Reviews for a Business That Sells to Other Businesses

A handful of reviews in ten years

A business that sells to other businesses often has a Google listing with a handful of reviews collected over a decade. One is from a passer-by who expected a shop. Another is from someone who used to work there.

Its actual customers, the cafes, offices, contractors and manufacturers it serves every week, have never reviewed it. It has never occurred to them.

Business buyers judge suppliers differently anyway. They ask colleagues, call references and look for proof of work like theirs.

The few public reviews still matter, precisely because there are so few. One unfair review can be a third of the whole record.

Why business customers rarely review

• Reviews feel personal, and buying for a company is not.
• Company policy may forbid public endorsements of suppliers.
• The buyer is busy, and reviewing a supplier earns nothing.
• A public review tells competitors who supplies whom.
• Nobody asked, in all those years.

The fourth is real and underrated. A client may treat its suppliers as part of its own advantage, and a public review announces exactly who they are.

What business buyers look for

A buyer comparing suppliers wants to know three things: whether you have done this for businesses like theirs, whether those businesses stayed, and whether someone there will say so.

That proof takes different forms from a consumer review: a reference they can phone, a written account of similar work, a list of clients, and recommendations on the profile of the person they would deal with.

References people can call

Ask a few long-standing clients whether they would take a call from a prospective customer. Most agree when asked properly, and some are flattered.

Give out a reference's name only with their agreement for that particular call, and spread the calls around so nobody hears from you every month.

Tell each reference who will be calling and what the caller is likely to ask. A reference caught off guard sounds less convincing than one expecting the call.

Say on the website that references are available, and match them to the enquiry: a hotel buyer wants to speak to a hotel, not a corner shop.

Case studies in the client's words

A case study is a short written account of one client's problem, what you did and how it turned out, ideally with a few sentences from the client in their own words.

The best subjects are problems a prospect will recognise: a product developed to order, a delivery schedule rearranged around a client's opening hours, a change of supplier handled without a gap.

Ask the client to approve the text and the quotation before it goes up, and use their name and company only if they agree. An anonymous case study, labelled as such, is still evidence.

Keep to what happened. Endorsements must be genuine and reflect the client's real experience, and a draft the client has approved shows that it does.

LinkedIn recommendations

On LinkedIn, recommendations are written about people, not companies. They appear on the personal profile of the person recommended, with the name, title and employer of whoever wrote them.

That suits business buying well, since buyers often look up the person they would be dealing with before a first meeting.

Ask clients you are connected with, one at a time, and suggest what they might mention: how long you have worked together, a problem you solved, what you are like to deal with.

A worked example

A wholesale bakery bakes bread and pastries overnight for about forty cafes, restaurants and grocers, delivering in its own vans before seven each morning.

Its Google listing had four reviews. Two came from people who found the address on the map, arrived expecting a shop and found a loading dock, and one of them left a single star.

None of its customers had reviewed it. When a hotel's new food and beverage manager asked for references, the owner realised he had nothing written down at all.

He replied to each review politely, explaining that the bakery sells only to businesses, and changed the listing's category to wholesale bakery.

Five long-standing customers agreed to act as references. Two case studies followed: a restaurant's house loaf developed over a month of trials, and a coffee chain's move to earlier deliveries.

A page on the website now lists, with permission, the cafes where the public can buy the bread, which answers the people who used to turn up at the dock.

The listing still shows only a handful of reviews. A buyer who asks now gets five phone numbers and two case studies instead.

Client lists and logos

A list of current clients, or a row of their logos, is the business-to-business version of a review count. Buyers recognise names from their own industry and draw conclusions.

Ask before adding anyone, since some contracts forbid it. Keep the list current, because a former client still shown as a current one is a misleading claim waiting to be noticed.

Where clients agree, add how long you have served each one. A client of nine years says more than a logo.

The public reviews you do have

Reply to each public review briefly and calmly. For a business that does not serve walk-in customers, a polite reply explaining that helps everyone who reads it later.

Some business customers, especially owners of small firms, are happy to leave a Google review when asked directly. Ask the ones you know well, and never pay or reward anyone for it.

Because the existing record is so short, a few genuine reviews from real customers change the picture considerably.

The counter-case

A business that sells to the public as well, such as a contractor working in homes and offices, should pursue public reviews in the usual way.

A firm with only a few large contracts may find formal references and detailed case studies are all it needs, and some industries forbid naming clients at all.

For most businesses selling to other businesses, though, references, case studies and recommendations are the reviews that count, and they need collecting deliberately.

Starting this month

1. Reply to every public review you have.
2. Ask five clients to act as references.
3. Write one case study with the client's approval.
4. Request LinkedIn recommendations one at a time.
5. List current clients who agree to it.
6. Say references are available on the website.
7. Ask a few clients for a Google review.

Step two is the one buyers actually use. A reference who answers the phone and speaks warmly outweighs any amount of praise on your own site.

How Google rewards people who review many businesses is covered in Local Guides reviewing your business.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.