A Simple Strategy to Read Your Customers’ Minds

If you own or operate a business, you know the importance of online reviews. From contractors to lawyers, everyone needs to have the trust of past customers to gain new business.

This powerful tip will help you leverage FREE information that already exists to make your business better. You’ll feel a bit like mind reader before ever engaging with your customers!

If you’ve spent time asking for reviews, you know tactics such as incentivizing (gift card drawings, discounts, etc.) and you’re aware that purchasing fake reviews won’t cut it. For the record, purchasing reviews is not only ineffective but also unethical!

Following, I’d like to share a surprisingly easy technique I have discovered and developed to help boost the star rating and overall performance of your product or service.

Disclaimer: This will require you to be honest with yourself and be willing to set some rules. If you’re OK with that, read on!

Before I get into the details, I’ll explain why I implemented this technique because I think it’s important for you to understand. In 2019, I launched Rare Magic at Hotel LeVeque. Although I had plenty of experience performing for corporate events in the past, this was different for me because it was a ticketed show. This meant I would be advertising the show to a new audience—and I knew that developing a respectable reputation on TripAdvisor would be key to my success. It shouldn’t be a surprise that having quality reviews online led to an increase in ticket sales and the overall success of the production. 

Discover What Your Customers are Thinking

To give Rare Magic the best possible chance of positive reviews, I wanted to understand my future audiences the best I possibly could. 

Obviously, having a good product is a priority. The atmosphere, length of performance, seating and ticket price are all important factors in guest satisfaction. But what about the things you don’t think about, or find out once it’s too late? That is where your competition can provide you with some valuable hints.

I don’t normally advise people to focus on competition. In this case, however, we need to study them. The more we can study, the better. This is because we can learn from our competitors’ mistakes to improve our own businesses. Here’s what you’re going to do:

1. Go to their review pages.

Visit Google, TripAdvisor, Facebook or anywhere your customers—and customers of competitors—post reviews. Once you are there, search for your competition or even industry- related businesses. Let’s not think too specific here. For example, if you’re an ice cream shop, it’s worth looking up any and all food services (coffee or sandwich shops, bakeries, etc.) I have included some screenshots from my industry to help guide you through the strategy, but this will work for ANY business—not just those that are entertainment-related. 

2. Filter negative results.

As you can see below, this individual has quite a few positive reviews—thousands, actually, and they are well deserved. That is certainly something to not miss. What we are focused on here are the bad reviews: the “Poor” and “Terrible.” 

Once you have filtered those, take a look at what their customers have complained about. I realize some cases may seem exaggerated or extreme. That isn’t the point. The point is once someone posts a negative comment, it’s extremely difficult to have it removed. It will also open up your eyes to the types of things people value—and things they don’t. If your business is similar at all to the industries you are searching, you’re going to quickly see the types of changes you can implement (or never allow to happen) and avoid the same types of complaints. See some examples below.

Example A

In this case, the customer said they had seen many of the tricks before. This could be true or they could have seen variations of the material, and therefore they believed it was the same routine. This is an especially common case in magic that you don’t find in other art forms quite as much. When I read this, I decided to focus heavily on making sure the material in my show was as unique as possible so I could prevent such reviews for my own show.  

Example B

When I read this review, the comment that jumps out at me is this: “majority of the show was card tricks.” This is important to recognize because while only a few reviews mentioned this, more people were likely thinking the same thing. Even if the performer performed three card tricks in a 90-minute performance (totaling 15 minutes), it may seem like too many.

When I thought about what this meant for my own program, I was conscious to write material that did not look or feel like anything else performed in the show.

As it relates to your own business, be aware while only a few customers may voice their concerns, others are likely thinking the same thing.

Example C

This one is the worst. They didn’t even see the show and left a negative review. Had they seen the show, they might have even LOVED it. This is a case of poor customer service we can all learn from. 

3. Study and adapt.

After reading a handful of reviews, you will begin to see trends. Take notes and make a promise to yourself, your business and your customers to never let the same types of mistakes happen in your business. Surveying current customers can also be useful. However, I find it much easier to use this method. Gaining insight from customers of other businesses is an excellent way I can adapt before my customers even buy their tickets, giving them the best experience possible. As a mentor of mine said, even though we are magicians, we aren’t actually mind readers—therefore we must ask.

When building a business or launching a product, I encourage you to use techniques like this to learn what your future customers think without risking the reputation of your project too early.