If a website is considered the shopfront of your business, then online reviews would be like the big neon sign saying ‘Shop Here’. Now more than ever before, social proof marketing influences consumer purchasing decisions and online reviews can make or break your business. 

The fact is, reviews display honesty and transparency that ultimately creates customer confidence and increases conversions. 

Thanks to GoHighLevel's Reputation Manager feature, acquiring and managing your Google reviews has never been easier (keep reading to see how we set it all up).

Before we dive into a real world example of how leveraging Google reviews can seriously grow your bottom line, let’s look at the most common questions we get asked in regards to them.

Do Positive Reviews matter?

It's important to know that these are the factors Google considers when determining local rankings:

As you can see, Google DOES consider both the number of reviews and review score as part of your prominence factor.

Does anyone read reviews?

According to recent studies, 98 percent of people read online reviews. That’s an astonishing stat, right? Well, here’s another one: 76 percent of people regularly read reviews.

Analysis from Reviewtrackers estimates that 75 percent of new business is influenced by a handful of business review sites, and you don’t get any prizes for guessing which one dominates:

Yes, it’s Google with 63 percent, leaving others like Yelp! And Tripadvisor trailing far behind

Does responding to reviews matter?

In a nutshell, yes it does. But unfortunately, so few businesses do for either positive and negative reviews.

I get it. Sometimes you don’t have the time or the energy. Other times, a buyer may have had a bad experience and left a negative review. Whatever the situation, you really do need to make the time to respond to reviews.

According to research from Uberall, larger global businesses respond to just nine percent of reviews.

However, this research shows that 86 percent of customers surveyed are more likely to buy from brands that do answer.

Want another reason to answer reviews? OK then. How does an increase in conversion rates grab you? Uberall also found that conversion rates (clicks on phone numbers, driving directions, and websites) increased measurably when companies answered.

When responding to reviews, always:

• Thank your customer for their feedback, even if it’s negative.

• Don’t use generic responses. Personalise your feedback to the reviewer’s specific points.

• Reply quickly

Should I respond to negative reviews?

No one likes negative reviews but unfortunately most businesses will get them at some point.. In that regard, it's important to reply to them - promptly. Customers almost always appreciate a speedy response, especially if it’s to their negative feedback.

According to Review Tracker’s research, 53 percent of customers expect a response to negative reviews within a week, while 1 in 3 expects a response within three days or less.

Putting all of this into practise - A real life case study

When we began working with an Australian-based security screen company, one of the opportunities we quickly identified was to build up their Google reviews, and more importantly their average score. At the time, they had an average score of 3.4 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. In their specific industry, it’s important to focus the marketing predominantly on the reputation of the company and not get into price wars. 

Based on the data from the questions earlier in this article, we put the following processes in place using the reputation management tools within our automation system: 

• Survey customers first to make sure only those people who get a review request will leave a positive one

• Once these candidates have been unearthed, they receive an automated review request

• Once a review has been left, we setup Reviews AI to automatically reply to these only reviews that met the requirements (4 stars and above). 

• We also setup a notification to go to their team members if a negative review was received so they could review the legitimacy of it Reviews that require disputing can be easily done with a couple of clicks. We also took this one step further by recently enabling the Spam Reviews detector.

The result. 

Over the course of the last 12 months, we gained well over a hundred new 5-star reviews which increased their average rating score from 3.4 to 4.9. 

And the results speak for themselves. An increase of 30% in revenue. Yep, 30%! Given that their revenue was already in the 7-figure range, 30% extra is VERY noticeable!

They still have the same sales team. We ran less promotions, more competitors entered the market and  we also had to endure the effects of the cost-of-living crisis.

Another nice win from the turnaround in the Google reviews was the change in the main reason the customer went with this company. Before the turnaround, the leading reason chosen was price at around 37%. As mentioned earlier, we wanted to make reputation the most appealing thing, not price. Since the turnaround, reputation is now the leading reason the customer chose the company at around 36% and price is at 15%. 

Could this work for your business?

Absolutely it could. You may not get the EXACT same results but improving your online reputation with the world’s largest search engine is not going to have a negative impact on your business!

So where do you start? 

Managing your Google review growth and communication probably sounds time consuming and it can be. 

The answer is: GoHighLevel.

Imagine having an automated Google review machine that not only gets your more reviews but also manages them as well. Of course, you don't have to use the Reviews AI feature if you'd prefer to reply yourself for a more personalised touch BUT the AI replies are pretty good to be honest.

And if you do prefer to reply yourself, simply set up instant alerts when reviews are received so you'll never miss an opportunity to respond, and to respond quicker than ever, without ever ‘logging in and checking’ on Google's tools. 

On top of that, a system that can also automate review requests or allow you to request them on the fly very easily from either the desktop or mobile app.

If this sounds like something your business could benefit from, why not book in a FREE GoHighLevel Demo.