Tag: pros

With ‘one-click response’ you’ll never need to pass on a promising Bark again

 

Speed is important when pitching for business on Bark.

Customers are highly likely to hire one of the first pros they hear from. But we know our best pros are busy, and often out working on jobs when new Barks come in.

So we decided to create a tool you can use to respond to Barks instantly, even if you’re busy with other things when you receive them. It’s called ‘one-click response’ and it lets you save a standard reply you can send when you’re short on time.

An easy way to get more business with Bark

People who place Barks on our site are generally looking to hire a pro as quickly as possible. Looking at the last 100,000 Barks placed on our site, we discovered users are twice as likely to hire pros that respond quickly over those who take longer to respond.

This stands to reason. Once you’ve taken the time to research something and make a decision about it, you’re going to be reluctant to change your mind.

So when you receive an email about a new Bark, it’s a good idea to make sure you respond quickly – and that’s where one-click response comes in. It’s a simple tool that lets you save a standard response you can send to new customers instantly, with the click of a button.

You can set up your one-click response in your Bark pro dashboard
You can set up your one-click response in your Bark pro dashboard

You’ll find it in the new ‘one-click response’ tab in your Bark dashboard, and setting it up couldn’t be easier.

The first step is to enter your one-click response into the text box provided. The idea here is to create a generic message you could send to any of your customers. Take your time to get it right and, when you’re happy, enable your response by clicking the ‘save’ button.

Respond instantly, with a single click

Once you’ve enabled one-click response, the rest is easy. You’ll see a new button that says ‘send one-click response’ when we next email to alert you to a potential new customer.

If you’re too busy to respond with a tailored message, click that button and we’ll send your one-click response instantly instead. That way, you can get in and register your interest before the customer picks someone else.

Then later, when you have more time, you can follow-up with a personalised response and estimate.

We hope this new feature useful will mean you never need to pass on a promising job because you’re busy with other things again.

If you have any thoughts or feedback about it, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at team@bark.com or leave a comment below.

Getting great reviews on your Bark Profile is now easier than ever

It’s Saturday night. You’ve invited friends over for a film and you fancy a takeaway. Someone suggests an Indian, so you type it into Google and five local restaurants pop up.

Which one do you choose?

Well, if you’re anything like us, you go for the one with the biggest number of positive reviews. If other people like it enough to write about their experiences then it must be good.

That’s why we believe getting positive reviews from your customers is one of the best ways to grow your business and attract more customers.

In this week’s Bark Bulletin, we’ll run you through how we’ve made it easier than ever for customers to leave reviews your Bark Profile – and show you how to start getting great reviews right away.

Why nothing beats a
good review

As a small business owner, we’re sure you already know what a powerful thing a good review can be.

Every company will say it’s good, even if it isn’t. But people know they can trust recommendations from their fellow customers.

In fact, one Zendesk survey found that 90% of people say positive reviews influence their buying decisions, and 86% say their decisions are influenced by negative reviews.

To see this for yourself, imagine you’ve just placed a Bark for Driving Lessons and the following two companies give you an estimate:

pennine 2 pinnacle driving

All other things being equal, most people will opt for the company with the five-star review.

That’s why it’s so important to ask customers to give you feedback on your Bark Profile – and today we’ll show you how.

But before we get to that, there’s one more benefit to getting more Bark reviews we haven’t mentioned yet…

You could get five
stars on Google

If you have a few reviews on your Bark Profile already, you might like to take a moment now to Google yourself and see this feature in action.

It’s one of our favourite features, as it has the potential to really set you apart from any other companies that crop up when a potential customer searches for local services in your area.

As you can see from this entry for one of our top Computer Repairs specialists, your reviews will show up in Google searches as star ratings:

LexisTech is one of the top computer repairs specialists on Bark.comWe’re sure you can imagine what a difference a Google star rating could make for your business.

It could give you a real edge over your competitors and significantly improve your chances of getting hired.

So right now, we’re going to show you how to get one of your very own.

Now it’s easier than ever to
get great reviews on your
Bark Profile

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to streamline our reviews process, and now it’s easier than ever.

In fact, you can now request a review in a matter of seconds.

You see, every Bark Pro has their own review code.

It’s a unique web address that takes people directly to the reviews section of your Bark Profile. When they arrive, a pop-up box will prompt them to leave their feedback:

reviews box
So, to request a review you simply send a message containing your review link to one of your customers.

Anyone who’s used your services can leave a review on your Bark Profile, even if they didn’t find you through Bark.

But remember, recent customers are far more likely to get back to you than older ones – so it’s best to get in touch and request a review within 14 days of completing the job.

Now, your review code is usually hidden away in your Bark Dashboard under your ‘Profile’ tab.

But, to be honest, we reckon it’s a bit of a pain having to dig it out every time you want to ask someone for feedback – so we’ve created a handy tool that makes the process a whole lot easier.

If you have your customer’s email address, it will automatically send them a short message asking them to leave some feedback on your profile page.

You’ll find it in the brand new ‘Reviews’ tab on your Bark Dashboard, and it looks like this:

Simply enter your customer's email and click send

Better yet, it’s really simple to use…

Whenever you want to request a review from one of your customers, simply enter their email, click ‘invite’ and the reviews tool will do the rest.

That’s really all there is to it!

You can test it out right now by finding the tool in your Dashboard and typing your own email address into the box.

Let us know how you get on. And, as always, if you have any questions send us an email at team@bark.com and we’ll be happy to help.