Customer Reviews and Ratings

GMB profile isn’t the only place we want reviews. If we’re following other best practices for local SEO, our business should also be listed on third-party review sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Trip Advisor. Reviews on these sites also send signals to Google, impacting our visibility in SERPs.

Besides, people will often look up our profile on popular review sites before purchasing our product or service. For example, if we run a hotel, potential customers are likely to go through reviews on our business’s TripAdvisor profile before making a booking.

How to accumulate reviews

While potential customers heavily rely on reviews when making a purchasing decision, existing customers aren’t too keen on sharing their experience online, unless prompted to do so. This makes it especially difficult for businesses to accumulate reviews.

There are three things we can do to attract more reviews:

Provide an exceptional experience

Customers are more willing to leave positive reviews if a business pushes beyond the usual to provide a phenomenal experience. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey reveals some additional eye-opening findings around this point [67].

• 88% customers are likely or highly likely to leave a review after a positive experience is a business tries really hard to ensure an exceptional experience.

• 73% customers are likely or highly likely to leave a review if they had a positive experience with a business that has a low star rating.

• 77% customers are likely or highly likely to leave a review after a positive experience if they know that a business is new.

• 62% customers are likely or highly likely to leave a positive review if they know that a business doesn’t have many reviews.

The above stats will tell us that customers are ready to help out in our promotion as long as we provide them with a great experience. They’re even more cooperative if our business has just started out, isn’t as popular as our competitors, or has a low star rating that our customers don’t think we deserve. This means that even if we don’t have an attractive review and rating profile, for now, it’s easy and fast to improve it if we provide a great experience to customers.

Ask for reviews

A typical customer won’t go to our online profile to leave a review after using our product or service. However, BrightLocal’s survey reveals that 53% customers are likely or highly likely to leave reviews if they receive an email or SMS from the business requesting them to do so [67]. 57% customers are likely or highly likely to leave a review if a staff member from the business asks them to do so. Many businesses send an automated request to their customers to leave a review at the end of each purchase.

Make it easy to give reviews

Customers are unlikely to give a review if it takes an effort to do so. The key is to make it very easy for customers to review our business. We can do this by distributing the link to review our GMB profile to our customers. This link is available in the "Get more reviews" card when we’re logged into our GMB account. Copy this link and provide it to our customers. When they click on the link, the page that opens prompts them for a review. It barely takes them seconds to submit their review on our profile.

Include the review link on our site, business card, flyers, and emails. We can also have a "Review Us” page on our website where visitors will find links to all our review profiles. Collect customers’ emails at the time of service and send them an email request at the end of the service, with the review link so they’re more likely to share their experiences.

Review responses

When potential customers skim through our business’s reviews to decide whether to take our service, they also consider our responses. Again, BrightLocal’s survey will tell us that 55% people say that they feel positive about a business if the business owner has responded to reviews [67]. With positive reviews, grateful responses can enhance the positive impact on potential customers. With negative reviews, professional responses can neutralize the negative impact.

Many review platforms allow business owners to respond to customers’ reviews through our profile’s dashboard. Different types of reviews call for different types of responses.

Response to positive reviews

Business owners often respond to all positive reviews with an automated "thank you" message. This is not the wisest strategy. If our business gets lots of reviews, we don’t have to respond to every positive review. To a good number of reviews that we do reply, create personalized messages that customers can tell we took the time to write instead of using a program.

Something like “Your review made our day! I even showed your comment to the receptionist, Amelia. She was so happy you found her helpful” will give a much stronger impact than a simple “thank you for your review”.

We can also use these responses to promote our business, especially if it’s fairly new. Customers that leave positive reviews already trust our business. They’re very likely to believe us and take what we offer.

For instance, if we run a restaurant and a customer said they loved the pasta, we could say something like,

“We’re so glad you loved Asparagus Ravioli. Next time you visit, try our Chef’s favorite Ricotta & Tomato, we’re sure you’ll love that too!”

Response to negative reviews

Responses are especially important for negative reviews. Don’t ignore reviews that look like this:

We’ll hardly find a business that doesn’t receive a negative review. Nevertheless, there are ways that we can limit the damage. Respond to them quickly and professionally. When customers complain about something, they expect a fast response. If we’ll take weeks to reply, it’s just going to make them angrier.

Curate a thoughtful, professional message that will make the customer feel that their feedback is valued. Take responsibility for the problem and apologize. In situations where it’s possible, offer to rectify the issue, but never make false promises.

Here’s what a typical response to a negative comment looks like:

Test your knowledge

Match the kind of response on the left to its most suitable example on the right.

Choose the best answer for each of the following questions.