I’ve advocated the use of Google’s owner response review feature since it first rolled out in 2010. This vital vehicle defends brand reputation and revenue, offering companies a means of transforming dissatisfied consumers into satisfied ones, supporting retention so that less has to be spent on new customer acquisition. I consider review responses to be a core customer service responsibility. Yet, eight years into the existence of this feature, marketing forums are still filled with entry-level questions like:
- Should I respond to reviews?
- Should I respond to positive reviews?
- How should I respond to negative reviews?
Over the years, I’ve seen different local SEO consultants reply in differing degrees to these common threads, but as of May 11, 2018, both agencies and brands woke to a new day: the day on which Google announced it would be emailing notifications like this to consumers when a business responds to their reviews, prompting them to view the reply.
Surveys indicate that well over 50% of consumers already expect responses within days of reviewing a business. With Google’s rollout, we can assume that this number is about to rise.
Why is this noteworthy news? I’ll explain exactly that in this post, plus demo how Moz Local can be a significant help to owners and marketers in succeeding in this new environment.
When "extra" becomes "expected"
In the past, owner responses may have felt like something extra a business could do to improve management of its reputation. Perhaps a company you’re marketing has been making the effort to respond to negative reviews, at the very least, but you’ve let replying to positive reviews slide. Or maybe you respond to reviews when you can get around to it, with days or weeks transpiring between consumer feedback and brand reaction.
Google’s announcement is important for two key reasons:
1) It signals that Google is turning reviews into a truly interactive feature, in keeping with so much else they’ve rolled out to the Knowledge Panel in recent times. Like booking buttons and Google Questions & Answers, notifications of owner responses are Google’s latest step towards making Knowledge Panels transactional platforms instead of static data entities. Every new feature brings us that much closer to Google positioning itself between providers and patrons for as many transactional moments as possible.
2) It signals a major turning point in consumer expectations. In the past, reviewers have left responses from motives of “having their say,” whether that’s to praise a business, warn fellow consumers, or simply document their experiences.
Now, imagine a patron who writes a negative review of two different restaurants he dined at for Sunday lunch and dinner. On Monday, he opens his email to find a Google notification that Restaurant A has left an owner response sincerely apologizing and reasonably explaining why service was unusually slow that weekend, but that Restaurant B is meeting his complaint about a rude waiter with dead air.
“So, Restaurant A cares about me, and Restaurant B couldn’t care less,” the consumer is left to conclude, creating an emotional memory that could inform whether he’s ever willing to give either business a second chance in the future.
Just one experience of receiving an owner response notification will set the rules of the game from here on out, making all future businesses that fail to respond seem inaccessible, neglectful, and even uncaring. It’s the difference between reviewers narrating their experiences from random motives, and leaving feedback with the expectation of being heard and answered.
I will go so far as to predict that Google’s announcement ups the game for all review platforms, because it will make owner responses to consumer sentiment an expected, rather than extra, effort.
The burden is on brands
Because no intelligent business would believe it can succeed in modern commerce while appearing unreachable or unconcerned, Google’s announcement calls for a priority shift. For brands large and small, it may not be an easy one, but it should look something like this:
- Negative reviews are now direct cries for help to our business; we will respond with whatever help we can give within X number of hours or days upon receipt
- Positive reviews are now thank-you notes directly to our company; we will respond with gratitude within X number of hours or days upon receipt
Defining X is going to have to depend on the resources of your organization, but in an environment in which consumers expect your reply, the task of responding must now be moved from the back burner to a hotter spot on the stovetop. Statistics differ in past assessments of consumer expectations of response times:
- In 2016, GetFiveStars found that 15.6% of consumers expected a reply with 1–3 hours, and 68.3% expected a reply within 1–3 days of leaving a review.
- In 2017, RevLocal found that 52% of consumers expected responses within 7 days.
- Overall, 30% of survey respondents told BrightLocal in 2017 that owner responses were a factor they looked at in judging a business.
My own expectation is that all of these numbers will now rise as a result of Google’s new function, meaning that the safest bet will be the fastest possible response. If resources are limited, I recommend prioritizing negative sentiment, aiming for a reply within hours rather than days as the best hope of winning back a customer. “Thank yous” for positive sentiment can likely wait for a couple of days, if absolutely necessary.
It’s inspiring to know that a recent Location3 study found that brands which do a good job of responding to reviews saw an average conversion rate of 13.9%, versus lackluster responders whose conversion rate was 10.4%. Depending on what you sell, those 3.5 points could be financially significant! But it’s not always easy to be optimally responsive.
If your business is small, accelerating response times can feel like a burden because of lack of people resources. If your business is a large, multi-location enterprise, the burden may lie in organizing awareness of hundreds of incoming reviews in a day, as well as keeping track of which reviews have been responded to and which haven’t.
The good news is…
Moz Local can help
The screenshot, above, is taken from the Moz Local dashboard. If you’re a customer, just log into your Moz Local account and go to your review section. From the “sources” section, choose “Google” — you’ll see the option to filter your reviews by “replied” and “not replied.” You’ll instantly be able to see which reviews you haven’t yet responded to. From there, simply use the in-dashboard feature that enables you to respond to your (or your clients’) reviews, without having to head over to your GMB dashboard or log into a variety of different clients’ GMB dashboards. So easy!
I highly recommend that all our awesome customers do this today and be sure you’ve responded to all of your most recent reviews. And, in the future, if you’re working your way through a stack of new, incoming Google reviews, this function should make it a great deal easier to keep organized about which ones you’ve checked off and which ones are still awaiting your response. I sincerely hope this function makes your work more efficient!
Need some help setting the right review response tone?
Please check out Mastering the Owner Response to the Quintet of Google My Business Reviews, which I published in 2016 to advocate responsiveness. It will walk you through these typical types of reviews you’ll be receiving:
- “I love you!”
- “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
- “There was hair in my taco...”
- “I’m actually your competitor!”
- “I’m citing illegal stuff.”
The one update I’d make to the advice in the above piece, given Google’s rollout of the new notification function, would be to increase the number of positive reviews to which you’re responding. In 2016, I suggested that enterprises managing hundreds of locations should aim to express gratitude for at least 10% of favorable reviews. In 2018, I’d say reply with thanks to as many of these as you possibly can. Why? Because reviews are now becoming more transactional than ever, and if a customer says, “I like you,” it’s only polite to say, “Thanks!”. As more customers begin to expect responsiveness, failure to acknowledge praise could feel uncaring.
I would also suggest that responses to negative reviews more strongly feature a plea to the customer to contact the business so that things can be “made right.” GetFiveStars co-founder, Mike Blumenthal, is hoping that Google might one day create a private channel for brands and consumers to resolve complaints, but until that happens, definitely keep in mind that:
- The new email alerts will ensure that more customers realize you’ve responded to their negative sentiment.
- If, while “making things right” in the public response, you also urge the unhappy customer to let you make things “more right” in person, you will enhance your chances of retaining him.
- If you are able to publicly or privately resolve a complaint, the customer may feel inspired to amend his review and raise your star rating; over time, more customers doing this could significantly improve your conversions and, possibly, your local search rankings.
- All potential customers who see your active responses to complaints will understand that your policies are consumer-friendly, which should increase the likelihood of them choosing your business for transactions.
Looking ahead
One of the most interesting aspects I’m considering as of the rollout of response notifications is whether it may ultimately impact the tone of reviews themselves. In the past, some reviewers have given way to excesses in their sentiment, writing about companies in the ugliest possible language… language I’ve always wanted to hope they wouldn’t use face-to-face with other human beings at the place of business. I’m wondering now if knowing there’s a very good chance that companies are responding to feedback could lessen the instances of consumers taking wild, often anonymous potshots at brands and create a more real-world, conversational environment.
In other words, instead of: “You overcharged me $3 for a soda and I know it’s because you’re [expletive] scammers, liars, crooks!!! Everyone beware of this company!!!”
We might see: “Hey guys, I just noticed a $3 overcharge on my receipt. I’m not too happy about this.”
The former scenario is honestly embarrassing. Trying to make someone feel better when they’ve just called you a thief feels a bit ridiculous and depressing. But the latter scenario is, at least, situation-appropriate instead of blown out of all proportion, creating an opening for you and your company to respond well and foster loyalty.
I can’t guarantee that reviewers will tone it down a bit if they feel more certain of being heard, but I’m hoping it will go that way in more and more cases.
What do you think? How will Google’s new function impact the businesses you market and the reviewers you serve? Please share your take and your tips with our community!
Great read Miriam, like you I have always been an advocate for responding to all reviews. Negative reviews are a given to respond to. But there's also no excuse to not respond to the positive ones - it only takes a minute to say thank you to someone who has taken a couple of minutes to write those nice things about your business :)
So true, Casey! I'd love to know your thoughts about whether or not Google's new feature may alter reviewer language, too!
Surely the best option is to answer all questions in a kind manner. We must understand that good customer service goes through managing negative criticism.
The community manager must include the interaction in google within its strategy.
Nicely said, estentor. I have a special regard for businesses I see handling criticism both kindly and ably. Very admirable!
Thanks for sharing this with us. There has always been a debate about how to answer the negative comments, I think if someone writes a bad review showing respect and expressing its own opinion then it should get an answer.
Very good contribution!
It makes good sense to respond in a sensible and adult manner. Unlike many responses I have seen on trip adviser, which are often downright combative. I always advise my clients to respond as promptly as possible and to show their best side.
Definitely uncomfortable when business owners get combative in responses. Glad to hear you are advising your clients to be more positive! Thanks for reading.
I started a review program 16 months ago, we had 6 for the prior 38 years of business, we now have over 200! As manager of all online marketing, I respond to every review, a tip I would add is to mention the reviewer by name, I believe it brings a personalized touch to the reply.
As a consummate reviewer myself, I look for review counts and rating status as well as frequency and responses, I've incorporated that methodology into our review process. A large percentage of our new business mention our reviews, so YES it is an SEO factor. Does SEO bring in new business, of course, so include a review process into your optimization efforts.
Another tip: I will take a review, add it to the product web page it relates to and link it back to our Google reviews. This adds dynamic, often times keyword rich content and help build trust when a potential new customer is viewing our site.
Great article Miriam!
Great story and tip, Kevin. Wonderful to hear how proactive you've been and how you're seeing the benefits of your investment of time. Way to go!
Very good contribution to the community.
Wow, I knew that reviews were important. I knew responding to reviews, both negative and positive was important. But I didn't know that Google sends the reviewer a notification of when the review has been responded to. That's huge! Thanks for the article.
Sounds like you're all set to go, Bruce, as you're already responding to reviews. Good for you!
I wasn't aware of that neither Bruce. I will give even more attention to my reviews from now one!
The thing you have mentioned that reviews are literally working as red and green flags for the clients and customers who are willing to see us next. If we are not being conscious towards the responsiveness, no matter positive or negative, it is ultimately going to be a loss for us only. Thanks for this amazing 'Moz Local' tool, I got a list I need to fix immediately.
Good luck with your list! And thanks so much for the kind words.
Hi,
What you are saying is correct however, no-one want seems to deal with the issue that Google Reviews actually permits competitors to strike the soft belly of a good company. One star ratings (which are quite easy to do as long as you have a gmail account) with no comments pull ratings down. Google would argue that it is impossible for you to prove that these are not your customers, hence the ratings would stand. Or worse, 1 star rating where you can clearly see that it is someone who has given 5 star ratings to nearby businesses between 07H00 and 07H30 on a Monday morning after you have received a 5 star rating from an actual client the night before!
I hear what everyone is saying - that one needs to turn the "negative" to "positive" but you cannot in the above instance and Google is permitting it to happen. In a perfect world, they would be great as companies can only improve on bad ratings, however, they need to be real.
Sad but true, FlaviaG! I've covered review spam pretty extensively in other posts here on the Moz blog. You might like to read this one: https://moz.com/blog/review-spam
I know, it's extremely disheartening that neither Google nor Facebook seems to understand that their policy about not removing 1-star text-less ratings is making businesses helpless targets for malicious spam. I so hope both of them will reconsider the policy at some point, as it's simply not fair to brands, who can be attacked this way, or consumers, who can be misled by spammy text-less ratings. In the meantime, best thing you can do is to ensure you are getting plenty of legitimate, 4-5 star reviews so that you make the fake ones look like oddballs. But, I couldn't agree more ... these policies need to change!
I'm finding it hard to get exercised about this. I'd rather that they first fix the fact that people can write a review full of outright lies and defamatory remarks about a fellow customer based solely on their appearance, and it not be removed even when reported by the business, which has responded calmly and politely with the facts.
That's an extreme example, but it actually happened. I don't know whether you can actually get a customer back from that point by responding to a review. I tend to approach it that for most who've left a negative review, the best you can do is show that you care, show that you would like to make amends, and provide the means for them to contact you to make it right. Not once has a negative reviewer taken me up on the offer, but the fact you tried can go some way to mitigating negative reviews if the vast majority of the rest are five stars.
Hi Melanie,
Your lack of enthusiasm for a new Google feature is totally understandable, given an experience like that. You're not alone in feeling that way! I do want to urge you to report to the Google My Business forum any review that violates Google's guidelines, which prohibit offensive content, hate speech, harassment and bullying (see: https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answ...). If a particular review you've encountered is making personal attacks, I believe you may have a good case for requesting removal. In fact, if the review is truly egregious, you're welcome to email it to me and I'd be glad to help you try to get it removed if it qualifies for removal.
I'm appalled when reviews personally attack people based on their appearance, identity, etc. That's totally unacceptable, and there are ways of escalating this type of content. You might like to read my guide to review spam, here, which contains basic steps for reporting: https://moz.com/blog/review-spam
Good for you for persevering by responding well to all negative reviews, even if you're not seeing negative reviewers change their sentiment because of it. It's important to remember that all potential customers see your caring responses, too, so this could be having an undetected but quite positive effect on your conversions and the trust people feel in your business. And, hopefully, as I've hazarded at the end of this blog post, Google's new feature just might tone down some reviewer language if customers begin to believe that owners are going to respond to them. Fingers crossed, but in the meantime, I couldn't agree more that Google's handling of spam leaves a great deal to be desired. Keep up the good work you're doing!
Thanks for a great post Miriam,
Reviews and comments are one side for all online business! Mostly for local business; I had cases where due to these miserable reviews, many of my client experienced drop in their online business! I always recommend and mostly handle all such cases in-person for my client where response to such negative reviews with best possible positive review as this not only show how business react to feedback from an angry customer but how much do they care for better customer and their experience!
Sometime even our competitors have asked few of their friends or coworkers to post such awful and we have handled them in a great way!
Meanwhile thanks for all you experience and expert vision about this topic !
Cheers
It can be really tough out there, Ankit! So sorry to hear you've had to experience review spam. I'm always happy to see Google roll out a new review-related feature, but the one I'd most like to see them debut is a better plan for reducing spam in their index. Hang in there!
Absolutely correct, I even raised the same question long back to "Localguideconnet.com" where I identified on user who had 6th Level rating in Google Map, just be giving 3* to all listing and adding "Good" as comment / feedback. Here is the link which I had this in General Discussion, on what Google is doing to remove such results from Map.
I have responded to a lot of reviews. But does this help SEO in any way? Or does it only help customers choose or not choose your business based on the reviews?
Thanks for Share your Vision. It's a shame that local Moz is not in Spain :(
Hi Logopedia y Mas!
I have not seen direct evidence of owner responses directly increasing actual rankings (if this would be an SEO goal), but, indirectly, I think you can envision them as an SEO factor because they affect both conversions and consumer relations, both of which could be tied into traffic, social sharing, brand building, links, etc. So, for now, all I can suggest is that owner responses directly impact business, in general, and this can have either a small or large impact on the more reduced idea of SEO.
From working directly with local businesses for years I'm certain that this is both A) critically important and B) will continue to be ignored. I don't disagree with your assessment on importance, but I've gotten better at viewing the world through the lens of my clients. It's not unusual for a new client to come to me who has been in the business for the past couple of years, still fairly new to the world of HVAC or plumbing or something, and it has just been him and his wife. His entire world has been building up his business from the lens of a service provider who is in the field and his focus is on operations and sales, not online reputation management. And with the kind of churn and burn we see with home services, this guy is pretty common. And let's face it, that applies to many industries, such as restaurants where the failure rate of new restaurants is something like 90% in the first two years. I just don't see this taking the focus of the majority of local businesses the way it really should, which means that instead of it becoming an ubiquitous necessity, it's still probably going to be a competitive advantage for those that use it.
I think the way forward for us as marketers is to keep the volume on this topic turned up, and continue to recommend the right tools and services to manage online reputations. I love that you guys are building in some features to make it easier for businesses to manage. I don't see the importance of this dialing down anytime soon (if ever).
Excellent, thoughtful comment, Brett! I was thinking of clients exactly like the one you've mentioned here when I spoke about SMBs' lack of time being a serious hurdle. When you're running a one-man (or husband and wife) business, it is so true that finding the time to market yourself can feel almost impossible. Meanwhile, on the Enterprise side of things, it can be a huge task for a lonely SEO to get heard about the importance of agile response to new marketing opportunities.
I like you assessment regarding competitive advantage. I agree. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts on this topic.
We have definitely seen this become more and more of a need and priority in our business. I always recommend other business owners in my community to check on their GMB at least once a week and do what they can to encourage positive, real customer reviews (to which they can then respond to). Great tips and insight Miriam, and thank you for sharing your expertise here.
It's intuitive for small companies to respond to every single review since most of us want to offer the most to our limited amount of clients. However, as you grow, you need to keep in mind the time and effort that will be required to keep up with those reviews so you can set up your team and add the cost to meat that demand!
I have found businesses which make multiple gmail ids to review on their own business profile. I think its a weird way to mislead future customers. It is like boasting for own business. I don't know if this idea is going to be trapped by google.
Apart from this, reviews are very useful and gives opportunity to business for improvement. I've found my corrections to be made with Moz Local. Many thanks to Miriam!
Hi Charujewels,
Definitely do flag those and report them to the GMB forum. Review spam is, sadly, a huge problem. Hope you can document the fake reviews and get them removed.
So glad Moz Local is working well for you. That's great to hear. Thank you for reading!
I have some accounts about rate and review. But I don't embed it yet to my website. This article is help me to understand from another view. Thanks.
Thanks Miriam for your iterative article.
Let me suggest that Google is implementing what the Australian Parliament itself has refused to implement - to compel "legal but non-natural persons" (corporations, institutions and bureaucracies) to behave toward "legal and natural persons" (ordinary human beings) as if the former were the latter.
I'd go further - I'd legislate - and with significant and enforceable penalties.
Hi Miriam
Thanks for this informative article, i wanna ask if there is a correlation between SEO and responses. I mean if we don't respond to our costumers' reviews, will our company's website downgrade at search results gradually (not my business page)?
Thanks in advance
Yesil Temizlik
Hello Yesil!
I believe you're asking if it will negatively impact your website's organic rankings if you don't respond to your Google My Business listing reviews. My answer would be: directly, no, but indirectly, maybe. Remember that your website's organic rankings are made up of hundreds of signals. If your brand takes the risk of ignoring customer's reviews, this may very well impact the amount of traffic and good links your brand receives, over time. This could, in turn, begin to negative affect your organic rankings. So, again, direct impact - no. Indirect - likely.
Hope this helps!
Great article. Now, that G is sending out notifications to customers when a response has been posted, it is no longer advisable to respond to reviews from the last 5-6 years. I know that we've worked with consultants who've been adamant that we need to go through our account and respond to ALL reviews, both good and bad. Given this new notification development, I think such a practice would be extremely ill-advised. Can you imagine a former customer getting a notification that you've responded to their review 5 years after-the-fact? Miriam, do you happen to know if the notifications only apply prospectively, i.e., to reviews posted AFTER the new notification policy was implemented?