We’ve sought reviews for our organizations the last 10-15 years. The reviews generated over that time has allowed us to appear credible to the researching public. We’ve sought reviews to win favor with Google and improve our page rank. We have incentivized our salespeople to garner as many reviews as possible to put our companies in the best light. Yet, we have sought reviews for all the wrong reasons.

One of the most valuable aspects of a positive review is the pride it builds in your employees. Trust in your organization from consumers is a secondary benefit (and how your website ranks based on the number and quality of the ratings is a tertiary benefit), but it is the positive feelings your own team has toward their employer that has the biggest impact. This is of primary importance to building a winning team.

The car industry does not have the best reputation, specifically car salespeople. The newest Gallup poll in January of 2020 lists car salespeople as the least honest and ethical profession. (Thanks a lot for no longer including Lobbyists in your list, so we can finally claim the bottom spot. SO UNFAIR!) When an employee respects where they work, what they do for a living, they try harder. They serve customers better. They wear a smile on their face. If an employee doesn’t believe their employee is one of good repute, or feel ashamed for the work they do, rarely do they give maximum effort (or quality customer service). Reviews (and their awareness of all positive reviews) change that.

The beauty of positive reviews is that it makes employees feel they’re doing right. They’re representing a company worthy of being proud to work for. All of the reviews they’ve sought with their names written therein gives a far greater reward than a spiff. It gives them pride.

Here are a few ways you can leverage reviews to uplift your team.

1. When any positive review hits the web, regardless of site, share it with your team. (“Only with the team member named in the review?” you ask. No, share every good review with the entire team.) Make sure everyone can see those great things written about their employer. Receiving an alert of a positive message about where you work every day is a great way to slowly build a positive culture.
2. Encourage your customer-facing team members to wear those reviews like a badge of honor. Build them evidence manuals they keep on their desks and share with in-store shoppers. Or purchase them digital photo frames where they can rotate family pics, happy customer photos, and positive reviews on the display.
3. Build them email templates/texts unique to each employee with some of the most complimentary reviews they’ve personally received listed within.
4. Create each employee a unique web page on your site that includes the reviews written about them, along with a fun bio, images, video introduction, and personal contact information. They then can take pride in knowing an entire webpage is dedicated to them; one they can share, littered with all the most updated reviews garnered.

There are plenty of places with which to leverage the positive reviews. We shouldn’t do this to wow our customers. Nor should we do it to impress the search engines. Nay. We should do it to celebrate our people. Our employees will continue to be our most vital asset and the reviews we generate are an invaluable tool to remind them how great we are together.

In the end, people want to be proud of what they do for a living and where they work. Sharing all positive reviews, both about them and about others in the organization, will give them confidence. It will imbue admiration in each other. They get to experience the wins of their coworkers. It will build goodwill across organization. This simple altruistic action of spreading positivity by way of reviews across your business is a powerful way to make your people proud.