How to Harness the MarketingPower of Online ReviewsA Guide for Small Business Owners

2Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

Online reviews are one of the most important components of a small business’ online

identity. Reviews on sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp are often the first things

customers look for when deciding where to take their business. Faced with an exploding

number of choices – from small shops and local companies to ecommerce sites and on-

demand service apps – customers often turn to review sites for honest appraisals before

making purchase decisions.

Similar to word-of-mouth referrals and loyalty programs, online reviews offer businesses the

potential to turn positive customer experiences into long-term revenue. But while loyalty

initiatives and word-of-mouth efforts are limited in focus to individual customers and the

people they know, online reviews extend this same concept beyond the customer’s network.

A good review has the potential to reach anyone conducting a Google search. When it comes

to turning customer experiences into an improved bottom line, they’re indispensable.

Yet despite their growing importance, many small and local businesses overlook online

reviews in favor of longstanding promotional methods. This can be a costly mistake. While

word-of-mouth and loyalty programs can work well for established companies with a large

client base, smaller companies must harness online reviews to demonstrate their ability

to deliver. But the online review landscape is so crowded with options that it can feel

overwhelming, particularly for small business leaders unacquainted with the third-party

platforms available to manage reviews across multiple sites. Small business owners might

ask themselves:

— Which review sites should I care about?

— Where should I tell customers to review my business?

By approaching online reviews strategically – including identifying the most important

platforms, actively soliciting customer reviews, and tactfully responding to negative

ones – small business owners can use reviews as a vital marketing tool to augment their

brand identity and beat out the competition.

3Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

The value of online reviews

The first and most important reason small business owners need to prioritize online reviews is that

they’re a key part of customers’ vetting process. As a 2016 poll of local consumers revealed, 84 percent

of respondents place online reviews on the same tier of trust as a personal recommendation. Given the

value prospective customers ascribe to these reviews, it’s no surprise that roughly three-quarters of

patrons say they are more inclined to trust a local business that earns positive reviews.

Despite small businesses’ efforts to build and manage their brand identity, their reputation still largely

hinges on the unfiltered perspectives of real customers who share their experiences – both good and

bad – in a public forum. And as Manta uncovered in an April 2017 poll of small business owners, there’s

a direct connection between online reviews and a better bottom line: 86 percent of respondents said

that positive online reviews have led to an increase in sales for their business.1

In addition to bringing small businesses new customers, a standout reputation and better sales, online

reviews also help the business earn a better organic search presence. According to a 2017

study conducted by Moz, “review signals” – including the number of reviews a business earns and

where they’re coming from – comprise a seven percent influence share of a local business’ organic

ranking on search engines like Google. Comparatively, “social signals” – i.e. engagement via platforms

like Twitter – only earned a four percent influence share percentage in determining search ranking.

1 Methodology: Between 3/31 and 4/5 2017, Manta surveyed 3,230 small business owners via on-site poll. The margin of error is +/- 1.72 percentage points.

4Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

2 Methodology: Between 2/24 - 2/27 2017, Manta surveyed 1,448 small business owners via on-site poll. The margin of error is +/- 2.58 percentage points.

3 For tips on building out your small business’ Google My Business profile, check out our Small Business Guide to Paid Search.

How to Encourage Customer Reviews

As a Manta poll conducted in February 2017 revealed, 58 percent of small business owners do not

ask customers to review their business online.2 And when these reviews do appear, many small

business owners aren’t properly interacting with them, regardless of whether the feedback is positive

or negative. According to Manta’s poll, 20 percent of small business owners said they never respond

to positive reviews, while one-third said they never respond to negative reviews. By failing

to encourage and engage with customer reviews, small businesses are missing out on the vital

marketing opportunity they offer.

Many small business owners don’t prioritize online reviews because they don’t know where to begin.

Today’s customer review landscape covers a vast expanse of platforms, with social media sites like

Facebook, industry-specific resources, general business ratings sites like Yelp, and major search

engines like Google all playing important roles in the market.

Where should small business owners get started? While the specific answer to this question varies

based on your business type and target audience, every business should monitor and engage with

reviews on Google and Facebook. A prospective customer’s search often begins directly on one of

these two platforms – or indirectly with a smartphone app that gets a feed of reviews from the major

platforms – so it’s important to build and maintain profiles on both sites and encourage customers

to leave reviews.3

Small business owners must decide on the right time in their customer service chain to ask for patron

reviews. In general, it’s a good idea to ask for feedback after your customer has had some time to

experience your product or service. For instance, if you’re a roofing contractor, you might schedule a

30-day checkup call or personal follow-up email with the customer, and if they express satisfaction

with your work, ask them to leave a review on your Facebook or Google page.

Requesting public-facing feedback from happy customers is a vital. After all, businesses can’t

cherry-pick who leave them reviews – nor can they eliminate negative reviews from platforms like

Google. Instead, they must focus on populating these platforms with as many genuinely positive

reviews as possible.

5Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

Turning negative reviews into a positive opportunity

Many prospective customers won’t read through every single glowing review of your business. Instead,

they’ll home in on the bad ones. In a world of abundant options, they’re looking to narrow down their

list of prospects by eliminating businesses with spotty track records.

Unfortunately, negative reviews are unavoidable. Even the most successful businesses encounter them

from time to time. Yet, as Manta’s February poll revealed, fewer than half of small business owners

respond to every bad review. Because small businesses can’t design a formula to never receive a bad

review, they must do the next best thing: Implement a bad review response plan.

For small business owners, the bad review response plan begins by learning to temper two tendencies:

Impulsive reactions and excessive explanations.

— Avoiding impulsive reactions:

The worst thing you can do when confronted with a negative customer review – worse

even than not responding – is to respond impulsively or defensively. Naturally, it can

be difficult to stomach a bad review, particularly one in which you feel your business

or the particular situation is misrepresented by the reviewer. But the damage of a

bad review is compounded exponentially by a poor response – one in which you

either summarily dismiss the review (“This is wrong and misrepresentative”) or, even

worse, the person leaving it (“You seemed determined to have a bad experience from

the second you walked into my store”). Responses like these are unprofessional and

project a sense of disrespect for your customers.

— Avoiding excessive explanations:

While better-intentioned than an impulsive or defensive reply, leaving long-winded

responses to negative reviews isn’t a good idea, either. A detailed response may

seem to be the best way to reconcile a patron’s bad experience, but it’s important to

remember that on public platforms like Yelp and Google, you’re addressing a larger

audience – not just one unhappy customer.

6Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

— Be prompt:

Never delay responding to a negative review. A

bad review without a response is a conflict without

a resolution – and that will further frustrate

the reviewer and turn prospective customers

away. To ensure prompt responses to negative

reviews, make sure you’re tracking reviews across

platforms with a monitoring service such as

Manta’s (see below section).

Given these “don’ts,” it’s important to highlight the elements of a good response to a bad review.

By following these tips, businesses can turn negative reviews into an opportunity to demonstrate

great customer service:

— Be contrite and apologetic:

Good responses to negative reviews always begin

by offering some variation on, “I’m sorry to hear

you had a bad experience.” Tactfully apologizing

in this way isn’t an admission of failure – it’s a

necessary sign of graciousness and demonstrates

your commitment to customer service.

— Be sensitive about contradicting the customer:

Online review sites aren’t a forum to debate

customers, and you won’t win points for your

argumentation skills. Therefore, it pays to be

extremely discerning when disputing any assertion

a dissatisfied customer makes. In general, it’s wise

to only contradict the customer on indisputable

falsehoods – for instance, if they claim you refused

to process a return that you did process (and have a

record of) – and to do so privately.

— Promiseanofflinefollow-up:

Responding to a negative review doesn’t solve a

customer grievance – it only shows that you’re

committed to solving it. It’s therefore important,

within your response, to either mention that you’ll

be following up with them promptly or to provide

a phone number or email address where they can

reach out to you directly.

— Use your best judgement:

The tips highlighted above are just that: suggestions.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to determine the best

individualized response to each review – and that

can mean making exceptions to best practices. For

instance, if a customer ends a review by saying,

“Please don’t reach out to me!”, it probably doesn’t

make sense to promise an offline follow-up.

7Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

Tracking and promoting customer feedback

The final step to maximizing your small business’ online review presence is to carefully monitor

the feedback you receive across all review platforms. That way, you can not only promptly respond

to customer reviews – whether they’re positive or negative – but also broadcast good feedback

across your business’ communications platforms, including your website, social channels and

emails to customers.

Google Alerts is the most dependable free resource for tracking mentions about your business. By

enabling Google Alerts, you’ll receive email updates whenever your business gets an online mention.

To ensure that Google Alerts identifies all mentions of your company, it’s important to keep your Alerts

settings accurate and up-to-date. In general, it’s recommended to include additional search terms to

cast a wide net for Alerts notifications, such as potential misspellings of your business’ name.

To get a complete view, however, small business owners will need to employ more advanced

notification tools. Google Alerts will only notify you if the online review includes a mention of your

business name (or the variations you’re tracking). You may not receive an alert if, for instance, a

customer posts a negative review on Yelp that does not specifically use your business name. There are

free tools available that are platform-specific (such as Twazzup), as well as paid monitoring resources

that cover all platforms. Manta monitors reviews on all major sites and notifies business owners

whenever they are reviewed by customers.

Once you start receiving alerts that customers are reviewing your business, it’s important not only to

engage with the reviews, but also to promote good feedback. If you get a stellar review, that’s definitely

worth a mention on your social media pages or email newsletter. And if you accumulate enough

positive reviews on a site like Facebook, consider indicating that via a badge on your business’ website

that links to your business’ profile on the platform.

8Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses

Manta Makes Online Reviews Easy

Customers are talking about your business — and online reviews are now

amplified for everyone to see. Open up a dialogue with your customers with a

Manta premium membership:

— Monitor and respond to current reviews— Generate authentic reviews —PutcommentsfrontandcenterofsearchtoenhanceSEO

Put the power of online reviews to work for your business.

To call today’s small business landscape competitive is an understatement. In a competitive climate

that includes big box stores, ecommerce giants and on-demand services, small business owners must

prioritize the key differentiator that sets them apart: their reputation. By approaching online reviews

strategically – including soliciting reviews, monitoring them, directly responding to all of them, and

promoting the positive ones – small and local businesses can use customer feedback to solidify a

great reputation in their community. Of all the marketing options available to small businesses, online

reviews are perhaps the most important extension of your business’ identity.

Get Started

9Turning Online Reviews into Business Opportunity: A Guide for Small Businesses