Reviews..What?!
We barely have reviews and any that come in we monitor manually. Why would we need to pay for Chatmeter?
The less reviews you have, the more fragile your online reputation is. For our clients with 200 reviews at a 4.5 rating… #201 at a 2 star will not move their overall rating. For our clients with 5 reviews at a 4.5… #6 at a 2 star will bring that average to 4 star. (or worse scenario). Customer service and surveys are more important than ever. Especially monitoring in real-time to try and reverse any negatives through customer service. Avoiding negative reviews, negative social, and helping to increase reviews through greater visibility will dramatically increase customer confidence and drive more traffic.
Can't I just have a pilot for 3 months and then decide?
Everything you need to learn in the platform can be digested in just an hour. In terms of weeks or months to access, we’ve found it gets lost in the shuffle of priorities and no one accesses the platform. The point is not to prove that your rankings will get better, as we have case studies for that, the point is to see if you enjoy the functionality, since everyone has to manage reviews and directories in this day and age. The point is also not to see that all of their employees will engage with the platform… if it’s not “all-in”… then no one will take it seriously. If you’re comfortable with the navigation and data, then we should talk about pricing and full-roll out to have everyone following the same best practice. (Avoid partial roll-outs at ALL COSTS) We CAN allow 24-48 hour access (“normally we don’t”) if they want to get feel that everything we ran through is “REAL” and functions as expected.
We're focusing on social instead of reputation for now.
Nooooooooo… I love social like everyone else in this world, but it’s been so difficult to correlate social -> in-store or even online purchases. For brand recognition and customer service (private messages) it has it’s place, but reputation and listings have a direct correlation to increasing google maps, Facebook places, and Yelp appearances on page 1. That drives more click to calls and driving directions… i.e. traffic through your doors. Plus the #1 form of location research are review sites (if they only want product reviews, then they may still pick up in store and have a poor experience recorded as a review. With e-commerce you’re up against amazon and other online retailers, but with local you’re up against other brick n’ mortars with way fewer competitors.
My clients are only monthly, why should I agree to an annual contract when your competitors are offering us a month to month?
We are not a monthly company. Our prices are based on an annual subscription (otherwise it would cost 3x’s as much for us to cover our short term costs). You ARE able to switch location seats with stores that are leaving and a new location you’re adding… each seat just needs to be filled, but locations can change at any time.
Why do you not have Facebook Private Messages?
Facebook messages are private and for now we only help moderate public content that impacts lead generation and brand perception. We want to help the masses and not communication between only 2 people.
I don’t want to respond to old reviews because I’m worried I’ll get slammed for being so late with the responses.
Customers don’t care when you respond, they just care that there’s a response, especially if an old review is STILL ON THE FIRST PAGE of reviews for that location. Plus… the more you respond the better the SEO. Plus… you can phrase it like the problem has been solved. Plus plus… the more reviews you respond to, the more people will review you. (+ send/reference tripadvisor article)
We want to use a local agency, that may be more expensive, but they’re down the street.
There are only about 5 platforms in the world that can effectively offer Local SEO. Your local agency will use one of them (white-labeled) and it will be more expensive because it’s being re-sold. Also, if they’re offering a full service solution to manage all of your reviews, etc… we’ve seen most local agencies prioritize advertising (more $$$ for agency) and not fully execute on local SEO (more $$$ for company). Our platform will allow you to take full accountability around store presence, operations, company voice, and local optimization… driving more organic traffic than any agency can provide.
Can you give me (X#) of referrals?
If they ask this question, then you have not fully won over their confidence. WE ONLY ALLOW REFERRALS FOR PROSPECTS THAT ARE ABOUT TO SIGN A CONTRACT AND THIS IS THE FINAL STEP. Not if you’ve pitched them once and now they want to talk to everyone we work with out of boredom. If they’re genuinely ready to partner, and need a contact, get in touch with Darren/Alicia and he can provide a referral or two. Mention to the client that we have over 1 million stores on our network, a 96% retention rate, and TONS OF CASE STUDIES. We’ve grown astronomically because of us displaying all local SEO info in a easily digestible interface. We don’t like asking our current customers for referrals but (for a big enough opportunity), we can ask one to email/call them.
Which competitors are we up against?
We currently have a huge amount of non-competes with our reseller partners. Just making sure we’re not wasting each other’s time if one of the other potential candidates were competing against are reselling our platform. It will put us in an awkward situation and we’ll immediately have to back down.
Do you have the type of listings service that takes the listings back to their original state if we discontinue service?
1. Who are they referring to?
2. What is your response?
They will be referring to Yext’s known practice (called “PowerLock”) of reverting all NAP back to how it was before working with them. I normally address this by saying, “No… we submit your listings directly to the site and believe in a more permanent approach of updating. After a client turns off our service we will no longer be protecting it from outside corrupting forces like aggregators and other directories. The info will not automatically revert back to inaccuracies, but in a short time (week or two?)… now that the gates are open… it will probably be corrupted by other sources. We lock down those listings to shield off the other info and to make constant updates for any store changes.
We already have surveys in-store that we’re learning from and responding to. Reviews won’t tell us anything we don’t already know...
How would you educate the prospect on the difference between the two? Name 3 things.
Saving 1 vs 100: Surveys are internal between company and customer… unlike reviews that are like someone with permanent marker writing a complain on the window of your store for all to see.
Demographics: People who fill out written surveys (specific demo) are not the same as customers that leave reviews online (all).
Proctored vs organic: Surveys steer people to certain answers based on specific questions. Reviews are completely organic and open ended.. non-proctored.
Purchase vs non-purchase: A lot of people who leave reviews NEVER MAKE A PURCHASE. This is the failure of your surveys. You need to customers contact info and that comes with a purchase or loyalty program. We want to hear about why someone walked out (line too long, window shopping, rude hostess, etc.).
We want Paid Ads and Local SEO all in one platform. (like a Vendasta)
In the world of technology, the fear is to be good at all, yet not a master of one. Chatmeter’s mission statement is to be the Master of Organic Local SEO. With 92% of shoppers using local SEO to find a match and about 50% of searchers having adblockers, organic local is the prime method for generating new leads through a location’s door. Also, the more products a vendor includes in their offering, the less bandwidth each product receives. From usability/bugs to ground breaking industry enhancements (like bulk responding and live review reporting), the core product offering will fall short if it is not the main focus. Chatmeter loves partnering on accounts with complimentary services, like paid ads, websites, traditional SEO, CRM, Business Management Software, etc. to have a few vendors that lead the industry in success (ROI). The question I love to ask in a room full of people is: “When was the last time anyone clicked on an ad (not even bought from an ad, but just clicked on it).” Usually there will be no hands raised (unless their livelihood depends on paid ads and then they’ll reluctantly raise their hand).
Love the platform - very comprehensive. We have some other projects that are more urgent now. We will reconnect.
(START PANICKING!) but instead of showing the failures of their current vendor, we need to show them how there’s more ROI in Local SEO than what they’re currently working on (we have blogs on all of this): from Website Redesign (no one goes to websites anymore!), Paid Ads campaign (50% adblockers!), Store Openings (that’s a tough one), holiday traffic (need to prevent bad experiences during rush), in-store design (reviews will help contribute data), mobile app (that is for repeat loyal customers, how about the turnover of unhappy customers and acquisition of new online?). Also focus on price going up and send new contract because of new features (real-time reviews, bulk responding, publishing, PULSE, etc.).
Large Reseller: Can we get a demo to pitch our client and let you know feedback around interest?
Happy to have our marketing team put together a demo of your actual client… BUT I WOULD LOVE TO WHITE-LABEL MYSELF AS YOUR HEAD OF LOCAL PRODUCT AND PITCH YOUR CLIENT MYSELF. An audit of prospects is actually how we close all of our deals, by showing companies their actual data, and instead of them thinking it’s an “industry” problem, they realize it’s a “them” problem. By having me pitch, you can look like veterans in local seo, plus you’ll have answers to all their questions (I can just introduce by first name). We can white-label everything for the pitch and I can be just “Lee head of local product”. This is infinitely more impactful then someone on your team trying to explain everything they’re looking at.
Can I just start with 10 locations?
We invest a lot of time in onboarding and training (92% retention rate, blah blah). In order to even turn a profit we need to work with larger opportunities. Our platform is made for enterprise chains, most of which are around 1000 locs. In order to protect ourselves, we have to work with at least a 20 location start (our minimum). TRY TO AVOID EVEN THIS… we want them starting with ALL locations! If we piecemeal a large chain in batches, our efforts become fragmented. Also then only a portion of the stores are optimized, while the rest are left in the poor SEO abyss. If they are not able to pay the minimum… REFER THEM TO ONE OF OUR PARTNERS THAT WORKS WITH SMALL CHAINS AND SMB’S!!! We don’t want to lose the opportunity.
Why can’t you submit listing updates from the dashboard?
Trick Q.... SOLVED!
We are just going to stay with our current vendor, it’s going to cost too much in resources to retrain and on-board so many users with turn around, let's talk next year. Name three things you'd say/do to turn this around...
Time to whip out the BIG GUNS! (Start Panicking!) Have marketing create an ROI report (if a descent sized account). Show them how much they’re BLEEDING by not swapping their service. Show them case studies on similar clients in their industry and what we’ve accomplished in just a few months (i.e. $40 million in four months with Payless). Show them our roadmap and amazing enhancements on the horizon and how next year we’ll be twice as expensive. Send them a new contract for twice the price!
Also… send detailed screenshots on everything their current vendor has failed at. Make it seem more like you CARE about their store health and future, compared to throwing the other vendor under the bus.
Also… GO ABOVE OR BELOW THEIR HEAD. Anyone from the senior decision maker to the marketing intern that will be using the platform can help you create more urgency. Go around your current contact and start figuring out who cares MORE than them about the project. From the company losing $$$ to the platform user hating their current vendor. That will be the person that wants to move quickly.
While I clearly see the benefit of Chatmeter, I need to pass for the time being. I think there's a lot of crossover with the vendors we're already using and I need to get up to speed first.
Do they heavy lifting FOR THEM. (START PANICKING!) Find out which vendors they’re using. Maybe it’s Hootsuite, Salesforce, and Podium. We can then outline each of their offerings and how it differs from Chatmeter… what are our advantages. They need to know what our focus is (local SEO) and how it differs both financially, efficiently, and operationally from everything else they’re currently utilizing.
I will only sign the contract if we have 12 month exclusivity… is that possible?
To gain exclusivity to an obscure industry… Chatmeter must have a minimum of $100,000 in mrr (not annually), and the exclusivity must only be on new customers and not existing. Meaning all of our existing relationships in that industry are exempt from the exclusive clause.
For major industries (health, auto, apartments, restaurants, etc.)… upper management would have to assess the revenue potential of that industry and calculate what the requirement would be for us to accept any form of exclusivity.
I don’t want to see the presentation just the platform
This should be an outlier and not commonality. If it becomes recurring, then your delivery will be off and you should talk to your manager immediately. Occasionally, there will be an impatient prospect that wants to see the audit ASAP. This is a chance to practice two skills… one is rapport, the other is value. First and foremost… KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS. If they say they “know everything about local SEO”… then you say, “That’s awesome. It’s exciting when I get to talk to other experts in the industry.” You never want to disagree with them using words like, “But” or “No”. From there, you can transition by saying:
“You’ll then love what I’m about to show you. It’s a quick history on Chatmeter and covers major changes in the industry like Google Q&A’s, Google Posts, the rise of Facebook Local, Bing appointments, and even an exact outline of what will improve rankings dramatically. Let’s see if you can guess… who is the largest (in terms of volume) review site EVER?” “Google?” “WRONG… facebook. You would be right however if you were guessing for just reviews in 2017. Do you know why Google is now #1 in 2017…”
All of these are teasers and will peak the listeners curiosity. Instead of “forcing” them to attend the powerpoint presentation… they are now willing participants, probably even taking notes on your every word.
Why can we not pay for a single cleanup on listings...why do we have to keep paying month after month?
Unfortunately, cleanup for us is not an easy one-time submit. From de-duping, adding missing listings, and updating current listings… initial accuracy takes at least 30 days (sometimes 90). Every 6 minutes a listing is overwritten. This is from aggregators, user suggested edits, and store employee intervention. Worst case scenario we update the data and then it starts to corrupt the day we’re done. Also… we have to pay our directory and aggregator partners for the year in advance, so we are unable to support a one-time update at this time.
Our franchiseEs handle all of their own LLM and reputation. They have their own budget and we don't have the bandwidth to centralize Local SEO.
Local SEO strategy should be as synonymous across the chain as store pages on your website. Do you allow each franchise to make their own websites for their locations? No? Then why would they be controlling their GMB presence and company review response unsupervised? From grammar to egos, we’ve seen franchises behave in non-compliant ways that leads to irreversible brand damage on Yelp, Google, Facebook, and many other sites. I’m not saying the franchises should not be posting on their FB pages and responding to reviews, but it should be corporate approved and monitored behavior to make sure the brand voice is consistent and compliant. We have an approval system, or at least roll-up reports around activity to centralize the review conversation, listings, content, and social voice.
We’re already in contract with a competitor for another 2 months. We’ll decide then on who we’re choosing..... Name three things you can offer to keep them on the line.
They need to choose NOW! Time is of the essence. If we wait, then there will be another massive vetting and everyone will have to start all over.
A few options:
We do NOT want to lose this deal after all the effort put in, and we DEFINITELY want to lock them into a contract so they don’t start re-vetting again. Even if they say, “Don’t worry Lee, we’re DEFINITETELY choosing Chatmeter in 2 months when our other vendor’s contract expires.” THIS IS NOT TRUE. Nothing is guaranteed without a signature on paper + “TIME IS THE KILLER OF ALL DEALS”!
Name 5 things that reseller objections may be related to. (Hint: Song sent this out in an email several months ago...)
MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue
ARR - Annual Recurring Revenue
CAC - Cost of Acquiring a new customer
LTV - Lifetime Value of a customer (LTV vs CAC is an important ratio to know)
Customer Churn - how many customers do you lose monthly or annually
Top line Revenue - a number of companies especially tech are most concerned on top line revenue, this is very attractive to investors to see to this double year-over-year - hockey stick example - cause I'm Canadian
Gross Margin - total sales revenue minus its cost of goods sold (COGS), this is important because we typically see larger profit margins selling our solutions then digital advertising
When you are making a business case, some of the problems that resellers is not seeing the big picture.
Web Agencies for example - will charge a one time fee and have to go looking for new business all the time to go put food on the table - tough business model
Customer Churn can be very high in certain industry, so if you can reduce that percentage by even 5% it can be a equal to substantial revenue keep on the books
An agency asks, "Can you help us sell to our clients, one at a time?" What questions do you ask? What's your response/reasoning?
Remember… throughout your agency/reseller pitch YOU are the guide: Meaning YOU know best practice, how to make them $$$, and what will scale for their organization. Resellers immediately think that this is something they have to sell ONE AT A TIME… and that is exactly what we want to AVOID. First question to ask… how much is the average spend of your current customer. If they say over $200 per month per location (or something similar)… WOOHOO, that means there’s a chance they can “absorb” Chatmeter’s cost into their current pricing model and scale out to EVERYONE using their products or paying for a premium status. If they say under $100… BEWARE, this means it will be a hard sell for them to potentially absorb another $20 chipping away on their profit/margins. If they’re replacing a current Review product, then this should be an easy decision for them.
Keep in mind, that we’ve had partners in the past that have an average customer spend of $10 per month and we’ve still convinced them to absorb a $10 Chatmeter service into their product offering.
We need to sell that this will help them:
Our reseller Homenet saw a 15% increase in sales conversion for their $1400 per month inventory management software with JUST THE INCLUSION OF CHATMETER. They spend under $20 to close 1 in 6 deals. That is a HUUUGE ROI story. (we have a case study on it)
MAIN OBJECTIVE: Get them to include our service in a current package offering. Only way “upsell” makes sense (i.e. one at a time sale) is if their customers are 100 or 500+ locations each. Then at least it’s worth your effort to help them sell each client. This is usually not the case though.
CONFRONT THEM: “We rarely see resellers successfully upsell reviews. For such a low-cost addition, a salesperson who works off commission will not be motivated to sell a new product that will yield them pennies in payout. It’s hard for them to see the bigger picture that Chatmeter will lead to increased conversion on much larger deals and ensure upselling opportunities in the future.” “Our resellers add Chatmeter to all of their products and packages to increase value and ensure retaining their customers against harsh competitive landscapes.”