How to keep on top of online review management and protect your brand reputation

Today’s consumers are smart—and they talk to each other. Wherever you turn on the internet, people want to share their experiences with businesses large and small. They want social proof, and that ubiquity matters when it comes to online review management for multi-location businesses.

Think about the last time you planned a vacation. You probably jumped onto TripAdvisor to look beyond the veneer of marketing photos to hear from actual guests. Your favorite restaurant opened a new branch just down the road? You likely looked at Google reviews before booking your meal to make sure it was up to your standards. Whatever you need, you will find people online talking about it.

Many companies want to attract new customers by presenting their business in the best possible light, but old customers are still out there spreading their own views. Ignore them at your peril!

Electronic word of mouth, or eWOM, can prove a powerful tool for good—or a disaster. Brightlocal’s 2023 local consumer review survey found that 98% of people read online reviews, with 76% regularly turning to reviews for local businesses.

When people see bad business reviews from other customers left unaddressed by a business, they tend to assume the worst: "That business doesn’t seem to care.” Responding to reviews, on the other hand, can help with overcoming potential consumers’ aversion to risk. By considering both online review management and online reputation management, marketers can address the bad, show gratitude for the good, and encourage customers to visit or return.

How does review management impact rankings?

Reviews are so important they can even impact search rankings. In fact, Google’s algorithm takes a number of factors into account when determining their rankings that go beyond accurate location data:

• star ratings given by customers
• volume of reviews — 60% of consumers feel this is critical!
• how often the business gets reviewed
• whether reviews tend to include images or text alone

Crucially, search algorithms check how frequently a business responds to reviews, and how authentic those responses appear. They can smell a token response a mile away, so marketers need to allocate time and energy on a regular basis for responding to online reviews in a substantial, thoughtful way. Yes, that includes the negative ones.

Why does responding to negative reviews matter?

Whether you like it or not, negative reviews are visible to everyone on the internet—all of your current and prospective customers. That means your lack of response is also visible. By responding to negative reviews, marketers have an opportunity to show authenticity, character, and restore trust. In fact, it’s a great way to create a positive connection with customers.

Google’s Small Business advice says that while “negative reviews can sting”, “most businesses will receive one at some point”. Their advice suggests the old adage remains true: you can’t please everyone. “When a negative review comes in, use it as a learning experience for how to improve your business in the future and how to showcase your responsiveness. Respond calmly, honestly, and openly. The way you respond to a negative situation can reflect positively on your business, and a thoughtful post-review interaction can even encourage the customer to update their review.”

Remember: your responses are public, and everyone will be able to read them. Keep things short, remain calm and kind, but don’t use this as an opportunity to upsell or offer an incentive. It’s not the right time.

Still unsure how to respond? Check out our dedicated blog article with tips (and review response templates) to negative reviews. You can also hear more about how reviews shape business visibility by tuning into this episode of Uberall’s Local Marketing Beat.

How do you encourage reviews in the first place?

High-quality reviews help strengthen brand credibility, improve conversion rates, create meaningful consumer engagement, suggest valuable feedback, increase brand visibility, and give you a competitive advantage over other brands.

While you can solicit reviews by asking customers to provide feedback online, the algorithm wants reviews for your business that appear completely genuine. So not only does the algorithm frown upon paid reviews, those might also be illegal in your location.

• Organic review generation is when a customer takes it upon themselves to write a review, likely because of a really great (or really bad!) experience.
• Solicited reviews come from a business asking existing customers to write a review—sometimes on a specific platform, such as Google or TrustPilot.

Reviews may only come in a trickle if you rely on organic review generation alone. Because Google looks to the volume and frequency of reviews as signals for ranking search results. Striking a good balance between organic review generation and solicited reviews can build a steady stream that improves visibility.

On top of in-store posters or business cards that mention reviews, consider action-based emails. Research shows that 70% of reviews come from post-transactional review requests, whether via email or QR codes on receipts or packaging. You could also consider text messaging, though the 45% response rate calls for strategic timing to drive action. Building up online communities or incentivizing customers can drive reviews as well, such as digital raffles, free samples, or discounts. There’s even academic research that shows review solicitation programs can result in a 34.3% increase in review volume!

How can multi-location businesses automate review management?

If all that sounds like an awful lot of work, the good news is that review management software can help you keep on top.

Review management software such as Uberall Reviews helps you manage your online reviews, and monitor and improve your online reputation. That way, you gain full control over your reputation:

• read, respond to, and analyze local reviews across the web

• save time and money thanks to a a single, integrated, AI-powered platform

Turning online reviews into actionable insights goes much smoother with review management tools that offer customer sentiment analysis.

These tools interpret and classify emotional responses within the text of a review or social media post, providing both quantitative and qualitative research for marketing teams to inform their actions and strategies.

What does the future of online reviews look like?

With the rapid growth of AI in marketing technology, especially machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), multi-location businesses now have a world of actionable insights available for making profitable decisions. In fact, you can leverage ChatGPT to improve both your online visibility and reputation.

At the same time, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT made it easier than ever to generate fake reviews that sound well-worded enough to fool algorithms and plenty of consumers. Expect businesses to lean more heavily on alternatives in the future, like video reviews, to showcase that they came from a real person, alongside further evolutions in the algorithms major platforms use to rank and understand customer reviews.

Visual content will continue rising in importance, as experts believe we’ll also see more integration of images and videos into Facebook reviews in order to provide a more “understandable and authentic view of a customer’s experience”. Besides providing more context, this move aligns with a broader shift towards more visual content across all platforms.

One thing that isn’t going to change any time soon, though, is the overall importance of user-generated reviews and personalized feedback. You can feature as many reviews as you like on your own digital properties, but the ones customers choose to write for major review sites like Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, or TrustPilot remain the most important for your rankings. On the other hand, Google has introduced specific posting restrictions and reasons for content rejection.

Keeping on top of reviews through a one-stop platform, rather than each individual social site, will save you time and energy—and help keep those great reviews flowing. Uberall’s review management tool, as part of our AI-powered multi-location marketing platform, helps you view and manage reviews from one platform. Get in touch and learn more about how Uberall can optimize your review management.