How to Respond to Google Reviews

You likely already understand the importance of generating online reviews for your business. Reviews and your overall star rating are becoming more and more prominent within search results and across the internet. Every day customers are reading reviews and making decisions based heavily around the reviews for the products and services they're searching for.

What you likely don't know is how important it is to respond to Google reviews. In fact, Google has made recent changes that now make it even more important to respond to new Google reviews from your customers. In this article you'll learn the importance of responding to Google reviews, best practices when it comes to proper responses and how to actually respond to them.

Just recently (May 11th) Google announced that users will now be alerted when a business responds to their review. Now users will get immediate notification of when their Google reviewis responded to.

This is great news for businesses...especially the businesses that have already been responding to reviews.

Here is an example of what one of these "business review responses" looks like...

As you can see in this example, Paige left a Google review for Burger Boys and a few weeks later she received this notification that Burger Boys responded.

These changes to Google reviews are a huge advantage to businesses that are already in the habit of responding to customer reviews.

Think of it this way...a customer of yours took the time to get on their computer, find your review listing and write you a review. Chances are they even left you a five start review.

Congrats! You now have yet another public 5 star review for the world, and new potential customers to see.

But don't stop there!

By now you should also know that responding to Google reviews is incredibly important (more on this shortly). We also hope that you know how to get more Google reviews as well (another topic for another post).

Now that same customer of yours that took the time to leave you a glowing 5 star review can see when you respond to them. From the customer's perspective, seeing the alert that their review has been responded to is just further validation that the business they left the review for really does care about what their customers have to say.

In fact 78% of consumers agree that seeing management respond to reviews made them believe that they care more about them.

Note that there is also a downside to this new Google review change as well, but only for business that aren't aware of their Google reviews, don't monitor Google review, or don't take the time to respond to Google reviews.

You see, now that customers know they will receive an alert when a business responds to their review, over time they will come to expect a response as well. Just think of the customer expectation around social media and sending a message to company on Facebook or Twitter.

No matter how big the brand is, customers now expect that if they send the business a tweet or Facebook message that they will get a response. In all reality, this is concept that businesses are already getting accustomed to. Just look at this interaction between Wendy's and one of their customers...

Again, brands both big and small are already doing this on social media. Responding to Google reviews is no different. As more and more customers/consumers start to realize that they will get alerted when a business responds to their reviews, more and more customers will come to expect it.

The more customers come to expect something, the more opportunity their is for real "wow" moments as well as disappointing moments.

In addition to really "wowing" your customers with a response, there are also several other reasons to start responding to all Google reviews.

Responding to all your Google reviews is incredibly important. Here are just a few more reasons to get in the habit of responding to reviews:

1. As noted above, when management responds to a review, customers believe they care even more about their experience. Isn't this what we all want our customers to feel like...loved and cared for?
2. Responding to your reviews can help give your business a SEO boost - if you respond to your reviews and include your business name, location and relevant keywords, you're giving your positive reviews a better chance of showing up in search results above any negative reviews that may be weighing you down.
3. Responding to a customer review is the digital equivalent of giving them a hug - research shows that as much as 70% of people are more likely to trust a business with positive reviews. You can boost this percentage up even higher by simply responding to your reviews. Backing up your positive reviews with a timely response from management will only build your online trust factor even more!

Overall, not only is responding to your customer reviews important for the reasons listed above, you can think of your response as another form of digital marketing.

Your response as a business to your Google reviews markets your business as a company that cares while giving you the opportunity showcase your customer service, other products & services or throwing in a announcement about an upcoming event or promotion.

Once you understand the importance of replying to Google reviews, you'll start to see them as a huge opportunity instead of just another task to check off the list.

First, login to the Google My Business account that is associated with your business listing

If you haven't already claimed your Google My Business listing, check out this Google support article for details on how to do so.

If you've already claimed your page, navigate on over to your Google My Business listing and login. Simply go to www.google.com/business and login

Second, if you have multiple locations, make sure you choose the one that you want to drill into

Third, select "reviews" from the left hand panel of options

From here, you're presented with a few different ways you can view all of your existing Google reviews.

Fourth, click "reply" to be taken to a screen to reply to any of the reviews in your view.

Last, simply reply to the review and make sure you hit "post reply"

Now that you know how to respond to Google reviews, it is important to note a few best practices help squeeze as much value out of your reply as possible.

Although a simple "thank you" is better than nothing, why not do everything in your power to take your response to the next level.

• Make sure your review is actually public and online. You've already done the hard work of getting the public review, not make sure the world can see that you're a business owner that cares about good customer service - don't reply "offline" with an email.
• Respond to the reviewer by name, and avoid generic responses like "hey there". Numerous studies have shown that people love to hear hear their name and respond in a much more positive manner when their name is used in communication.
• This likely goes without saying, but make sure you respond with a large dose of gratitude. Your customer just took the time to leave you public praise online. This is a huge win for your business! Now make sure you show your customer, and the world, how much that piece of positive feedback means to your company.
• If the review you're responding to was bad, make sure you're not responding on impulse while you're still emotional about the negative feedback. Although bad Google reviews can be a hurt to your ego as a business owner, make sure you've calmed down before you actually sit down to reply. If you have a level head when replying there is a good chance you can resolve that specific customer's problem and even turn that 1 star review into a public 5 star Google review
• If the review is bad, offer up possible solutions and empathize with the reviewer's pain. Many times people just want to feel like their issue was heard and that something is being done to make it right. If the review was positive, use your reply as a chance to offer additional value to the customer. For example, you could let them know about other similar products/services they may be interested in, or tell them about any loyalty programs they may be eligible for.