How To Get More Reviews For Your Yoga Studio | Walkthrough

As a yoga studio owner, one of the critical KPIs or metrics that you track for your business will be the number of reviews and overall ratings for your yoga studio. A recent survey found that consumers read an average of 10 online reviews before they can trust a local business. 

So, how can you get more reviews for your yoga studio? You can get more 5 star reviews for your yoga studio consistently by:

• Creating spaces for your customers to leave public reviews
• Following up at the right time after the yoga session
• Providing a multi-sequence flow guiding your customers to review your yoga studio

In this article, I will show you the exact steps I take to get high reviews for my wellness studio in London consistently. I will show you a step by step process you can copy today to start getting reviews for your yoga studio. I will also share my email templates that drive a high response rate. Read till the end and do write to me if you need more help.

Get Reviews For Your Yoga Studio

Here are some vital stats that prove good reviews are essential to succeed as a local business:

• 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses
• 57% of consumers will use a company only if it has four or more stars
• 89% of consumers read businesses’ response to online reviews

Ensuring that the members of your yoga studio rate and review your business online is an essential part of being a successful yoga entrepreneur. Follow the steps below to start getting reviews now.

Create Spaces For Your Customers To Review Your Yoga Studio

When I first began my studio in London, I was able to gather reviews and feedback from my first few customers and publish them on my website. Although having reviews on your website is crucial, it is also vital to allow your customers to review you publicly on the internet. 

Also, in some cases, you might not have a full website and may just be posting your class schedule and timetable online. In such scenarios, it is essential to create your online presence for reviews and ratings.

The most common portals where you can create a space to gather reviews are Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Review sites.

Google Reviews

Directing my customers to Google to leave reviews is my primary strategy. Google reviews for my studio have consistently driven new customers to my business. You must have a Google listing for your yoga studio where your customers can leave reviews. 

To enable Google reviews for your yoga studio, you must first create a Google listing for your business. In this article, I cover the step by step process to get your yoga studio listed on google. 

Once you have your yoga studio listed, it will show up on Google in a few days. To access the link where you can direct your members, follow these steps:

• Go to your public listing on Google and click “Write a review.”
• You are then shown a pop-up box asking to leave a review
• Copy the link to that page and save it. The copied link is the link you will send to your customers and members when asking for reviews on Google.

You have now created a Google review page for your yoga studio. You also have a sharable link that sends your members to a page where they can leave Google reviews.

Yelp Reviews

In the U.K, I find that Yelp is not as popular as Google reviews. However, I believe having a studio page on Yelp is necessary. Similar to Google, Yelp allows you to create a Studio profile. 

Once you have created a page for your yoga studio on Yelp, you can start directing your users to leave reviews. 

Facebook Reviews

Facebook and Instagram can be significant growth channels to acquire new customers for your yoga studio. In this article, I cover steps any new studio owner should take, and establishing a Facebook page is one of them.

Once you have created a Facebook page for your yoga studio, your customers will be able to leave public reviews for your studio and service. So even if social media might not be your primary customer acquisition channel, make sure to at least create a Facebook page for your studio. 

This way, your customers who do not have Google accounts can leave reviews on Facebook. 

Review Sites

There are several review sites such as Trustpilot and Reviews.io, which give you all the tools you need to collect and publish reviews. Some of the tools these platforms provide:

• Email sequences to ask customers for reviews
• Simple star rating system
• Platform to publish your collected reviews
• Embedding the collected reviews into your website 

These review sites are not free to use and charge a monthly fee. Although the tools provided can be helpful, you will find most of the features already in your yoga studio booking software. 

Given the consumer’s trust in Google and Facebook reviews, I do not recommend spending money on a review platform to gather your reviews. You can either choose Google or Facebook as your primary platform to collect reviews. 

When To Ask For Reviews For Your Yoga Studio

Once you have identified the primary platform where you will collect the reviews for your yoga studio, you can begin asking for reviews. First, let’s be clear; your yoga studio members will rarely leave reviews for your studio without you asking, encouraging, or incentivizing them to.

At which moment you ask your studio members for reviews will affect the number and quality of reviews you get. You will have to test different times and milestones to identify the best “moment” to ask for reviews.

To understand the concept of the “right moment,” think back to the time when you placed an order on your favorite food delivery app. The food got delivered to you, and you spent 20-30 minutes eating. Then as soon as you finished eating and were satisfied, you received an email or app notification to rate the service. This timing is an excellent example of asking for reviews at the right moment.

Similarly, the best time to ask for reviews from your members is when they have finished a class and have had sufficient time to relax. In my wellness business, we send out an email asking for feedback about the session, roughly 2-3 hours after the appointment. This time gap has given the customer enough time to relax but is not long enough where the customer has forgotten about the fun/relaxation they experienced. 

For a yoga studio, I’d recommend making a direct ask for feedback 2-3 hours after the session. This time gap gives the member enough time to recover, and they probably are not in a rush and can spend time leaving their feedback.

How To Ask For Reviews For Your Yoga Studio

So, you have identified a platform to collect your public reviews (ideally, Google My Business page). You also know the best “moment” to ask your members for ratings. Now, it is time to design your strategy for asking for reviews. 

As you are aware, we live in a world where mobile and smartphone usage is exploding. You should ask your members to rate or review you in a format that is quick and mobile. The best way to ask for reviews, feedback, and ratings is either through email, SMS, or app push notifications. Since you might not have a dedicated app for your yoga studio, we will focus on email. 

Here I would like to use the example from my wellness business. We have set-up an automated sequence of emails that are automatically triggered once the appointment is complete. Such an email series and automation for review collection can be set-up in a few minutes using a simple yoga studio management software. 

A few hours after the appointment, we send customers a straightforward email where they can provide feedback by simply clicking on a happy face, a neutral face, or a sad face. The reason for such a simple email is that it requires only one click to give feedback, and customers can quickly respond even on mobile. 

If a customer clicks on the “happy face,” indicating they are satisfied with our service, we send another follow-up email. This time we have a specific and direct ask to leave a review on our Google My Business Page.

If the customer clicks on the “neutral face” or the “sad face,” we send a separate email asking how we can make things better. We also have a link to our review page on Google My Business in case they want to review us. 

This approach has ensured we consistently get 5-star reviews and can resolve issues for customers who are unhappy in a useful and timely manner. 

Feel free to adapt the email examples shown above to your yoga studio, although you will need a simple class management software like StudioGrowth to automate the entire process. 

What Not To Do When Asking For Reviews

Word of mouth and reviews are potent means to accelerate the growth of your yoga studio. However, please keep the following in mind before you build out your review collection and publishing strategy:

• Never pay for or create fake reviews. It is not legal, and you will get into trouble with the standards authorities in your region. 
• You can incentivize your members to leave reviews. However, it is NOT OK to incentivize them to leave only positive reviews. 
• Do not leave an emotional public response to a negative review. 89% of consumers read businesses’ response to reviews
• Do not spam your members asking for reviews after every class.
• Do not force or ask your members to leave reviews while they are in your studio. If you have many reviews originating from the same location with the same IP address, even your genuine reviews might get flagged and deleted.

Follow everything I outlined in this article and I guarantee you will be able to kickstart the process of collecting and publishing reviews for your yoga studio. If you implement my tactics, do write to me and let me know your results.

NOTE: If you want to implement this process of collecting and publishing reviews for your studio, check out StudioGrowth. We provide the tools, including automated emails, to set-up review collection and publishing in a few simple clicks.