Becoming a top-rated firm: how to obtain 5-star reviews

Although they may just appear to be yellow symbols on a webpage, the 5-star rating system means so much more than a shiny picture in the corner of your firm’s listing - and as they say, a picture paints a thousand words. By collecting reviews with ReviewSolicitors, you can see exactly what it is that your clients have to say and in doing so, you’ll see those stars quickly translating into unprecedented instructions for your firm. 

As bizarre as it may seem when we really think about it, the 5-star rating system has been ingrained into our everyday existence as consumers. Zero and 1 star ratings certainly evoke the wrong sentiments and have become synonymous with poor performance and shoddy service. The much-coveted 5-star rating is quite the opposite - a loose translation for excellence, success, and distinction. And it’s not just the latest blockbuster or the local curry house that are ranked in this way. It’s the one market where every service and organisation has a place.

More importantly, there’s already an abundance of UK firms with a 5-star reputation that they are constantly showcasing through their profile page, as well as the recognisable ReviewSolicitors widget that appears on their own website. If your firm does not hold any reviews, it becomes invisible on the legal map - and your competitors will inevitably receive all of the clients who might otherwise instruct you. 

As a solicitor, systems of grading are not unfamiliar. However, putting your knowledge and expertise into practice does not always come with a framed certificate that can be displayed on the office wall. The grades that really matter to your clients are the far more personable ones, from building trust and rapport to maintaining strong lines of communication. Qualifications and accolades are great, but having third-party verifications that testify your ability to put your expertise into practice too will get you so much further.

The coveted five-star rating

If ratings matter to consumers, they should matter to you too. Your clients are paying customers and in such a high-value transaction, they want to be sure that they can trust you to bring them to their desired outcome. According to a survey by Editor’s Choice, 72% of consumers won’t take action until reading reviews so if your firm’s name is not accompanied by any, they’ll all be going to the local competitor. Another by Brightlocal also concluded that more than half of consumers won’t use a business if it has less than a 4-star rating, leaving many clicking off before they’ve even given you a chance to show your services off. 

If you want to stay ahead of the competition and achieve 5-star ratings from as many clients as you can, it isn’t as difficult as it sounds. With ReviewSolicitors on your side, it’s never been easier.

We are solely dedicated to the legal market Your own firm’s ethos surrounding service and client satisfaction is all well and good, but it’s also always self-serving in the eyes of a client, which leaves many reluctant to trust the information you’re churning out. ReviewSolicitors on the other hand is an independent third-party site which equates to an independent validation of your practice. Rob Rhodes, Managing Partner at ABR Solicitors (a firm currently using ReviewSolicitors), says of the reviews that his firm has collected, “they provide transparency, they provide independent verification of the service that you are providing, which a client will wish to assess prior to buying”. Not only are reviews independent, they are never self-serving, and only ever motivated by genuine and authentic evaluations of the service a client has received. 

Ratings displayed according to location and area of law Whilst the general performance of your firm takes precedence, there are multiple ways that you can collect and perform, boosting your ratings overall. In terms of location, collecting positive reviews will put you in direct comparison to your competitors, so that you can make sure prospective clients are knocking on your door. By area of law, you can make department-specific goals, highlighting areas of focus where improvements need to be made. By raising the ratings of certain areas that may be dragging you down, your overall standard will rocket. And looking at both of these elements together, most people are willing to travel for expertise when the matter they are seeking advice on is important to them. 

Dual collection with Google ReviewSolicitors has also developed a series of integrations to help boost the amount of reviews your firm collects, with the aim of helping you maintain high rating standards. One of the latest, dual collection, integrates the platform with Google reviews so that any reviews appearing on your Google My Business listing will automatically appear on your ReviewSolicitors profile too. Not only does this boast a collection rate of up to five times more reviews, it completely revolutionises the ability of your clients to leave them in the first place. Any clients without a Gmail account are still able to review you - and that’s around 80% of them.

Partnership with Perfect Portal As of October 19th, mutual clients of both ReviewSolicitors and Perfect Portal gained the ability to request client reviews through the Perfect Portal app. Using the familiar ReviewSolicitors questionnaire, this allows any reviews obtained through the app to automatically feature on a firm’s ReviewSolicitors listing, further boosting the likelihood of future instructions. 

With ReviewSolicitors, all that is left for you to do is what you do best - providing a professional, committed, and expert service that sends an abundance of 5-star ratings your way. The rating that appears in the corner of your page is never ignored by your prospective clients - it becomes the guarantee that the service you provide is the one they should choose to instruct.

Start collecting reviews today: https://www.reviewsolicitors.co.uk/joinup.