How To Respond To Google My Business Reviews
- January 13, 2017
- Google Marketing, Local Search Optimization - SEO - LEO
How To Respond To Google My Business Reviews
A study found that 90% of consumers said that online reviews had a direct impact on their buying decisions.
With a statistic like this, it’s clear that generating reviews is an absolute must when it comes to boosting your business.
We already know that having positive Google My Business reviews can have a great impact on your business by attracting new customers. However, responding to these reviews can make the impact even greater.
Responding to reviews in a professional and timely manner is important. Your business can influence a consumer to buy, boost its online reputation, and increase credibility.
In this blog post, we are going to guide you on how to respond to Google My Business reviews and provide guidelines on what you should be saying in these responses.
How To Respond To A Review
Step 1: Access your Google Business page
The first step in respond to a review is to go to business.google.com and sign into your account. From here, click the three horizontal bars in the top left corner of your dashboard and select “All locations”. Next, find your business location that you want to respond to reviews on and select “Manage location”.
Once you’ve reached your Google My Business page, simply go to the “Reviews” section and click the blue bar titled “Manage Reviews”.
Step 2: View and Reply
Now that we’ve accessed our business’ reviews, we can see who left us a review, when they wrote it, what they said in it, and how many stars they gave us.
To reply to a review that someone left, simply click the “View and reply” tab. This will take you to the individual’s review where you can leave a comment.
What To Write In A Response To A Review
Once you’ve found a review that you’d like to leave a reply to, you can now begin to draft your response. When replying to reviews, it’s crucial to answer them as soon as possible as Google loves to see prompt responses from the business owner. A quick response will also show the person leaving the review that you appreciate their feedback and are listening to what they have to say.
It’s important to understand that you cannot please everybody. It’s almost guaranteed that you are going to receive a negative review at some point. Responding to not only positive reviews but also negative reviews can go a long way with a customer. Again, it will show that you care what your customers have to say and that you want to do everything you can to accommodate them. This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with consumers.
When responding to reviews, aim for:
– A fast response
– A thank you (whether positive or negative; “Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback”)
– Professionalism (grammar, tone)
Furthermore, you can even include your business’ keyword in your response for an added boost.
Answering Positive Reviews
Your business should (hopefully) get many more positive reviews than negative. Generating a simple, quick response to positive reviews can certainly go a long way. Here are some great responses to positive reviews that you can use in your own replies:
Example 1: Positive Review Response
Example 2: Positive Review Response
Example 3: Positive Review Response
Note that the best ones are those that go into detail about the review. The more specific and detailed you are, the clearer picture you can paint for those reading them and show them that you’re not a robot by responding with the generic “Thanks for the review!”.
Answering Negative Reviews
As mentioned, it’s nearly unavoidable that you are going to get a negative review. Knowing how to respond and manage the bad review can help turn an unhappy customer into a happy one. Furthermore, responding proves that you care about your customers’ feedback and that they are important.
Below are fantastic ways to respond to a bad review:
Example 1: Negative Review Response
Example 2: Negative Review Response
To keep your current customers happy, attract new ones, and turn an unhappy customer into a happy one, responding to your Google My Business reviews is critical. Additionally, this can help boost your search ranking as Google loves to see active business owners on its review pages.
If you want to have us review your website and give you a free 30-minute consultation where we show you how to generate more local customers from your website, click here.
A thriving Canadian entrepreneur. A loving father and husband. A blossoming philanthropist. The CEO of an innovative Digital Marketing Agency. Johnstone has mastered the art of digital marketing on numerous platforms (Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram - to name a few) which has given him the unique ability to assist hundreds of loan officers, realtors, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance agents with growing their businesses online. He continues to grow his skills and hone his craft and is ready to bring you up to speed on the latest and greatest in the digital marketing world!
About us and this blog
We are a digital marketing company with a focus on helping our customers achieve great results across several key areas.
Request a free
one-on-one marketing consultation with our team of digital marketing experts
Subscribe to our newsletter!
It is very useful for newbies in digital marketing to understand more about managing google my business
Thanks for the detailed explanations. it is a very useful piece of content. I really appreciate your effort in creating great content like this. Expecting more content like this. Thank you in advance.
Before buying a product, eating at a new restaurant, or doing business with a company, people read reviews from competitors and take them into consideration.
I think that replying to reviews should be consist with the following:
1. Reply as fast as possible to the given review
2. Reply using key phrases that will support the nature of review (so- if for example, the review is fake, the reply should include the word fake or dishonest. that is meant not only for customers, but also for the Google algo)
3. Comment should be professional. Never forget that these comments are the face of the company.
Good luck !
It makes a lot of sense to try and respond to reviews as quickly as possible. My wife and I are going to try and build up a new online company this year. We need to learn more about what makes a good online business so that we can succeed.