So editing is always easier than creating.
[00:24:15] Diane: Oh, definitely.
[00:24:16] George: Right.
[00:24:16] Diane: So does this AI get smarter the longer it works with your business?
[00:24:22] George: I would say no.
[00:24:23] Diane: Okay.
[00:24:23] George: You know, Mo, most people say yes, it learns, but
[00:24:26] Diane: Right.
[00:24:27] George: But we, we tried that. And the problem is, is it can learn the wrong things too.
[00:24:31] Diane: Definitely. Yes.
[00:24:33] George: Right. If you have some crappy responses, it learns that that's. A response that you liked. And so it'll start doing crappy responses.
[00:24:41] Diane: Oh no.
[00:24:42] George: And then how do you teach the AI something you trained it with,
[00:24:47] Diane: right?
[00:24:47] George: So we found that this, these messages are kind, are a more resilient way.
[00:24:57] Diane: Okay.
[00:24:57] George: You're not training the AI engine, but you are participating in the AI creation. Okay. And so it's a slightly different angle.
[00:25:08] Diane: It is a little different,
[00:25:09] George: but you, if you all of a sudden decide that you don't like this one message, you turn it off. Okay? You just turn it off, you replace it with something else.
[00:25:21] George: So if you don't like the way it's written, you change the way. Okay. But you can, you train it kind of in that way, right? But it's not a true training in like the AI technical training sense.
[00:25:34] Diane: Now, earlier you mentioned that you could see what your competitors are doing. How, how do, how do the how, I'm not saying this right, how does the business owner actually get insight into, I get it that AI can go in and read it and things like that, but is there something that's presented to the business owner so they can say, well, yeah, we really don't want that kind of wording in our reviews, or, I dunno, something along those lines.
[00:26:03] George: So the, sorry, I have a little cough. Um, we have a competitor analysis kind of area in our Okay. Platform. And so one element of competitor analysis is what we talked about, kinda how are they doing with recent ratings and recent volume.
[00:26:25] Diane: Okay? Okay.
[00:26:26] George: Then what you can do is you can do voice of the customer.
[00:26:31] George: So what we do for every company, every one of our clients is we develop a set of, you know, KPIs.
[00:26:38] Diane: Okay. Right.
[00:26:40] George: Key performance indicators.
[00:26:41] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:42] George: So for a pest control business, it might be, you know, um, any comments on the. You know, on the effectiveness of the treatment, the professionalism of the technician, the quality of the materials, whether they're eco-friendly, you know, all of these things that matter in pest control.
[00:27:06] George: Mm-hmm. We develop a set of KPIs and then when a review comes in, we read the review and we look at a phrase and if they say, oh, you know, you know, they. They told us about our pet in the backyard, and we were able to put our pet indoors. So that is about, you know, professionalism and safety and, and so it's coded, right?
[00:27:32] George: Okay. Every phrase and every review is coded against one of these KPIs. Okay. Then you can, you get an evaluation of how you're doing what, what are the areas where most of the comments are positive? What are the areas where there's a mix? Where are the areas that are more negative so that you can instantly see what is pleasing customers and what is not.
[00:27:56] Diane: Okay.
[00:27:57] George: Right. So we do that.
[00:27:59] Diane: Okay. That's really neat to have that insight into how your competitors are doing. Because it gives you an area to say, okay, we could step up in this one area potentially and make a big difference.
[00:28:12] George: That's right. So, and, and exactly. You're exactly right. You could also do that same analysis for your competitors, and then you can look at it side by side.
[00:28:21] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:21] George: And you can say, we get really high rate, you know, rankings on professionalism. They, for whatever reason, are having comments about timeliness. Whatever it is, people not showing up on time.
[00:28:36] Diane: Okay.
[00:28:37] George: So then if, you know, you can create a business, can create something for their team that says if you're outselling, you know, they can say, Hey, you know, we, we know that a lot of people make negative comments about.
[00:28:50] George: People showing up on time. Mm-hmm. Look, it's not us. You can go read the reviews yourself, but that, that kinda shows up in the reviews.
[00:28:56] Diane: Mm-hmm. Okay.
[00:28:57] George: So it can become, you know, things that you can say in the sales process be things that you bolster on your website. If everyone talks about, you know, they, you know, the care that you take, you can then build on that on your website.
[00:29:13] George: I
[00:29:14] Diane: was even thinking the on time, if you have, if your competitors have a lot of comments about not being on time, you could make a big deal about that you are on time and have an on time guarantee. I don't know, something along those lines, which would really catapult you out in front of your competitors,
[00:29:33] George: right?
[00:29:33] Diane: Yeah. Wow. This is good stuff.
[00:29:36] George: Yeah, so, so the point about this. So we're ai, so we, we started operations, you know, in 2023. And so it was right when, you know, we did it because Chat, GPT came out. Mm-hmm. And this was kind of meaningful to us. And so we built this. So, so there's really a couple of things to think about.
[00:30:00] George: One is that even though AI can be inauthentic. In your life experience.
[00:30:10] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:12] George: It can really help you at work.
[00:30:15] Diane: Oh yeah.
[00:30:15] George: It can really help you analyze, understand, draft, create it. It can do a really nice job if you are engaged in that process as well.
[00:30:27] Diane: And I think it really shines in in those types of processes.
[00:30:31] George: Yeah,
[00:30:32] Diane: yeah,
[00:30:33] George: yeah.
[00:30:33] Diane: That is so cool.
[00:30:39] Diane: I'm kind of looking at some of the other things that we had talked about before we went, um, live here. Um, yeah. What are some other tips that you think our home service business owners should know about as they're thinking about their reviews? They're gonna all go back now and take a look at their reviews, you know?
[00:30:59] George: Yeah. I mean, I think. You know, the, the biggest thing I think is for people to understand that reviews are an opportunity.
[00:31:07] Diane: Yeah.
[00:31:08] George: Right. And you know, my experience in business, kind of running a 220 location business, that as a CEO of a large business, we could get growth in a lot of different ways. We could get growth through acquisition, we could get growth.
[00:31:30] George: Through ads paying for things, drawing people to us. But the best growth, the absolute best growth is organic growth. You, you bet, yeah. Is when your business generates its own growth. Right? And the review ecosystem is central to organic growth. Right. Those reviews are your salespeople.
[00:31:58] Diane: They are. Yeah. Your little
[00:31:59] George: right.
[00:32:00] Diane: Invisible salespeople out there selling on your behalf. Yeah,
[00:32:04] George: that's right. Yeah. But you have to make that happen. You have to get them, you have to encourage them. You have to engage with them.
[00:32:11] Diane: Right.
[00:32:12] George: And I think that's, you know, people get into their routine and they, they get stuck.
[00:32:21] Diane: They do. Yeah. They're busy.
[00:32:22] Diane: They're, they're, they're busy. They're just running hard all day long. Yeah.
[00:32:25] George: That's right. That's right. And, and, and to a certain extent, especially in home services, we have a lot of home services clients that are done for you, you know?
[00:32:35] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:35] George: Our service that where we do it all and it's not that expensive.
[00:32:39] George: It's like a hundred bucks a month, you know, it's, it's not, oh my god. You know?
[00:32:43] Diane: Yeah. I
[00:32:43] George: can't, a thousand dollars. Right.
[00:32:44] Diane: Do this. Yeah.
[00:32:48] George: And it makes sense for a lot of people because like you said, they're busy.
[00:32:53] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:53] George: Day
[00:32:54] Diane: and they don't have somebody
[00:32:55] George: long
[00:32:55] Diane: day. Yeah. They don't have somebody on their team who can take this on.
[00:32:59] George: That's right.
[00:33:00] Diane: Yeah.
[00:33:00] George: That's right. And they get home at night. They wanna spend time with their family. They don't wanna sit there and think, well, I gotta send out review requests and I gotta figure out how to respond to it.
[00:33:08] George: You know, they don't wanna do that, but they don't realize it's not just that. Right. They're not, they're not just sub-optimizing, you know, or saving time on the review response, but they're short here. They're shortchanging their own organic growth. How many customers do you need?
[00:33:28] Diane: Yeah.
[00:33:29] George: To pay for that a hundred dollars.
[00:33:31] Diane: Minimal. Yeah.
[00:33:33] George: Right. You don't need much.
[00:33:34] Diane: No.
[00:33:35] George: Right. So that's really, you know, it's kind of changing that mindset.
[00:33:40] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:41] George: And. Trying to, to get your own good work working for you.
[00:33:48] Diane: Right? And, and we see that on awful lot of the topics that we talk about on this podcast that are profit generating do require a mindset shift.
[00:33:59] Diane: We've always done it this way, doesn't necessarily work if we can change up our mindset, embrace something new. Sometimes we just add a ton of money to that bottom line profit because we were willing to think outside the box and let's give it a try.
[00:34:16] George: Right? And, and a great example of that is that restaurant group that I just told you about.
[00:34:20] George: We, you know, I would drop these hints, you know, I'd say, you know, I think you could be doing better. I think you should try this QR code thing. I, you know, we, we ought to talk about it. And, well, I do loyalty programs, I do this, I do all these things. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, the only reviews you're getting are the negative ones.
[00:34:42] George: Your ratings going down. You know, we can respond to those reviews, but it's not gonna drive growth. And finally, he said he, he got one more bad review. And he's like, I gotta get, you know, his, his impetus was to kind of drowned out the bad reviews.
[00:34:59] Diane: You bet. Yeah. Bury the bad review. Yeah.
[00:35:01] George: That was the impetus.
[00:35:02] George: Now when I talk to him, he's like, you got any more ideas? Is there anything else we can do? You know? I'm like, yeah, but you got a hundred, you know, as a, as a restaurant group, you got like 280 reviews last week. You know? You don't need more reviews right now.
[00:35:16] Diane: Yeah. You're you're good for right now. Yeah.
[00:35:17] George: You're good.
[00:35:18] Diane: Yeah.
[00:35:18] George: Be consistent. That's the other thing. We could talk about that for a minute. A lot of times what people do is they'll make a big push
[00:35:29] Diane: uhhuh
[00:35:30] George: and they get 50 reviews in, and then there's nothing. Right. No follow up, no consistency.
[00:35:37] Diane: Right.
[00:35:37] George: Well, Google looks at that and says they just got 50 reviews.
[00:35:42] George: I, who cares?
[00:35:44] Diane: Oh, okay.
[00:35:45] George: Yeah. One time. Like they want, it's not, doesn't mean anything
[00:35:49] Diane: because it wasn't consistency. Yeah, it's
[00:35:51] George: not consistent. They wanna see consistency. You're not popular for a weekend, right? You're popular or you're not. You're not popular for a weekend. So, you know, so people don't, there's all these things going on and they don't necessarily optimize.
[00:36:07] Diane: Right.
[00:36:07] George: So it's just exact. So like I said to this rest restaurateur, slow down. You don't need 280 a week.
[00:36:16] Diane: Yeah. That would be hard to keep that pace
[00:36:18] George: right. Week
[00:36:19] Diane: after week after week. Yeah.
[00:36:20] George: You were getting 30 a week. Now you get 200 day, you don't need that. A hundred would be great.
[00:36:28] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:29] George: Right. You know, get some balance, make it sustainable, but drive to, you know, a goal.
[00:36:39] Diane: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:40] George: So,
[00:36:41] Diane: yeah. Very cool. Wow. This has been a great topic.
[00:36:45] George: Yeah.
[00:36:46] Diane: Yeah.
[00:36:46] George: People don't always think, you
[00:36:48] Diane: know. No, no. I never would've thought about how important the consistency and the response is and all those things it, everybody just says you gotta get reviews.
[00:36:57] George: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Diane: Yeah. Wow. Very cool. Well, George, we are coming up to the area in the program where I get to ask you my magic question, so listeners listen up because this is a biggie in every single program.
[00:37:14] Diane: So George, what is a hidden or unique profit leak that you've seen as you've worked with home service businesses?
[00:37:23] George: Well, I think I'll end up repeating myself, but I think that's okay. That, that, you know, that that leak is not leveraging, you know, the review ecosystem to grow your business organically. It, you know, when we did this at my old company.
[00:37:42] George: We could, we could drive businesses that were unprofitable into profitability. We could take businesses that were profitable and make 'em super profitable.
[00:37:52] Diane: Wow.
[00:37:53] George: That's, you know, that's what you can do when you really leverage the power. I said it before, the, the power of all the good work you've done. Right.
[00:38:04] George: Really leverage all the good work you've done.
[00:38:07] Diane: That's a good one. Thank you for sharing that with us and I will say that is a unique one we've not had on the podcast, so very good. So listeners, I hope you were taking notes. If not, we do have show notes and things for you so that you can come back and grab those pieces.
[00:38:23] Diane: Listen to it again, we are on all the various, the normal podcast channels as well as out on YouTube. So please like and subscribe, help us grow our numbers as we help you grow your numbers. Especially after this podcast. So thank you, George. How can our listeners get a hold of you, sign up for your program, whatever you have out there for them?
[00:38:47] George: Sure. So we are@rightresponseai.com, the rightresponseai.com At RightResponse AI, there's a free trial. People can request a live meeting like this to talk about their business. This is all I do. I spend all my time talking to people about their businesses and I love doing it. And for your listeners, if they go to rightresponseai.com/phs after your podcast, they'll go to a a specific page.
[00:39:24] George: Specifically for you and we'll have some offers there, some, you know, some free offers and things like that for your listeners.
[00:39:30] Diane: Okay. Well thank you for doing that. That's very generous. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, very good. So I'm hoping you're going to get just flooded with people hopping out there and taking advantage of that.
[00:39:41] Diane: Coupon code. So thank you for sharing your time and your expertise and working with me as we reach out and help these home service businesses become wildly profitable. That's my goal. Wildly profitable, not just barely profitable, but wildly profitable. So listen listeners, thank you for joining us again.
[00:40:03] Diane: If you are wondering where profits leaking out of your business. Be sure and grab my top 15 profit leaks report. I think as you go down that list, you're gonna grab a few of those and go, Ooh, ouch. I think that's where profit's leaking outta my business. Once you do that and have read through that report and you want some help, reach out to me.
[00:40:24] Diane: I'm happy to hop on a phone call, a Zoom call, anything like that. We'll be happy to talk about. Your business and help you, uh, identify some profit leaks and potentially even be able to help you plug them because we are all about making you wildly profitable. So with that, we're gonna call this a wrap and we will catch you on the next episode.
[00:40:43] Diane: Thank you so much and God bless your day.