Congratulations! If you are reading this, you have taken the first step in executing a strategy to grow your customer reviews. You start receiving emails for your Google My Business (GMB) account that customers are raving about your work. That’s great! Though you may want to take a moment to celebrate, don’t forget the most important step:

RESPOND TO THE REVIEW!

The importance and benefits of responding to customer reviews are endless, so let’s just focus on a few key reasons you need to respond to every customer review.

1. Encourage Customer Loyalty

You have a happy customer who has taken the time out of their own day to rave about your business. Show them how much you value them and encourage them to return – this drives customer loyalty and builds your base.

The review response can be short and simple, but you do need to respond and preferably within 24-48hrs

Bonus Tip: Refer to the customer by name in the response

2. Influence Future Customers

When perspective clients read reviews, they are looking for an outside opinion of your business and to see how you interact with customers. Seeing that you are interactive and appreciate your customers provides additional social validation. When you respond to every customer review, you show them that you are the business they want.

Think of your customer reviews as free radio advertisements – you want them to highlight you in the best way possible!

3. Directly Affect 15.44% of SEO Results

In Moz’s 2018 yearly study on Local SEO factors, they stated that Google has confirmed reviews are the 3rd highest contributor to your local SEO results, contributing 15.44% to your local search ranking. This is not only the number of reviews, but the quality and action each review has. 

This means Google is watching to see if other customers are “liking” this review, whether or not you are you responding to it, what keywords are mentioned, and so on.

4. Indirectly Affect 9.56% of SEO Results

Another contributor to your local search rankings is the Behavioral Signals Google tracks. A large piece of that is your click-through-rate, which can be positively affected when your reviews drive customers to your site to learn more. 

Don’t let negative reviews push customers away. Have your positive reviews pull them in to learn more!

5. Flips Negative Customers

So many businesses avoid asking for reviews because they are scared of receiving a negative one – which is quite possibly the worst excuse. You are a thriving business because you have tons of happy customers.

Even if you do have one upset person, it is not to be feared! Instead, view this as an opportunity to learn about how to improve and show other customers how you handle difficult situations.

Responding in a professional and timely manner to a negative review can have a positive influence on others by showing that you value your customer’s feedback and are a professional business person.

Additionally, studies found that 33% of customers who posted a negative review but received a response within 48hrs submitted a follow-up positive review!

Reviews are a necessity for any business to thrive in 2020 and beyond, but they can be overwhelming. You have a business to run, personal life to live, you don’t need another item added to your to-do list, which is why we’re here!

We want to help your business succeed by driving results without the work for you.

To learn more about how responding to customer reviews can help you grow your business, fill out the form below.