At the very least, marketers should apply local SEO best practices and publish updated business information on authoritative sites where their business locations are listed. In , the average length of a review was characters. A few years ago, reviews involved multiple paragraphs of text that customers submitted to websites that specialized in hosting this specific type of content: for example, Yelp and Tripadvisor.
When Google and Facebook — two websites people spend a lot of time on — introduced their own review platforms, it became easier for customers to leave reviews and voice their opinions. These structural changes have also affected how reviews are written and read. Reviews offer a platform for customers to share their experiences not only with fellow consumers but with businesses, too.
How your organization responds to these reviews can have just as much impact on your brand reputation as what is being said in the first place. This makes it extremely important for companies to learn how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive customer feedback. The pandemic may have accelerated these trends, with managers performing line-staff duties and companies continuing to operate with a limited workforce.
The good news: review responses make a real and measurable difference — not just to the consumer who leaves the review, but to everyone else who sees it.
Using natural language processing technology, ReviewTrackers also analyzed over , review responses in its database to identify what is most commonly said in review responses. Most responses to positive reviews include an invitation for the customer to return. Another tangible benefit of responding speedily to reviews is the likelihood of getting higher overall ratings. ReviewTrackers collected and analyzed benchmark data covering a month period from Q2 to Q1 that included online reviews statistics of over 48, business locations.
For example, leading automotive brands companies in the 90th percentile posted an average response time of 1. Contrast this to industry averages of 6. The previous section has implications on ways brands can stand out. The Better Business Bureau BBB prides itself on being an ethical marketplace that allows individuals to recommend businesses.
The BBB is one of the oldest and most trusted sites, and verifies all consumer reviews. Businesses can also become a BBB accredited business , and the Better Business Bureau assigns its own ratings from A to F but these ratings are independent from reviews by the public. Amazon has been allowing consumers to post reviews about products since Some small business owners and marketing managers have a love-hate relationship with Yelp , feeling that positive reviews at times get less visibility than negative ones at the site.
Its pages show up frequently in internet searches. The site also trains companies to respond to reviews. A Yelp listing can help businesses manage their online credibility and reputation. Yelp is one of the top review sites and an important place to encourage potential customers to do business with you.
Using its Swarm and CityGuides apps, Foursquare lets users check-in and rate venues they visit. Companies that sign up for Foursquare for Business can take advantage of user analytics. Businesses can also add their own tips to Foursquare and make customer reward offers. Foursquare data is often included in other sites and maps. If you operate a home improvement business or provide services to homeowners, listing your services on local business review websites like HomeAdvisor and collecting business reviews can positively impact your business and help you get new customers.
You can get a free business listing on Yellow Pages which enables businesses to manage the reviews placed on the site about their company. Yellow Pages has transitioned from paper to digital, and is now supporting businesses online with local marketing and reviews.
While the yellow pages are no longer the heavyweight driver of new customers the way they were decades ago when print books ruled, make sure to claim your business there. TripAdvisor is a review platform focused on the hotel, travel, restaurant, airline, or entertainment industries.
Customers share reviews of hotels and other establishments connected to the travel industry. Reviews cannot be from anonymous sources on Angie s List, which again, adds to the credibility of the evaluations posted there. Companies can set up a page on Angie s List for free where customers can leave reviews.
TrustRadius is an online review source designed for software businesses. Adding to the credibility of TrustRadius is the fact that all reviewers are authenticated via LinkedIn. This enables users to view what their connections on LinkedIn say about their business and software products. If you own or run a restaurant, registering on OpenTable will enable customers to make reservations and write reviews. Restaurants receive a star rating on OpenTable based on the number of reviews and the percentage of people who recommend the restaurant.
PlanetRate enables customers to write reviews on businesses of all industries. Companies can register on PlanetRate and actively collect reviews. Users can write in-depth analyses of companies on PlanetRate. Any positive feedback on this review site can influence how consumers perceive your business.
Salesforce AppExchange is an enterprise cloud marketplace designed to extend the Salesforce platform. It lets users rate businesses through a five-star rating system. Trustpilot allows businesses to generate a profile page and encourage customers to provide reviews. Companies can send customizable review invitations for a higher-level paid membership fee and share their reviews and social ratings on social media.
Glassdoor users can search reviews and ratings of more than , businesses around the world. Employees can also share what it is like to work for a company on Glassdoor. G2 formerly known as G2 Crowd is a business review site for companies that sell software. This feedback is also valuable since it shows you what you can improve within your company. Home Advisor focuses primarily on residential customers, as opposed to companies looking to improve their work areas. On top of that, your listing will start to show in Home Advisor site searches, and you can opt to promote your business over your competitors just like with Google AdWords.
Overall, Home Advisor gets millions of visitors every month. You subscribe to HundredX to start using its service, and then you ask your customers to leave reviews as or after they work with your company. That may seem counter-intuitive, but HundredX actually discovered that most reviews are positive when you make it easy on the customer. But Manta also offers marketing packages so you can claim your business listing and promote your brand elsewhere.
Still, their business directory is the bread and butter of their business model. That makes the user experience slightly worse, which means Merchant Circle is probably one of the least-used business directory sites on this list. OpenTable is a restaurant-specific business directory designed to show users the best eats in their area. The site initially started as a way to streamline the reservation process, and it now includes customer reviews.
Customers give ratings based on food, ambiance, service, value, and noise that are all averaged into a rating out of five stars. Again, this is only for restaurants — but since the foodservice industry relies so heavily on customer reviews, OpenTable can make or break a restaurant. SiteJabber is a review site for just about everything.
It covers baby food, video games, electronics, dating, and even pet services. It operates similarly to every other directory and review site on this list, but its diverse range of industries makes it valuable as a one-stop shop for reviews on basically anything.
But the one major characteristic that sets SiteJabber apart is the kind of reviews it has. Most of the user profiles also seem to be short-lived, with only one or two reviews each.
SuperPages is a lot like the Yellow Pages online. It has lists of businesses in lots of different cities, and it covers pretty much every industry you can imagine. That means you can also claim or create a listing for free so people can find out more about your business.
SuperPages is more focused on helping their users find companies that work for them, as opposed to reviews. Users can leave reviews, but SuperPages works more like an old school phonebook than anything else.
You can also pay SuperPages to boost your listing above all of your competitors. But depending on your revenue and how much you can actually earn back from SuperPages, it may not be worthwhile. Might help you whittle down that long list of review sites and figure out which ones to concentrate on. Kind of lame. I included them anyway, just in case you have a use for them.
Further reading How should you work those review sites into your strategy?
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