Financial Services Reputation Management: Secure Lifelong Customers

Did you know that over half of financial services consumers say they have low trust in their provider? And, of those consumers, only 34% of them would recommend their brand to friends and family. 

Financial services providers are tasked with a unique challenge. Since finances are such a personal part of our lives, consumers in the industry are the most withholding of their trust. So it is up to the organization to earn that trust and prove to the consumer that they are deserving of their business and can be trusted with their finances. 

Why Reputation Management Matters in the Financial Service Industry? 

To gain this trust, it is now more important than ever for financial services institutions to implement strong online reputation management initiatives. Online reputation management gives businesses the power to control the narrative surrounding their brand, respond swiftly to feedback, and proactively address any negative publicity, thereby fostering credibility and confidence among current and potential clients. This holds significant importance for every business operating within the financial services sector including:

  • Retail and commercial banks
  • Investment banks
  • Insurance companies
  • Savings and loans associations
  • Brokerage firms
  • Mortgage providers
  • Credit unions

Given the critical role money plays in people’s lives and its direct impact on their livelihoods, individuals often conduct thorough research, including assessing a financial institution’s online reputation, before making a decision. 

REPORT

2024 Financial Services Online Reputation Benchmarks Report

InMoment’s 2024 Financial Services Online Reputation Benchmarks Report provides a top-level view of the state of reviews today for the financial service industry — and how these reviews reflect the experiences financial services consumers want to have. The benchmarks serve as a valuable tool for organizations looking to assess their reputational performance, set goals, make informed decisions, and drive continuous customer experience improvement.

Download Report

Financial Services Reputation Management Strategies

Financial services reputation management is not as tricky as it may seem. If you are just beginning your online reputation management journey, your goal should be to monitor, influence, and improve the perception of your company. This can be done in a variety of ways, and you are going to need effective strategies that resonate with your customers. Based on data and market research, we’ve pulled together some reputation management strategies that are most likely to land with your customers and improve your brand reputation. 

1. Respond to Reviews

Data shows that in the financial services industry, the average time taken to respond to reviews is 3.44 days. However, the leaders in the industry (10% of organizations) have an average response time of just 1.59 days — a 54% difference. 

Not only does responding to reviews in less than two days mark you as a leader in the industry, but it also shows customers that you care about their feedback. With that, it is important to learn how to respond to negative reviews. If and when negative feedback arises, the sooner you take action, the more likely you are to resolve the issue and turn a negative review into a positive one. 

2. Create Educational Content

More than anything, your consumers want to feel educated and supported throughout their journey with your brand. Creating educational content shows your customers that you value them and that you want them to succeed. Here are some examples of educational content you could provide: 

  • Online educational resources where they can expand their financial knowledge on their own time
  • Real-time investment tips and awareness
  • Personalized suggestions that are tailored to where they are in their financial journey, perhaps through an online portal or virtual advisor meeting

Your customers see you as a partner, and they feel that you should be helping them on their journey to financial freedom. By creating educational content such as the ones listed above, you prove that you are buying into that partnership. 

3. Improve the Customer Experience Based on Feedback

While responding to reviews and creating content to support your customers are important, there is only one group that can tell you the changes you need to make: your customers. 

Your business needs to set up an integrated customer experience program that combines structured and unstructured data that will give you a holistic view and understanding of your customers. Your customer experience program also needs to utilize predictive customer analytics so that you can fix the problems your customers didn’t realize they were having. 

If you are wanting to be proactive about your reputation management initiatives, you can streamline your efforts with reputation management software. Softwares such as these can reduce the hassle of manually managing listings and reputation management for financial services organizations. 

Reputation Management Tips for Businesses in Financial Services

Financial services reputation management can look different for organizations depending on which corner of the industry you operate in. Insurance customers have different needs and priorities than mortgage consumers do. It is your job to identify what is most important to your consumers and prioritize your reputation management strategies accordingly. 

Retail and Commercial Banks

For retail and commercial banks to realize reputation management success, they should put a focus on improving customer service, convenience and accessibility, seamless digital experiences, and communication strategies. 

This is important because it will increase a bank’s reliability, trustworthiness, and overall satisfaction. By prioritizing these aspects, banks can cultivate strong, enduring relationships with their customers, leading to increased loyalty, positive word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately, sustained growth and profitability

Some other areas for improvement may include fees and charges, security and fraud protection, product offerings, and social responsibility. These improvement will go above and beyond reputation management and affect the overarching customer experience and give retail banks more of a competitive advantage. 

Investment Banks

Investment banks can succeed with their reputation management by consistently demonstrating integrity and transparency in their dealings. This will foster trust among clients and stakeholders. This can be done by adhering to ethical standards, providing accurate and timely information, and upholding a commitment to client interests above all else.

Additionally, maintaining open lines of communication, actively addressing concerns, and adapting to evolving regulatory requirements can further bolster a reputation as reliable and reputable financial partners.

To go even further, consider implementing a focus on your expertise and advisory services. Consumers in this space want to feel educated and be a part of the process. In educating and advising them regularly, they feel included and will be more satisfied with their returns than if they were left in the dark. 

Insurance Companies

Insurance companies need to put a heavy emphasis on agent training and customer service. In the insurance industry, every customer will have to talk to an agent—whether through online chat, over the phone, or in person—and these are the interactions that matter the most with your brand. 

These interactions need to be positive for your insurance reputation management to improve. If a customer is dissatisfied with an interaction, it could cause them to leave a negative review about the entire company. Contrarily, a positive experience will cause them to respond well to post-claim surveys and favorably improve your brand reputation management

Savings and Loans Associations

Savings and loans associations can succeed with their reputation management initiatives by focusing on providing exceptional customer service, offering personalized financial solutions, and cultivating strong relationships with their members. This involves ensuring that members feel valued, understood, and supported throughout their financial journey.

Secondly, they should emphasize financial stability and security by reassuring customers that their deposits are safe and that the institution is well-managed and financially sound. Transparency regarding their financial health and regulatory compliance is crucial in building trust and confidence among members.

Lastly, they should actively engage with their local communities and demonstrate a commitment to social responsibility and contribute to initiatives that address community needs. By being seen as a trusted and involved community partner, S&Ls can enhance their reputation and foster a positive brand image.

Brokerage Firms

Brokerage firms should focus on operating with the high ethical standards. Firms should prioritize integrity in all interactions with clients, regulators, and the public. This includes transparent fee structures, honest communication about risks, and avoiding conflicts of interest.

Furthermore, implementing up-to-date trading platforms and tools, expanding investment offerings, and effectively securing accounts will build trust with current customers and improve brand reputation. 

Mortgage Providers

There are many things mortgage companies can do to improve their brand reputation. Since mortgages commonly represent a large milestone in the consumers’ life, they want to feel educated, reassured, and supported throughout the entire process. 

One of the biggest ways mortgage companies can improve their reputation by being transparent in lending practices. Customers want to know specific credit requirements and approval criteria, as well being assured that the company is following ethical lending requirements. Effectively implementing these tactics will make any mortgage company quickly become a trusted partner in the community. 

Credit Unions

For credit unions to improve their brand reputation, there needs to be an emphasis on the member experience. When consumers choose credit unions over traditional banks, they are looking for a local partner for their financial journeys. 

To capitalize on that, credit unions need to prioritize member feedback. Credit unions are member-operated by definition, and it needs to be clear that every member’s feedback is going to be taken into consideration when making business decisions. 

Furthermore, members want access to personalized guidance, and resources, and want to be able to access those resources across different channels. Being able to implement cross-channel experiences that deliver personalized attention will lead credit unions to realize reputation and business success.

Communication and transparency is important across the board for all of these financial businesses, regardless of the niche they operate in. Prioritizing transparent communication and utilizing customer feedback will help any financial institution succeed. 

The Benefits of Reputation Management in Financial Services

We’ve covered why consumer trust is so important in financial services, and that you need to implement a reputation management strategy in order to earn that trust, but there are also business benefits that come from those strategies. Here are some of the outcomes you can expect from an effective reputation management strategy. 

  • Increased Trust: Financial services rely heavily on trust. Positive online reputation management helps build and maintain trust with clients, investors, and stakeholders by showcasing reliability, professionalism, and integrity.
  • Risk Mitigation: Financial institutions are particularly vulnerable to reputational risks due to the sensitive nature of their services. Effective online reputation management helps identify and address potential risks, minimizing the impact of negative events such as data breaches or customer complaints.
  • Competitive Advantage: A strong online reputation can differentiate a financial institution from its competitors in a crowded market. Positive reviews, testimonials, and a favorable online presence can attract new clients and retain existing ones.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Compliance with regulatory standards is essential in the financial sector. Online reputation management strategies can ensure that institutions adhere to regulatory requirements regarding transparency, disclosure, and customer protection.
  • Crisis Management: In the event of a crisis or negative publicity, having robust online reputation management strategies in place enables financial institutions to respond promptly, manage the narrative effectively, and mitigate reputational damage.

These benefits will not only benefit your consumers, but they will also affect your bottom line. Creating a consistent brand image and consistently presenting it across all of your platforms can increase revenue by almost 25%! 

Improve Your Financial Services Reputation Management with InMoment

Many of the world’s leading financial institutions already partner with InMoment to help them understand and act on customer feedback. InMoment’s dynamic XI Platform gives brands the ability to engage with their customers across all platforms, make sense of their feedback, and, leverage data to improve their business performance. See for yourself by scheduling a reputation management demo today!

References 

Forrester. Financial Services Firms Need To Learn How To Earn Customers’ Trust. (https://www.forrester.com/blogs/financial-services-firms-need-to-learn-how-to-earn-customers-trust/). Accessed. 3/28/2024. 

Status Labs. 52 Online Reputation Statistics for 2023. (https://statuslabs.com/blog/reputation-management-stats). Accessed 3/28/2024.

How to Delete a Facebook Page and Protect Your Brand Reputation

Facebook is one of the most widely used social media marketing tools today. However, there may be instances where your business must learn how to delete a Facebook Page in order to protect your brand reputation. 

Here are some of the common reasons why a business might want to delete their Facebook Page:

  • Rebranding: Your company is undergoing a rebranding process and you’d like to start fresh with a brand new Facebook Business Page. 
  • Negative reviews and feedback: Your Facebook Page has received overwhelmingly negative feedback or reviews. Given the importance of social media marketing, this can hurt your business reputation and drive potential customers away.
  • Legal issues: Legal complications or disputes may suddenly arise and you have to learn how to delete a Business Page on Facebook as a precautionary measure.
  • Change in ownership: A change in ownership or management might prompt the decision to delete the Facebook Page and start fresh under new leadership.
  • Privacy concerns: Your company may need to learn how to delete a Facebook Page in order to protect sensitive information or data.
  • Inactivity: The business is no longer active or operational, and maintaining the Facebook Page is unnecessary.

How to Delete a Facebook Business Page

To delete your Facebook Business Page the traditional way — that is, using a desktop computer and logging into Facebook using your personal account — follow these steps:

  • Ensure you are an admin of the Facebook Business Page you are trying to delete. Note: If it’s a duplicate Page that you don’t have access to, you may need to claim the Facebook Business Page first. 
  • Navigate to: https://business.facebook.com/. This will take you to your Meta Business Account, sometimes called a Business Manager account. It is also sometimes called Meta Business Portfolio. 
  • Go to Settings. In the Business Assets tab, select Pages. Then select the Facebook Business Page you’d like to delete. 
  • Click the 3 horizontal dots icon and select Remove from Business Portfolio
  • Click Remove Page. 

There are other ways that a Page may be removed from your Facebook or Meta Business Portfolio. For example, someone on your team with full control of your Business Page can request to have the Page deleted. If you receive a Page removal request, you will have 30 days to respond with a Yes or No. 

  • Using your Meta Business Account, go to Settings or Business Settings.
  • Select the Requests tab and locate the removal request. 
  • Select Approve or Decline.

FAQs on How to Delete a Facebook Page

Before you click that button that permanently deletes your brand presence on Facebook, here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about how to delete a Page on Facebook.

Why Can’t I Delete My Facebook Business Page?

The most common reason for not being able to delete a Page is because the user is not an admin of the Page. If you are an admin and you still can’t delete your Page, it’s possible that there may be another admin who may have canceled the Page deletion or declined your Page removal request.

What Happens When I Delete My Facebook Page?

Deleting your Business Page means nobody will be able to see or find it on Facebook. Once a Page has been removed, you will have 14 days to restore it in case you change your mind. 

After that, you’ll be asked to confirm if you’d like to delete the Facebook Business Page permanently. Keep in mind that if you delete the Page permanently, you will lose its content and data forever. This includes your Page likes, comments, interactions, and Facebook reviews and recommendations. 

Another important thing to keep in mind is that if your company has run ads using this Page, deleting it may affect your ad account’s performance or history. Moreover, if your Business Page was connected to Messenger for business communication, this connection will be severed and any existing conversations will be lost.

Should I Delete My Facebook Page?

The question of whether or not you should delete your Facebook Business Page depends on the situation and what your strategic goals are. For example, you may be assuming ownership of a business that you recently acquired, and you are wondering whether you should update the existing Page and rebrand — or delete the Page altogether. 

Here are some considerations to help you make an informed decision:

  • Brand reputation. Assess the reputation and brand equity associated with the Facebook Page in question. If the Page has a positive reputation (with plenty of 5-star reviews and ratings), active engagement, and a substantial following, it may be valuable to retain it so that your team can leverage existing customer relationships and support your brand reputation management strategy. 
  • Integration with your brand. Consider whether the existing Page aligns with your brand identity. If you can integrate the Page, maintain continuity, and facilitate the transition for existing customers, there is no need to learn how to delete the existing Business Page on Facebook. 
  • Audience and reach. Evaluate the audience demographics and reach of the Facebook Page before trying to delete it. If the audience aligns with your target market and provides access to potential customers, keeping the Page can be advantageous for marketing and promotional purposes.
  • Rebranding or consolidation. If rebranding or consolidating operations is part of your strategy, deleting the Facebook Page may be necessary to streamline your brand presence and avoid confusion. Consider communicating the changes transparently to customers and redirecting them to your primary brand channels.

If you’re planning to delete your Facebook business page due to negative or misleading online reviews, consider how you can enhance your online reputation instead. Rely on existing customers to share their own positive experiences by leveraging InMoment’s reputation management software. It empowers you to collect feedback from current customers, not only improving your online reviews but also offering valuable insights for areas of enhancement.

Ultimately, the decision to delete, unpublish, or keep the Facebook page of a business you’re managing should be based on a thorough assessment of its value, alignment with your strategic objectives, and considerations of brand, audience, and resources.

How Do I Remove the Owner of a Facebook Business Page?

If you no longer want someone to have access to a Page that’s part of a Business Account, you can remove their access.

  • Using your Meta Business Account, go to Business settings.
  • Below Accounts, click Pages and select the Page from which you’d like to remove the person’s Page ownership and access. 
  • Hover over the person’s name and click the trash can icon. Click Confirm.

Removing a user from a Page does not remove them from your Business Portfolio. For security reasons, it’s recommended that you remove inactive people from your Business Portfolio who no longer need access to any of your business assets or other Pages.

Only admins have the ability to manage roles on a Facebook Page. If you don’t have admin access, you won’t be able to remove an owner. Also, be sure to communicate with the person being removed from the owner role to avoid any misunderstandings.

What’s the Difference Between Publishing and Deleting a Page?

Unpublishing a Facebook Business Page hides it from public view temporarily, while deleting a Facebook Page permanently removes it from the platform along with all associated content.

If you’re unsure about losing all the data from your Page, you may choose to simply “unpublish” the Page instead of learning how to delete the Facebook Business Page. This hides it from the public, including the people who like your Page. Unpublishing is a reversible action, allowing businesses to temporarily hide their Page without permanently deleting it. This might be useful during periods of maintenance, rebranding, or when the business is not actively engaging on Facebook.

If you’re an admin, you can unpublish your Page at any time. Unpublished Pages are only visible to the people who manage the Page. It won’t be visible to the public until it’s published again.

Connect Data and Feedback from Social with InMoment

Learning how to delete a Facebook Page is just one of the steps your team can take to protect brand reputation and improve social media marketing performance. With InMoment, you can elevate your review management strategy and integrate social media data with your customer relationship management system to achieve a comprehensive view of customer interactions across various channels, enabling your team to deliver more personalized and cohesive experiences. 

Automotive Reputation Management: Win with Digital and Drive Customer Acquisition

A well-crafted automotive reputation management strategy is essential for any auto brand looking to build trust, foster customer loyalty, and thrive in a competitive market environment.

With online reviews, social media comments, and public customer feedback making a major impact on the reputation of automotive businesses — car dealerships, auto repair shops, service centers, parts retailers, etc. — brands must recognize that the ability to manage their digital channels and digital reputation is a crucial success factor. Online reviews, a platform for consumers to discover and assess auto services brands, can particularly influence consumer decisions from the start of their customer journey.

According to research: 

  • 95% of automotive shoppers rely on online resources to gather information, bypassing dealerships as their starting point.
  • 67% of consumers see reviews as influential when choosing a new auto service.
  • 91% use reviews to find a car dealer and find vehicle maintenance.
  • Automotive consumers visit an average of 4.2 websites in their purchasing process. Oftentimes, they will use multiple devices throughout this process: the average automotive shopper spends 33% of their research time on a mobile device.
  • 54% of car buyers would pay more for a better buying experience. On the other hand, 76% of consumers will stop doing business with you after just one bad experience.

Given these stats, it’s no surprise that sales-oriented corporations are taking a backseat to tech innovators, customer experience leaders, and automotive brands with a strong digital presence and great online reputation. To get ahead, your organization must commit to delivering seamless digital experiences, build a strong foundation for automotive reputation management, and invest in technology that will better engage consumers and make every part of the customer journey pain-free, even long before they set foot in your physical locations. 

Report

Automotive Online Reputation Benchmark Report for 2024

InMoment’s 2024 Automotive Reputation Benchmarks Report examines in great detail the reviews and ratings data of today’s top automotive brands. Download the report to benchmark your performance against industry leaders and discover strategic approaches to managing your online reputation and delivering improved customer experiences. 

Download the Report

The Importance of Reputation Management for Automotive Businesses

By managing your brand reputation and establishing a strong digital presence, your company can get ahead of the competition and drive customer acquisition. 

Improved brand perception. The automotive industry relies heavily on brand perception. Positive perceptions lead to increased sales and customer loyalty, while negative perceptions can harm sales and brand value. Automotive online reputation management helps shape and maintain a positive image, ensuring that consumers view your brand favorably across all the digital channels that they use. 

Increased trust and reliability. Trust is a significant factor in the automotive sector, as consumers make significant investments in vehicles. A strong reputation for reliability and quality builds trust with customers, leading to repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Better protection against reputational threats. With the rise of online review platforms and social media, consumers have more power than ever to share their experiences and opinions. An effective automotive reputation management strategy involves monitoring and responding to reviews and customer feedback on platforms like Google (via Google reviews), Yelp, Edmunds, Cars.com, and DealerRater. Addressing negative feedback promptly and professionally can mitigate damage to the brand’s reputation.

Proactive crisis management. The automotive industry is susceptible to various crises, such as recalls, safety issues, or environmental controversies. Effective reputation management involves having a crisis communication plan in place to address these issues transparently and efficiently, minimizing the impact on the brand’s reputation.

Customer experience improvement. Managing your brand reputation involves listening to and acting on the Voice of the Customer. This is a valuable source of insight into how your company can deliver experiences that reflect the lives of their customers. With these insights in place, your organization can make the transition from digital strategy guesswork to streamlined research processes and personalized, customer-centric marketing.

Automotive Online Reputation Management: Best Practices

By implementing the following best practices, automotive businesses can effectively manage their online reputation, build trust with customers, and maintain a positive brand image in the digital age.

Proactively Manage Your Digital Presence

As part of your automotive reputation management strategy, regularly monitor review websites, social media platforms, automotive-related forums, and automotive-specific websites for mentions of your brand, products, and services. Use tools like Google Alerts or specialized reputation management software to stay informed about what customers are saying about your business.

It’s also crucial to claim and manage your brand’s local business listings: think of this as a way of planting your brand’s flag across all the digital properties where potential customers are looking for you. 

Local listings serve as powerful marketing assets that can do wonders for your brand. They can do the same job as traditional advertising and marketing, but where offline or print efforts may fall short — specifically: getting your automotive business found online — a sound local listing management strategy can make the most impact. On the other end of the spectrum, incomplete and inconsistent listings, as well as listings with bad or outdated data, can confuse and misdirect consumers and impact your traffic and revenue performance.

By creating and claiming your listings, you gain a greater level of control over what’s being said about your brand — and therefore how it’s being perceived by searchers.

Respond to Online Reviews and Customer Feedback

Success in managing your automotive company’s reviews starts with the commitment to becoming a responsive brand. According to InMoment’s 2024 Automotive Reputation Benchmarks Report:

  • Close to 50% of customers will visit a business location again when they see the company responding to negative reviews.
  • The highest-performing brands in auto respond to reviews within 1.21 days, while the median group responds to reviews within 3.25 days. 

Your team must know how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback. The sooner you can get back to your customer, the greater your chances of improving the situation. Avoid getting defensive or confrontational, and instead, offer genuine apologies, explanations, and solutions to rectify the situation. Demonstrating a willingness to listen and improve can turn dissatisfied customers into brand advocates.

For brands with multiple locations represented by multiple business listings and profiles across multiple directories and review websites, responding to reviews presents a challenge — especially without an effective automotive review management program in place.

Online reputation management software can solve this problem and help your organization stay on top of what car buyers are saying. With the right solution, you can aggregate all of your locations’ reviews within one dashboard, streamline your review management workflow, and send personalized, even automated responses to reviews across your locations.

Add Reviews to Your Marketing Infrastructure

Incorporating reviews into your external communications and brand messaging — whether it’s on your website, social media profiles, online listings, dealership pages, or search and display advertising — can boost the performance of your marketing campaigns and automotive reputation management strategy. Adding reviews on your own brand website can even improve your conversation rates, decrease bounce rates, and improve your ad quality scores.

Another way to leverage customer feedback is to highlight positive customer testimonials, case studies, and success stories on your website, social media channels, and marketing materials. Positive endorsements from satisfied customers can help build credibility and trust with potential buyers.

Generate Car Buyer Feedback by Asking for Reviews

In today’s multichannel world, car shoppers and owners actively seek information from all types of sources to guide their purchase decisions. Organizations that are highly visible in search results and on social media enjoy a natural advantage. However, just because your auto brand ranks number one on Google or has 1,000 more Facebook likes and Twitter followers than your competitors does not necessarily mean it has gained the trust of consumers.

One of the key factors to successful reputation management for automotive is your ability to have a steady stream of reviews. You won’t always generate reviews organically over time, so it’s crucial to have a strategy in place for proactively asking for reviews from customers.

  • Point of sale: Dealerships and service centers can see the most success in generating more reviews when doing so at the point of sale. Asking for a review right after the sale is finalized ensures that the reviewer’s experience is fresh on their minds, and leads to an increase in review velocity.
  • Email, SMS: Automated review requests via email or SMS after the service is complete should give the customer time to reflect on their experience before leaving valuable feedback. A trigger can be built into an existing workflow to automatically send the review request post-service to thank the customer for their business. This can serve as a valuable customer service touchpoint in the buyer’s journey.
  • Landing page: Create a page on your business’s website specifically for gathering reviews. Reviews on this landing page are considered first-party reviews, which can help boost conversion rates while also improving your search engine performance. 

Act on Insights to Improve Customer Experience

Structured feedback and rating scores can be great indicators for reputational performance, but the game-changing insights are those hidden in your unstructured feedback.

Analyzing unstructured data contained in reviews should help your brand understand what you’re doing well and what areas need improvement. To truly understand customer needs and desires, consider investing in predictive customer analytics that can facilitate the discovery of real-time insights from unstructured feedback. 

By capitalizing on major pain points and proactively improving customer experiences, your business can easily get ahead of the competition.

How to Positively Impact Your Automotive Brand Reputation

At a time of disruption and changing consumer preferences, organizations that strategically allocate their resources to strengthen their customer experience focus enjoy a better reputation and stand to gain an edge over the competition.

The path to successful reputation management for automotive therefore begins with an organizational commitment to customer experience. 

Car Dealership Reputation Management

The key is to make experience — not sales — the priority. The sales process no longer begins when a potential buyer arrives at the dealership. This means that you must deliver seamless, persuasive experiences that deliver on their brand promise and go beyond simply selling cars.

Invest in tools that simplify and streamline the entire buying process — from research and planning, through dealership engagement, to the post-sales phase. Improve personalization in all your marketing communications with potential customers so that you can stand out. Commit to becoming a responsive brand on online review websites: today’s consumers identify the best deals before ever stepping foot in a dealership, with 91% relying on reviews before making a dealer selection.

Auto Repair Reputation Management

Auto repair shops should strive to create memorable customer experiences that set them apart from the competition and keep customers returning. 

Negative reviews and feedback often stem from not having clear communication. To protect your brand reputation, make sure you establish transparent communication channels with customers. Explain repairs in understandable terms, provide updates throughout the process, and be available to answer any questions or concerns. Implement digital tools such as online appointment scheduling, text message reminders, and digital invoices to streamline the customer experience and keep them informed.

You can even provide educational resources such as blog posts, videos, or workshops to help customers understand basic car maintenance and make informed decisions about their vehicles. This helps establish your thought leadership and industry authority: by providing relevant content to car owners, you can build a brand reputation that inspires consumer trust and confidence.

Reputation Management for Auto Parts Retailers

Just like with automakers and suppliers, a reputation management strategy for auto body and paint services should also bring careful thought into ways companies can simplify and streamline the consumer’s decision-making process.

This means investing in a user-friendly website and mobile app where customers can easily browse products, check availability, and place orders. Provide detailed product descriptions, specifications, and compatibility information to assist customers in making informed purchases.

The development of staff and support resources is also paramount. Train staff members to provide expert advice and assistance to customers, and equip them with in-depth product knowledge and troubleshooting skills to help customers find the right parts for their vehicles. Apart from promptly addressing customer inquiries, concerns, and issues to ensure a positive shopping experience, it’s also a good idea to offer responsive customer support through multiple channels, including phone, email, and live chat.

Car Rental Services Reputation Management

Great customer experiences lead to a stronger brand reputation. This holds true for car rental companies and service providers, too.

Regardless of the types of cars in your fleet, quality fleet maintenance is a must: ensure that rental vehicles are well-maintained and regularly serviced to minimize breakdowns and provide a safe and reliable driving experience. Maintain high cleanliness standards for all rental vehicles, both inside and out. Regularly clean and sanitize vehicles between rentals to provide a hygienic environment for customers.

To avoid negative reviews and feedback, implement all the steps that make the entire process of renting a car as easy and pain-free as possible for your customers. Be transparent about pricing, including rental rates, additional fees, and insurance costs. Avoid hidden charges and surprise fees to build trust with customers. Also, if possible, provide flexible pickup and drop-off locations, including airport terminals, hotels, and designated rental offices. Offer extended operating hours to accommodate customers’ schedules.

Power Your Automotive Reputation Management Strategy with InMoment

Many of the world’s leading automotive brands and suppliers leverage InMoment to effectively manage their online reputation in ways that attract customers and drive business growth. The heart of your company’s reputation management strategy should lie in your ability to engage with customers, listen to what they’re saying online, and show appreciation for their feedback. With the right approach and with InMoment as your technology partner, your brand can leverage reviews and feedback to grow a strong online reputation, outperform your competitors, and make a positive impact on the bottom line.

References 

Invoca. “44 Statistics Automotive Marketers Need to Know in 2024” (https://www.invoca.com/blog/automotive-marketing-statistics) Access 03/19/2024.

How to Ask for a Review: Strategies and Examples to Boost Your Brand Reputation

Learning how to ask for a review can do wonders for your brand. Reviews help build your online reputation, bring added credibility to your company, amplify your search presence, and provide the kind of social proof that’s essential to influencing purchase decisions. 

Reviews are also an important source of valuable feedback about your products, services, and overall customer experience. Positive reviews highlight what you’re doing well while negative reviews help pinpoint areas that need improvement. By learning how to ask for reviews, organizations can actively contribute to a feedback loop that should help teams identify strengths and weaknesses and make necessary adjustments to enhance their offerings.

Why Ask Customers for Reviews?

When you deliver experiences that customers love, they won’t hesitate to vouch for you. All you have to do is ask.

It’s important to ask for reviews because they’re essential to your audience’s purchase decisions. This isn’t to mention the wide range of benefits that a steady flow of reviews brings to your business.

Reviews support your brand reputation management strategy. A stream of 5-star reviews from customers helps showcase the best that your brand has to offer. It also creates powerful social proof for inspiring shopper confidence and driving sales.

Asking for reviews often leads to high ratings. According to research by InMoment, reviews generated by review requests produce higher ratings (average of 4.34 stars) than unprompted reviews (3.89 stars). 

Reviews are one of the most important factors that determine your search performance. Reviews improve your brand’s search visibility. Most review websites and search engines prioritize businesses with a high volume of positive reviews, which can lead to better rankings and increased exposure to potential customers. In particular, your review signals — such as review count, ratings, review text, and review responses — are factored into organic and local search rankings.

Learning how to request a review is a great way to perform customer outreach. It encourages customer engagement and fosters a sense of community around your brand. When your customers feel that their opinions are valued, they are more likely to engage with your company and become loyal advocates.

Review requests can activate your brand promoters. By encouraging your customers to write reviews, you can convert the happiest, most satisfied ones into vocal promoters and word-of-mouth catalysts who’ll put in a good word about your brand. 

How to Ask for a Review: Best Practices and Examples

Your customers are often just a few clicks away from writing a great review of your business. Let’s explore some of the most effective ways to ask customers for reviews. 

Ask for Reviews via Email

A great way to get more reviews is by sending review request emails. These emails can be in the form of customer feedback surveys or just a simple message with a link where customers can leave a review.

If you’re just getting started with how to ask customers for reviews, email should be at the top of your list of channels. According to InMoment research, as much as 70% of reviews come from post-transactional review request emails. Using this method also means you can tie your reviews to transactions that actually happened (transactions through which you were able to collect customer email addresses) — lending valuable authenticity to your reviews.

Here’s an example of how to ask clients for reviews via email:

Always remember to keep your message short and simple. Avoid unnecessary questions or phrases that your customers are unlikely to understand. If you would like them to review your company on a specific review website, say so explicitly and provide clear instructions on how to do it.

How to Ask for Reviews: Examples of Subject Lines

  • We’d Love Your Feedback!
  • Got a Minute to Share Your Experience with Us?
  • Help Us Improve. Leave a Review Today.
  • How Did We Do? Leave a Review.
  • Your Opinion Matters. Review Us Here.
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Share Your Thoughts and Leave a Review. 
  • Review Request: Your Feedback Counts.
  • We Want to Hear from You! Review Your Experience with Us.

How to Ask for Reviews: Examples of Email Message Content

  • “Hi (customer’s name), We hope you enjoyed your recent experience with us. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us. Would you mind taking a moment to share your thoughts by leaving a review? Just click the link: (review link). Thank you for your support!”
  • “Dear (customer’s name), Thank you for choosing us! We strive to provide the best service possible, and your feedback helps us achieve that goal. Could you please take a moment to share your experience by leaving a review? Your input means a lot to us. Leave a review here: (review link). We appreciate your help!”
  • “Hi (customer’s name), We’re thrilled to hear that you’re enjoying our product/service! Your satisfaction is our top priority, and we’d love to hear more about your experience. Would you be willing to share your success story with others by leaving a review? Share your experience here: (review link). Thank you for being a part of our journey!”
  • “Hi (customer’s name)! Thank you again for choosing our company. It’s our priority to continue providing top-notch service to customers like you. Please leave us a review on our profile on (review site, with a link to your review website profile). It will only take a minute, but your valuable feedback will help us improve and make a huge difference to our company. Thank you!”

Feel free to customize these examples to fit your brand’s tone and style, and remember to keep the message clear, concise, and respectful of your customers’ time.

Request a Review Using SMS Messaging

Did you know that more than half of reviews are written or posted from mobile devices? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the age of voice dictation typing and tweet-sized reviews has also ushered in the growing trend of consumers engaging with brands and writing reviews straight from their phone or tablet.

This means that SMS messaging is also a powerful channel for companies looking to learn how to request a review. SMS open rates hover between 95% to 99%, with an average of about 98%. Additionally, research indicates that an impressive 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes.

To help optimize your response rates and gather valuable feedback from customers, here are some examples of how to ask for reviews via SMS messaging: 

  • “Hello (customer’s name), your recent experience matters to us. Share your feedback by clicking the link below: (review link). Thank you for choosing us!”
  • “Hi (customer’s name), thank you for your recent visit to our business location. We want to provide you with the best experience possible! To help us, please take a moment to leave your feedback. Click here (review link) to review. Thank you.”
  • “Hi (customer’s name), we value your opinion. Let us know how we’re doing by leaving a review here: (review link). Your feedback drives our continuous improvement efforts.”
  • Hello (customer’s name), your opinion matters to us. Could you take 1 minute to leave us feedback on your visit to our (business location)? This (review link) will take you to a quick survey with 3 questions. We appreciate your help!”

These review request templates can encourage customer engagement and enhance the quality of feedback you receive through SMS messaging. Feel free to customize the templates so that they align with your branding and communication style. By leveraging the immediacy and accessibility of mobile platforms and text messaging, your company can foster stronger connections with customers and accelerate experience improvement.

Create Website Landing Pages for Review Requests

To generate and collect valuable review and customer feedback data, a growing number of companies are creating their dedicated landing pages for reviews. 

It’s a great way to encourage customers to be more vocal about their experiences. These landing pages can be facilitated through the use of reputation management software, survey forms, or embeddable review widgets on your brand or company website; your developer team can also build a custom page to suit your needs. 

When using landing pages, clearly communicate the value of customer reviews and how they contribute to improving your products or services. Use persuasive language to encourage website visitors to leave their feedback. Also, make it simple for customers to submit reviews directly on the landing page. This could be in the form of a rating system, a text box for written feedback, or a combination of both.

Once the review landing pages have been set up, you should identify key touch points at which you can most effectively drive customers to the page. You can even share the link to the page across your social media profiles or give customers a friendly reminder to rate their experience in post-transactional situations.

Ask for Reviews at the Point of Sale

A straightforward way to ask for reviews from customers is by making the request right when they’re completing a purchase or finishing their visit.

Imagine a front-facing staff member wrapping up their interaction with a customer. The staff member hands the customer a device like an iPad or tablet and asks them to fill out a quick review request form.

Asking for reviews at the point of sale is a great way to capture actionable reviews and customer insights just moments after the crucial sales or care experience. It’s also a valuable opportunity for your business to strengthen your customer relationships. Not to mention, it’s a useful review request tactic in situations where you don’t yet have your customer’s contact information.

If a customer has had a negative experience, learning how to ask for a review at the point of sale gives you the opportunity to address their concerns immediately and potentially turn their experience around before it causes damage to your reputation.

It’s essential to approach the request for reviews at the point of sale tactfully. Here are some tips to consider: 

  • Be mindful of timing and the customer’s mood. 
  • Keep the request brief and non-intrusive. 
  • Provide options for leaving feedback (e.g., online form, QR code, paper feedback form).
  • Ensure compliance with all privacy and security requirements to protect consumer data from unauthorized access and misuse.
  • Respect the customer’s decision if they choose not to leave a review.

Also, when using a device to request feedback at the point of sale, avoid asking customers to log into their personal review website accounts and getting them to write their reviews on the spot. Instead, stick to a simple form with only a few blank fields to fill, or use a “kiosk mode” program that lets you send the actual review request later, through SMS or email. 

This strategy minimizes privacy and security concerns, while also preventing reviews from being generated using the same IP address as your business location. It also lets customers act on the request at their convenience, using their own devices.

Use a Google Reviews Link

According to InMoment research, 64% of consumers say they are likely to check Google reviews (through Google Maps and Search) before visiting a business location — more than any other review site.If you’re looking to enhance your visibility and brand presence with an optimized Google Business Profile, learning how to ask for a Google review with a Google reviews link is a tactic you can employ. A Google reviews link is a direct URL that leads your customers to a specific page on Google Maps where they can read and write reviews of your business locations.

Use this link to encourage customers to leave reviews directly on your Google Business Profile (without them having to search for your business manually). Creating and sharing a review link for Google also gives your company more control over the review process. By providing a direct link, you can guide customers directly to your Business Profile, ensuring they are leaving feedback on the correct listing and minimizing the chance of them getting sidetracked or leaving reviews on the wrong page.

Deploy Review Management Software 

For larger organizations with hundreds or thousands of business locations, leveraging an online review management software solution can be key to successful review generation. 

InMoment, for example, allows brands to set up automated review request campaigns, and then schedule these requests to be sent out at specific times, such as after a purchase or service interaction. It also allows teams to tailor their messaging and templates to match the brand voice, as well as include personalized elements like the customer’s name or details of their recent interaction with your business. View our automation in action with a live reputation demo.

Review management software can also integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system or other databases to pull in customer information automatically. This makes it easy to target the right customers with review requests.

You may also be able to access tools for monitoring and tracking reviews across various platforms, allowing your team to stay on top of what customers are saying and know when and how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback.

How to Ask Customers for Reviews: Important Things to Consider

There are a few considerations you have to make when learning how to ask for reviews from customers. Just as in other forms of communication with customers, timing is crucial. Other factors to keep in mind include: what to do after successfully generating reviews from requests, ensuring compliance with the terms of use and content guidelines of individual review websites, and whether or not it’s a good idea to incentivize review requests. 

When to Ask for Reviews

If you’re trying to get more reviews, you’ll want to optimize exactly when you ask your customers. Based on InMoment research, the best times to ask for reviews are between 2 to 3 PM and 6 to 7 PM. 

These are the times consumers are most likely to rate a business on Google. People are often visiting businesses during their lunch break or after work, so it may be the case that these hours are the time that consumers choose to reflect on their experiences. 

As far as when not to ask for reviews, the dead hours are from 2 AM to 3 AM. Interestingly enough, from the time people wake up (say, 6 AM to 7 AM) until lunchtime (anywhere between 12 NN to 1 PM), review-writing activity is generally slow, at least relative to the activity that occurs after lunch.

We at InMoment recommend that when asking for reviews, it’s best to send review requests in the afternoon. As mentioned above, another ideal time is to ask customers for reviews shortly after a sales or service transaction.

Personalize Your Review Request

Use the customer’s name and personalize your message based on their recent interaction with your business. A personalized review request feels more genuine and is more likely to resonate with the customer.

Also, be as transparent as possible and let customers know why reviews are important to your company. Explain how their feedback helps improve your products or services and assists other potential customers in making informed decisions.

How to Ensure Compliance with Review Website Guidelines

Your team should identify review websites where your company is allowed to encourage customers to post reviews. Yelp, for example, frowns upon businesses asking customers for reviews; it may hurt your Yelp rating because the website’s automated software may not recommend reviews that seem to be prompted or encouraged by the business. 

On the other hand, websites like Tripadvisor and Google welcome review requests from businesses, and even provide free tools for those looking to reach out proactively to customers for reviews.

What to Do After Successfully Getting a Review

When customers submit a review, the most important next step is to respond promptly. Acknowledge and thank the reviewer for their feedback, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative. Make your response personal and specific to the customer’s feedback. Address them by name if possible and reference specific aspects of their review.

If the review reflects a negative customer experience, be sure to act quickly and respond to let the customer know you are working on the issues they pointed out. If the review is positive, your team can still learn from it and gain insights into what people love about your brand. Take note of any common themes or patterns mentioned in reviews and use these to improve your products or services.

Should I Buy or Incentivize Reviews?

While it sounds like a quick and cost-effective solution to grow your online reputation and propel your brand to the top of search results, buying reviews will almost certainly do your company more harm than good. It’s a practice that leads to deceptively biased content, which most review platforms are trained to detect and penalize. 

As far as incentivized reviews, asking customers to review your company doesn’t mean you should reward those who do. It’s a practice that regulators caution against. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, considers positive third-party reviews as endorsements, and according to the agency, if there is any form of incentive or compensation or close relationship between an individual giving an endorsement and a business receiving it, this should be made explicit. Keep in mind that the FTC also considers it illegal to incentivize reviews even if there’s no requirement that the sentiment of the review should be positive.

Get Results with InMoment’s Review Management Software

The best way to get great reviews is to consistently deliver great customer experiences. Unlock the power of reviews for your brand with InMoment’s review management software. The world’s top brands partner with InMoment to transform their online reputation management strategy — with technology and tools that simply teams’ review request workflow. Start building a community of brand advocates and harness the benefits of asking for reviews today.

Local SEO: Tips & Strategies to Get Discovered

Did you know that 46% of all internet searches have local intent? In order to capitalize on this, your business needs to be actively working on your local SEO. Local search engine optimization (SEO) is an effective strategy for driving traffic and revenue to businesses of all sizes, not just smaller local businesses. Local SEO is one of the most important factors in how your business ranks in Google Search, Maps, and more. 

When executed effectively, it enables your business to attract customers organically, bypassing the need for hefty investments in traditional advertising. 

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches on search engines like Google. It involves various strategies to improve your website’s visibility in local search results, making it easier for potential customers in your area to find your business.

Why is Local SEO Important?

Local SEO is one of the most important factors for driving traffic to your business. As a matter of fact, 50% of smartphone users visited a business within a day of their local search. So it doesn’t matter if you are a local business, or have hundreds of locations across the country, capitalizing on local SEO is key to standing out from your competitors and driving business success. Ultimately, investing in local SEO equips you with the tools and strategies needed to enhance your online visibility, attract relevant traffic, and drive tangible business results, regardless of your business’s size or geographical footprint.

What is an Example of Local SEO?

An example of local SEO in action is when someone searches for a specific service or product with a location-based query, such as “plumber near me” or “coffee shop in Dallas.” In response, search engines like Google display a list of relevant businesses that match the user’s query and are located in or near the specified area. 

These search results are influenced by various local SEO factors, including the business’s proximity to the user’s location, the relevance of the business to the search query, and the prominence of the business’s online presence. By optimizing their websites, Google My Business listings, and other online profiles for local search, businesses can increase their chances of appearing in these local search results and attracting nearby customers.

How Does Local SEO Work?

When it comes to SEO and local SEO, there is not an exact list of everything you need to do to rank in the top positions. There is, however, a set of practices that organizations can follow in order to improve the rankings of their pages. There is a set of best practices for standard SEO, and a set of best practices for local SEO. 

When it comes to local SEO, the ranking factors are more personal to your business. These factors include: 

  • A claimed and verified Google Business Profile
  • Consistent and accurate business information such as name, address, and phone number. Often referred to as NAP
  • High-quality images and videos to your Google Business Profile
  • Local content that caters towards local interests, events, and news
  • Positive sentiments in customer reviews

While this is not an exhaustive list, this gives you an idea of some of the most important local SEO ranking factors. To imagine what these look like in action, imagine a local bakery wants to improve their local SEO rankings so they can get more organic traffic to their business. 

The business owner would claim and verify their Google Business Profile, and then complete the setup by inputting the proper NAP information as well as high-quality images of the bakery. The business owner would then create localized content such as blog posts about upcoming local events where they will be showcasing their products. Finally, the business owner would ask satisfied customers to leave a positive review, so that future prospective customers can see the positive experience that others have had. 

How Long Does a Local SEO Strategy Take?

The timeline for seeing results from local SEO efforts can vary depending on various factors, including the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of your optimization efforts, and the specific strategies you’re implementing. Generally, you may start seeing improvements in local search rankings within a few weeks to several months.

For businesses in less competitive industries or smaller geographic areas, you may see results sooner, often within a few weeks of implementing local SEO strategies. This could include improvements in local search rankings, increased website traffic, and more visibility in local search results.

However, for businesses in highly competitive industries or larger geographic areas, it may take longer to see significant results from local SEO efforts. In these cases, it may take several months of consistent optimization, content creation, citation building, and other strategies to see noticeable improvements in local search rankings and online visibility.

It’s important to note that local SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring, adjustment, and optimization. While you may start seeing initial results within a few weeks or months, the full benefits of local SEO often accrue over time as you continue to build your online presence, attract more local customers, and establish your business as a trusted authority in your community.

Local SEO Tips & Strategies

While the basic local SEO tips such as an optimized Google Business Profile, local content, and asking for reviews have already been covered, there are certain strategies you can implement that will capitalize on those tips to help you succeed. 

Local Content Marketing Strategy

Local content marketing involves creating and promoting content that specifically targets and resonates with your local audience. This strategy aims to establish your business as a valuable resource within the community while also improving your visibility in local search results. Here’s how to implement a local content marketing strategy effectively:

1. Understand Your Local Audience 

  • Start by researching your local community to understand their interests, needs, and preferences.
  • Identify common pain points, questions, or topics of interest that your audience is searching for online.

2. Create Localized Content

  • Develop content ideas that are relevant to your local audience, such as guides to local attractions, events, or hidden gems in your area.
  • Incorporate local keywords naturally into your content to improve its visibility in local search results.
  • Use storytelling and personal anecdotes to make your content relatable and engaging for local readers.

3. Promote Your Content Locally

  • Share your content on local social media channels, community forums, and neighborhood groups to increase its visibility within the community.
  • Collaborate with other local businesses or organizations to cross-promote each other’s content and reach a broader audience.
  • Consider sponsoring local events or community initiatives that align with your brand values and target audience to increase exposure for your content.

4. Engage with Your Audience

  • Monitor comments, shares, and feedback on your content and respond promptly and thoughtfully to engage with your audience.
  • Encourage user-generated content by hosting contests, challenges, or events that encourage your audience to share their experiences and stories related to your business or community.
  • Incorporate feedback and suggestions from your audience into future content ideas to ensure that your content remains relevant and valuable to your local community. This will also encourage from the google local guide program to interact with your business.

5. Track and Measure Results

  • Use analytics tools to track the performance of your local content marketing efforts, including website traffic, engagement metrics, and conversions.
  • Monitor changes in local search rankings for targeted keywords related to your content to assess its impact on your overall local SEO strategy.
  • Adjust your content marketing strategy based on the insights gained from tracking and measuring results to optimize your efforts and drive continued success.

Local Link Building Strategy

Local link building involves acquiring backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites within your local community. These backlinks not only improve your website’s authority and credibility but also signal to search engines that your business is highly relevant to local search queries. 

1. Identify Local Link Opportunities

  • Research local businesses, organizations, and community websites that are relevant to your industry or target audience.
  • Look for opportunities to collaborate or contribute content that could earn you backlinks, such as guest blogging, sponsoring events, or participating in local charity initiatives.

2. Create Compelling Linkable Assets

  • Develop high-quality, informative, and shareable content that other websites in your community would want to link to.
  • Examples of linkable assets include in-depth guides, infographics, case studies, or local resource directories that provide value to your audience and demonstrate your expertise in your industry.

3. Reach Out to Local Websites

  • Craft personalized outreach emails to local websites, introducing yourself and your business, and explaining how your content or expertise could benefit their audience.
  • Be polite, concise, and specific about what you’re offering and why it would be valuable to their readers or followers.
  • Follow up with a friendly reminder if you don’t hear back initially, but avoid being pushy or overly aggressive in your follow-up approach.

4. Build Relationships with Local Influencers

  • Identify local influencers, bloggers, or journalists who cover topics relevant to your business or industry.
  • Engage with them on social media, comment on their blog posts, and share their content to start building a relationship and establishing trust.
  • Once you’ve built rapport, pitch them your content or expertise as a valuable resource for their audience, and ask if they would consider linking to it or featuring it on their platform.

5. Monitor and Maintain Your Backlink Profile

  • Keep track of the backlinks you’ve earned from local websites and monitor their status regularly.
  • Respond promptly to any requests for link removal or changes to ensure that your backlink profile remains healthy and free from spammy or low-quality links.
  • Continuously seek out new link opportunities and update your outreach efforts to reflect changes in your industry or local community.

While this is not a full list of every available local SEO strategy, this gives you an insight into what more complex local SEO techniques may look like, and how you can implement them for your business. 

Features to Look for in Local SEO Software

When selecting a local SEO software for your business, there are many different features available. But, it is important to choose a software that directly aligns with your business goals. Here are some common local SEO features to consider: 

  • Local Business Listing Management: Software that helps you manage your business listings on local directories, review sites, and other online platforms to ensure your business information is accurate and up-to-date.
  • Review Monitoring and Management: Tools that enable you to monitor and manage customer reviews across multiple review sites, allowing you to respond promptly and maintain a positive online reputation.
  • Geotargeting Capabilities: Features that allow you to target specific geographic areas with your SEO efforts, such as creating location-specific landing pages or targeting ads to users in specific locations.
  • Local Rank Tracking: Tools that track your local search rankings for target keywords and provide insights into your performance compared to competitors in your area.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Features that provide comprehensive reports and analytics on your local SEO performance, including metrics such as visibility, traffic, conversions, and ROI.

What is the Difference Between SEO and Local SEO?

The main difference between SEO and local SEO lies in their target audience and geographic focus. While both SEO and Local SEO aim to improve a website’s visibility in search engine results, SEO targets a broader audience on a national or global scale, while Local SEO focuses on attracting customers from specific geographic areas. Here are some other key differences between the two:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

  • SEO focuses on optimizing a website’s visibility and rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) on a broader scale, typically targeting a global or national audience.
  • The goal of SEO is to improve the website’s overall search engine visibility and attract organic traffic from users searching for relevant keywords, regardless of their location.
  • SEO strategies include optimizing website content, improving site structure and navigation, earning backlinks from authoritative websites, and enhancing user experience to increase rankings in search results.

Local SEO

  • Local SEO, on the other hand, is specifically geared toward optimizing a business’s online presence to attract more customers from local searches within a specific geographic area.
  • The primary focus of local SEO is to ensure that a business appears prominently in local search results when users search for products or services in their vicinity.
  • Local SEO strategies include optimizing the Google My Business listing, creating locally relevant content, building citations on online directories, managing online reviews, and targeting keywords with local intent.
  • The target audience for local SEO is local consumers who are actively searching for nearby businesses, making it ideal for brick-and-mortar stores, service-based businesses, and businesses with physical locations.

What Does Local SEO Have to Do With Reputation Management?

Local SEO and online reputation management are closely intertwined, as both play critical roles in shaping a business’s online presence and influencing consumer perceptions. Here are some examples of how they are connected.

Online Reviews

Online reviews, such as Google reviews, are a key component of both local SEO and reputation management. Positive reviews not only contribute to a business’s local search rankings but also enhance its reputation by showcasing satisfied customers’ experiences. Conversely, negative reviews can harm local search visibility and damage a business’s reputation. Managing and responding to reviews effectively is essential for both local SEO success and reputation management.

Google Business Profile Listing

A well-optimized Google Business Profile listing is crucial for local SEO, as it directly impacts a business’s visibility in local search results. However, it also serves as a platform for managing and responding to customer reviews, which is essential for reputation management. Maintaining accurate business information, posting updates, and engaging with customers on GMB can positively influence both local SEO and reputation.

Local Citations and Directories

Consistent business listings across online directories, citation sites, and review platforms are important for local SEO, as they help search engines validate a business’s credibility and relevance. However, these listings also serve as touchpoints for customers to leave reviews and ratings, which can significantly impact a business’s reputation. Ensuring that business information is accurate and up-to-date across all citations is essential for both local SEO and reputation management.

Local Content and Social Proof

Creating locally relevant content and showcasing social proof, such as testimonials and case studies, are strategies used in both local SEO and reputation management. Local content helps businesses connect with their target audience in specific geographic areas, improving local search visibility and enhancing reputation by demonstrating expertise and relevance. Social proof builds trust and credibility, which are critical for both attracting customers through local search and maintaining a positive reputation.

In summary, local SEO and reputation management are interconnected strategies that work together to enhance a business’s online presence, attract customers in specific geographic areas, and build trust and credibility among its target audience. By effectively managing online reviews, optimizing local listings, creating relevant content, and showcasing social proof, businesses can improve their local search rankings and reputation simultaneously.

Improve Your Local SEO with InMoment

InMoment’s reputation management software allows you to pinpoint and enhance your local search presence by focusing on the terms customers use to discover your brand. You will also be able to analyze your brand’s current ranking and pinpoint critical areas for enhancing search visibility. See what InMoment can do for you by scheduling a reputation management demo today!

References 

Sagapixel. 18 Local SEO Stats That Will Blow You Away. (https://sagapixel.com/seo/local-seo-stats/). Access 2/28/24. 

Forbes Advisor. 60 SEO Statistics for 2024. (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/seo-statistics/). Access 2/28/24.

How to Create and Share a Google Reviews Link

One of the most effective ways to improve your company’s search ranking on Google is to use a Google reviews link to generate high-quality online reviews of your business locations.

A Google review link makes it easy for your customers to share their experiences with your business online. Proactively asking for feedback in the form of Google reviews is a great way to strengthen customer relationships, connecting your brand to the voices that matter the most. A review link for Google is also a tool that can dramatically improve your search engine performance, essential to attracting more customers and increasing your conversion. 

According to research by InMoment:

  • About 70% of reviews come from companies reaching out to customers to ask for / request reviews.
  • Reviews from review requests produce higher ratings (an average of 4.34 stars) than unprompted reviews (3.89 stars).

Google reviews are particularly important marketing assets for any business organization. Online reputation management statistics show that the purchase decisions of 90% of consumers are influenced by reviews, and a majority (63%) use Google reviews before they even visit a business or store location.

Your customers are no more than a few clicks away from sharing their experiences and writing authentic reviews of your business. A Google reviews link is the perfect tool to help your team capitalize on this opportunity.

What is a Google Reviews Link?

A Google reviews link is a direct URL that leads users to a specific page on Google Maps where they can read and write reviews. 

Savvy marketers and brands use a Google review link to encourage customers to leave reviews, as this provides a convenient way for users to access the review section on a Google Business Profile directly without having to search for the business manually on Google. There are various ways for your team to create and share this link, which fits well with other efforts to build a community of advocates building hype for your business. 

Can’t People Just Search for Your Business on Google and Leave a Review That Way?

Anyone with a mobile device or computer can simply search for your business or brand name on Google and select “Write a review” when they find your Business Profile. However, not all of your customers are aware of how to review businesses on Google; asking them to do so without providing a Google reviews link may lead to them abandoning the process. 

Simply put: people are more likely to leave a review if the process is streamlined and straightforward. Learning how to get a Google review link (and share it with customers) eliminates unnecessary steps, increasing the likelihood of customers taking the time to leave valuable feedback.

Creating and sharing a review link for Google also gives your company more control over the review process. By providing a direct link, you can guide customers directly to your Google Business Profile, ensuring they are leaving feedback on the correct listing and minimizing the chance of them getting sidetracked or leaving reviews on the wrong page.

How to Create a Google Review Link

There are various ways to create and share your Google reviews link. Here are some of the most popular options, along with step-by-step instructions:

Option 1: Google Search

Conduct a Google search of your business or brand name using a computer. To the right side of the search results page, you will find a section that displays a summary of information from your Google Business Profile.

Click the “(Number of) Google reviews” link or button, usually found below your business name and photo gallery. When the review window pops up, copy the URL in the address bar on the top of your web browser.

Option 2: Google Business Profile Manager

If you are using Google Business Profile to manage your business information on Google, it should be simple and easy to create and share a Google review link. Just log into Google Business Profile Manager. 

Choose the business you want to get a link to Google reviews for (if you own multiple businesses) then click “See your profile.”

This will open a new tab on your browser, with information about “your business on Google.” Scroll down to see the actions you can take on your Business Profile and choose “Ask for reviews.” This functions as a Google review link generator: a popup window will appear, containing your unique link which you can then share via email, WhatsApp, or Facebook, among others.

Option 3: Place ID Finder Tool

Another way to find your Google review link is to use the Place ID Finder tool, which you’ll find on this Google Maps developer page

A Google Maps developer page features the ever-so-handy Place ID Finder tool. All you need to do is enter the name of your business location (that you’d like to ask reviews for) in the search bar.

Once you have found and selected the location, a text window above the business will appear on the map. This will contain a series of numbers, letters, and symbols that make up the “Place ID”. Copy that Place ID onto the URL below after the “placeid=” string.

  • https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=

For example, if your place ID on Google is 123456ABCDE2024, then your Google reviews link will be: 

  • https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=123456ABCDE2024

Copy and save this URL, which you can then use to share with customers as your Google reviews link.

Option 4: InMoment’s Online Reputation Management Software

Companies can also use InMoment’s reputation management software solution as a Google review link generator. With InMoment’s robust review management feature set, you can streamline the process of requesting reviews from customers in order to improve your local search visibility and acquire more customers. 

In particular, the survey and review request tools within InMoment enables teams to capture valuable feedback and generate links that direct your customers to your Google Business Profile, as well as your review pages and listings on other online review websites.

Where and How to Share a Google Review Link

You can share your Google review link through various channels to encourage customers to leave reviews of your business or store locations. Here are some of the ways you can share the link effectively:

Send an Email

Include the Google reviews link in your email newsletters, order confirmation emails, or follow-up emails after a customer’s purchase or service experience. Personalize the message and politely ask customers to leave a review.

Generate a Google Review QR Code

QR codes in stores and business locations have become ubiquitous. You can use this technology to generate more Google reviews for your locations by placing or printing the code on your checkout counters, receipts, post-transaction emails, and other marketing materials.

Share the Link on Social Media

You can also share your Google review link on your company’s social media profiles. Craft a post explaining the importance of reviews and encourage followers to share their experiences. You can also pin the post to the top of your profile for increased visibility.

Add the Link on Your Website

You also have the option of adding a “Leave a Review” button or link on your website. You can place it prominently on your homepage, in the footer, or on the contact page. This makes it easy for visitors to find your unique Google review link and leave a review.

Best Practices to Get Reviews

When sharing your Google reviews link, it’s essential to provide clear instructions on how to use it and why leaving a review is valuable to your business. Make it as easy as possible for customers to click the link and leave their feedback. 

Additionally, consider offering incentives or rewards for leaving Google reviews to further encourage participation. (This will also motivate customers who are part of the Google Local Guide program.) However, be sure to adhere to Google’s guidelines regarding soliciting reviews to avoid any potential violations.

To ensure that your efforts successfully generate reviews for your Google Business Profile, follow these best practices: 

  • Claim your Google Business Profile and get verified.
  • Remind customers to leave reviews.
  • Stay compliant with review guidelines.
  • Learn how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback so that you can build trust and goodwill among customers who leave reviews. 
  • Shorten your Google review link and keep it so you can track it.

Get Google Reviews and Build Consumer Trust with InMoment

A stream of reviews from customers created by your Google reviews link helps showcase the best of your brand and creates powerful social proof for inspiring consumer confidence and driving sales. Take InMoment’s reputation management solution for a test drive to learn how our software can help your team generate more reviews, boost your brand reputation, and improve your search engine performance.

Every Brand’s Guide to Online Reputation Management

In today’s digital age, the reputation of organizations can be significantly impacted by what is being said about them online. This is why online reputation management has become a key growth driver for businesses: it is crucial for maintaining a positive digital footprint for your company and brand, while also helping build trust with your stakeholders. 

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management (ORM) is the use of multiple strategies and tactics designed to monitor, influence, and improve the online perception of your company, organization, and brand. It ensures that online content accurately reflects your business’s desired image. Ideally, ORM is approached as a holistic process that involves a combination of activities, including:

  • Reputation measurement
  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Media and public relations
  • Online review management
  • Social listening and social media marketing
  • Customer experience management
  • Employer branding
  • Local listings management

Benefits of Online Reputation Management

Effectively managing your online brand reputation can inspire consumer confidence, foster loyalty, and drive bottom-line growth. On the other hand, a negative online reputation can drive prospects away and lead to the loss of existing customers; at the same time, it can pinpoint areas of improvement, helping your team update business processes to meet customer needs.

  • Only 5% of users look past the first page of Google search engine results. First impressions count, especially online. 
  • Customers don’t trust companies with lower than 4-star ratings. The most common filter applied is to see only companies with 4-star ratings and higher. Meanwhile, 84% don’t trust advertising and traditional sales messaging.
  • Positive reviews make 74% of consumers trust a business more. On the other hand, 60% of consumers say that negative reviews made them not want to choose a business. 
  • 84% of job seekers say the brand reputation of a company as an employer of choice is important.

These numbers highlight the importance of effective digital reputation management. Key benefits include:

  • Improved brand image: Managing your online reputation will help your company maintain a positive online presence, reinforcing the desired image and values associated with your brand.
  • Stronger customer relationships. Organizations that are responsive to what’s being said about them online (such as in reviews and social media comments) are better positioned to foster strong and lasting relationships with customers. 
  • Improved brand credibility and trust. Positive online reviews, testimonials, and content build credibility and trust among customers and stakeholders.
  • Improved search engine performance. Positive content generated through Internet reputation management efforts can help improve your search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to discover and choose you over the competition. 
  • Better crisis prevention and management. Good reputation management allows organizations to detect and address potential reputation threats early, minimizing the impact of negative publicity, reviews, and crises. ORM strategies can also help repair damaged reputations and rebuild trust. 
  • Improved talent acquisition. A positive online reputation improves your organization’s ability to attract and retain top talent, which is key to company success and growth.

Most importantly, effective online reputation management ensures that everyone who comes into contact with your brand — customers, prospects, employees, suppliers, the media, and stakeholders — will have a reliably positive, engaging, and valuable experience.

Is Online Reputation Management the Same as SEO?

Online reputation management (ORM) and search engine optimization (SEO) are related concepts in digital marketing, but they have key differences in their areas of focus and how results are measured.

  • Managing online reputation typically involves monitoring and managing mentions, responding to reviews and customer feedback, engaging with the audience to build trust and credibility, and creating positive content to influence public perception. ORM’s primary focus is to shape and manage the online perception of your brand. 
  • SEO, meanwhile, focuses on improving your brand visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or phrases. The main goal is to drive organic traffic through content creation and optimization.

ORM and SEO serve distinct purposes and employ different strategies to achieve their respective goals. However, there can be overlaps, as aspects of ORM, such as managing online reviews and generating positive content, can indirectly contribute to SEO efforts by enhancing your brand reputation and credibility, which can then positively impact search engine rankings.

Managing Online Reputation: How to Protect Your Brand

If your business performance hasn’t matched expectations, it may be useful to check up on your reputation and see how customers talk about and perceive your brand. Let’s dive deeper into the ways you can manage your online reputation and protect your brand. 

Audit and Monitor Your Brand Reputation

Learning how to audit, measure, and monitor your digital reputation is a great way to understand how people feel about your brand and what they think of when they come across your company’s products and services.

When auditing the content that appears online about your brand, ask questions like: 

  • Is your brand well-known online? Does it have a good following on social media and other digital platforms, and does it show up prominently in search engine results?
  • How do customers and leads perceive your brand, and what is the underlying sentiment behind their interactions and experiences with your business? 
  • What kind of content appears on search engine results pages, review websites, and social media sites whenever your business or brand is being searched? Is the content positive, neutral, or negative? 
  • How does your reputation stack up against competitors? Does your company have an understanding of industry benchmarks and online reputation management statistics to help influence your goals?

Win Your Local Search Market

97% of people learn about and find local businesses online. Whether you’re running a small business or an enterprise-level organization with hundreds or thousands of business locations, it’s important to establish your visibility in search engines through the management and optimization of your local business listings.

These listings appear in search results when people search for your company online. Not only do they display your business information; they also play a vital role in determining your brand reputation, search engine rankings, and revenue.

Part of successful brand reputation management is creating effective local listings that accurately reflect your brand as well as drive customers to your business locations. This involves a good amount of research, data entry, verification procedures, and manually logging in and out of websites — which you have to repeat every time your business information changes: say, you moved your business address or your store hours changed. 

To stay efficient, you must have an understanding of which ones matter most to you. When managed and optimized properly, listings can serve as powerful marketing assets that can do wonders for your brand. They can do the same job as traditional advertising and marketing, but where offline or print efforts may fall short — specifically: getting your business found online — a sound local listing management strategy can make the most impact.

Engage Effectively On Social Media

Many of the world’s top brands are known for having an active, thoughtful, and engaging social media presence. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Linkedin, brands with an excellent reputation often have rapidly growing communities of social media fans and followers.

Social media, after all, offers a great platform not only for raising awareness about your products and services but also for establishing your company’s thought leadership and expertise. 

Apart from pushing promotional brand content, your team should keep an eye out for conversations about your brand. Develop a social listening strategy if this is something you don’t yet have. Answer questions that users bring up when they mention you, steer them towards content that provides additional context if they have an early interest in your offerings, or simply thank people if they mention their experience at one of your locations.

Social media is also an effective channel for generating goodwill for your brand, and for crafting your digital reputation in ways that inspire customers’ trust. Your organization may also consider investing in social listening tools to understand the full spectrum of conversation around your brand, as well as to monitor social media for any negative comments or mentions.

Master the Art of Responding to Reviews

Companies need to learn how to respond to negative reviews, especially in situations where these reviews might damage their brand reputation.

According to InMoment research, companies aren’t responding fast enough (or at all) to reviews. 53% of customers expect businesses to respond to negative reviews within a week. 1 in 3 have a shorter time frame of 3 days or less.

Ensure that your team has a process in place for getting back to customers and replying to their reviews. When you receive low ratings or negative feedback, act quickly to resolve issues. Take time to thank your reviewers for sharing their feedback, and always personalize your responses and reinforce the positives in the customer experience. 

By mastering the art of responding to reviews, you can protect and strengthen your brand reputation while also driving meaningful engagement with customers.

Encourage Customer Reviews Online

When you deliver experiences that customers love, they won’t hesitate to vouch for you. All you have to do is ask. So, as part of your online reputation management strategy, establish a workflow for requesting reviews from customers. 

A stream of 5-star reviews from customers helps showcase your business and creates powerful social proof for inspiring shopper confidence and driving sales. Proactively asking for reviews and customer feedback is also a great way to perform instant outreach: it helps strengthen customer relationships and connects your business to the voices that matter the most. This isn’t to mention the SEO impact of new reviews, which can improve your search engine visibility and amplify your listings’ local SEO signals. 

Plan for Crisis

By planning for potential crises in advance, a company can develop communication strategies and procedures to respond quickly and effectively when a crisis occurs. This proactive approach allows you to mitigate the negative impact on your brand reputation before the situation escalates. 

In times of crisis, stakeholders also look to the company for leadership and transparency. A well-planned crisis management plan helps maintain trust by demonstrating the organization’s commitment to addressing issues responsibly. 

Capture and Analyze Customer Feedback

There is a range of reputational benefits that can come from listening, acting, and responding to what customers say about your brand, product, service, or business location. By capturing and analyzing customer feedback, you can also: 

  • Measure and improve your customer experience KPIs and metrics
  • Customize your products and services to respond to the voiced needs and wants of your customers 
  • Drive customer satisfaction and loyalty 
  • Prioritize high-impact customer issues, trends, and developments that are impacting the customer experience
  • Evaluate new ways of gaining a competitive advantage 
  • Generate advanced marketing insights and opportunities

When capturing customer feedback, be sure to collect data from sources such as surveys, focus group discussions, field reports, and customer roundtables. Digital innovations have expanded the ways you can listen to the voice of the customer, which means you can also capture feedback from emails, NPS results, usability tests, online reviews, social media comments, and more.

Choosing Your Online Reputation Management Solution: Features to Look For

When selecting an online reputation management solution or services provider, it’s crucial to consider various features that align with your specific needs and goals. Here are some key features to look for:

Review Management

The best reputation management solutions help companies efficiently manage and respond to online reviews.

Reviews on websites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Tripadvisor can impact your online brand reputation. By having a review management tool in place, your team can streamline the process of monitoring, responding to, analyzing, and generating reviews. A review response workflow is of particular importance: by getting back to customers promptly and professionally, you can build goodwill and inspire customer loyalty. 

Social Media Listening and Monitoring

Social listening is a marketing concept that’s used to describe a wide range of processes that involve tracking and monitoring online mentions and social media comments containing your brand name. Social media listening tools can even help teams interpret data and gain actionable insights from social media conversations.

In today’s age — where first impressions of brands are often created on digital properties and social media platforms — a good understanding of your brand awareness and reputation is critical. An effective social listening strategy can help you achieve this type of understanding.

Apart from enabling your company to monitor social media mentions and comments, social listening also gives you access to the full spectrum of conversation around your brand. This, in turn, can help you discover trends and patterns that shape your brand reputation and define the customer experience — helping you achieve a more accurate, complete, and unified view of the customer, as well as implement changes based on feedback.

Local SEO and Local Listings Management

Incorrect and outdated business data that appears online can drive away customers who could have become customers and loyal fans of your brand. When looking for an online reputation management solution, consider looking for features that help you manage your local listings. This helps you achieve brand consistency in the digital landscape and prevents situations — incorrect hours, an outdated phone number, missing website URLs — that could frustrate potential customers.

Customer Experience Management

Beyond monitoring mentions and reviews, it’s also useful to look for Internet reputation management solutions that are capable of capturing and analyzing trends, topics, and data that impact the customer experience. This can provide valuable insights into potential areas of improvement, emerging issues, and opportunities for engagement.

For organizations of any size, this can be a complex and challenging process that involves strategy, integration of technology, and executive commitment. A customer experience platform should help your company achieve a complete and accurate picture (360-degree view) of your customers, with integrated up-to-date reputational data and customer data, so that your company can monitor, manage, and organize every interaction throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

Competitive Intelligence and Industry Benchmarking

Competitive intelligence tools give you access to insights that help your organization understand the target market, identify areas where competitors outperform you, benchmark your performance against competitors, and measure your progress against theirs.

One of the most important insights you can gather is accurate information on how potential customers perceive and talk about your brand vs. the competition. When evaluating solutions, it’s useful to look for an online reputation management tool that offers the ability to evaluate and monitor the competition in terms of their online reviews, ratings, search rankings, and reputation.

The competition’s review data, automatically categorized, can deliver insights into areas that the competition excels in as well as areas where they are lacking. That way, you can build strategies to create more desirable consumer experiences.

Employer Brand Monitoring

Companies with positive employer branding get twice as many applications as companies with negative brands, and they spend less money on employees. As part of your online reputation management activities, your leadership team must put their employer brand under careful watch.

An employer brand monitoring solution can help you better understand your value proposition (as an employer), listen to authentic, candid feedback from employees, grow your company’s social media presence, and effectively monitor employee reviews on websites like Indeed and Glassdoor. 

Build and Grow Your Online Reputation with InMoment

Companies of every size and across every industry or business category can benefit from effective online reputation management software and strategy. This couldn’t be more true in today’s age, when consumers make purchase decisions based on your online reputation, more so than on your advertising, direct sales messages, pricing, or branded promotional content. 

The world’s top brands partner with InMoment to manage, protect, and strengthen their online reputation. By combining reviews, ratings, and social media data with multichannel Voice of the Customer feedback, InMoment provides integrated insights companies need to build a rock-solid online reputation as well as deliver captivating customer experiences.

References 

Poll the People. “Value Of #1 Position On Google – Positional Analysis Study” (https://pollthepeople.app/the-value-of-google-result-positioning-3/). Access 2/8/2024.

The Complete Guide: How to Respond to Google Reviews

Learning how to respond to Google reviews should be part of every company’s brand reputation management strategy. 

These reviews, which appear on Google Maps and Google Search as well as on your company’s Google Business Profile, give people a way to share their experiences not only with businesses but with fellow consumers, too. Meanwhile, Google searchers rely on these reviews to discover great businesses, products, services, and brands. 

This makes responding to Google reviews extremely important, especially for companies looking to convert prospects and casual visitors into customers and loyal fans. 

The Importance of Responding to Google Reviews

Learning how to respond to Google reviews is important for several reasons. First and foremost, it directly impacts a company’s online reputation and customer relationships. According to research by InMoment, Google is the world’s number 1 online review platform, with 63.6% of consumers saying they are likely to check Google reviews (through Maps and Search) before visiting a business location — more than any other review site. 

Responses also show that a company values and appreciates customer feedback, while also demonstrating transparency and a commitment to addressing customer concerns or acknowledging positive experiences.

Research by InMoment underscores the importance of learning how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback on Google. 

  • 94% of consumers say that a negative review has convinced them to avoid a business.
  • 53% expect companies to respond to negative reviews within 7 days. However, after posting a review, 63% say they’ve never heard back from the business they reviewed. 
  • 45% of consumers say they’re more likely to visit a store or business location if they see that its management responds to negative reviews on Google as well as on other review websites. 
  • Based on online reputation management statistics, Google is number one in the list of top review sites, with 63.6% of consumers saying they’re likely to check reviews on Google before visiting a business — more than those consulting any other review site.

In short, responding to reviews helps in building consumer trust and brand credibility. Engaging with reviews can even improve your company’s visibility in search engine results; after all, Google tends to favor businesses that actively manage their online presence. 

How to Respond to Reviews on Google

Google provides a free tool (the Google Business Profile dashboard) for business owners to easily manage their information and respond to reviews posted by their customers. Alternatively, larger organizations and enterprise-level brands with hundreds or thousands of locations can drive efficiency and streamline their review response workflow by using an online review management software solution. 

Respond to Reviews from Google Search or Maps

To get started on how to respond to Google reviews, you’ll first need to claim your company’s Google Business Profile. This should give you access to respond publicly to your reviews via the Google Business Profile management dashboard.

To respond to reviews, follow these steps:

  • Sign into Google using the account associated with your Google Business Profile.
  • Using your computer or mobile device, go to Google Maps and tap Business. Alternatively, you may use Google Search and enter your business name in the search bar.
  • Select Reviews.
  • Next to the review you’d like to respond to, select Reply.

With a Google Business Profile account, you should also be able to edit your review replies after they have been posted. Look for the review you would like to edit the response to, and click Edit. 

Respond to Reviews with Reputation Management Software

For larger organizations getting started on how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback on Google and other review websites, investing in online reputation management software can introduce efficiencies and make the task of responding to reviews a lot easier than if it were to be done manually.

InMoment, for example, offers direct integration with the Google Business Profile platform. This means that companies can respond to Google reviews from within InMoment’s reputation management solution. Moreover, teams can manage their “Response” status and workflow from within InMoment, ensuring that every Google review and piece of unsolicited feedback gets a prompt response. 

Best Practices: How to Respond to Negative Reviews

Oftentimes, the way you respond to customers has just as much impact on your online reputation as what’s being said in the first place. Knowing how to respond to negative reviews skillfully minimizes the potential damage the reviews may have on your brand.

You can follow these best practices as you navigate the (sometimes treacherous) waters of Google reviews and ratings.

Assign Ownership and Create a Review Response Policy

Success in managing reviews starts with the commitment to becoming a responsive business. This may sound simple enough, but for organizations with multiple locations represented by multiple business listings and profiles, trying to figure out how to respond to Google reviews can sometimes present a real challenge — especially without an effective review response program or policy in place. 

First, identify people in your organization who will be directly involved in managing your Google Business Profile and responding to reviews. They can be your branch or location managers, your social media marketing team, or even your customer service staff. Be sure to assign ownership to teams or individuals with a good understanding of the guidelines of each review site, who can transform feedback into insights for your company, and who — most important of all — can keep their temper in check.

If you operate in multiple locations, chances are more than one person will be assigned to respond directly to online reviews. This makes it crucial to have an organization-wide policy that guides how your company should proceed whenever new customer reviews are posted on Google or other review websites. 

Response Guidelines for Reviews

Your policy should cover things like:

  • What language and tone you should use
  • What the timeline is for getting back to customers
  • To whom in your organization should the reviews and feedback be shared
  • What types of situations do escalations become necessary
  • What the ideal response rate is
  • Other items that may affect how your company handles reviews

The timeliness of your review responses is particularly crucial. The more clearly defined your policy is, the more smoothly your review response program will run.

Respond in a Timely Manner

According to InMoment research, more than half of your customers who have written reviews expect a response in 7 days or less. 1 in 4 have an even shorter time frame: they expect to hear back from the business within 3 days. To ensure that you don’t miss their feedback, set up review alerts so you are notified of new reviews. 

Also, you definitely don’t want to be logging in and out of every review site manually — this is where a review management software solution will come in handy. Remember: the clock begins ticking once reviews are posted, and customers are waiting to hear back from you.

Address the Reviewer and Say Thank You

Your customers want to be heard individually and addressed personally. Remember to include your salutations and, if possible, avoid generic phrases like “Dear guest” or “Dear customer.” With Google reviews, you can usually get the first name of the reviewer; not addressing them by their names is not an excuse if the information is there. 

Examples of Thank You Responses to Reviews

Remember to also say thank you and show customers that your business appreciates and values candid feedback. Here are examples of how you might phrase your review responses:

  • “Thank you for your review. We are sorry to hear you had a frustrating experience, but our team appreciates you bringing this issue to our attention.” 
  • “Thank you for your Google review and for bringing this to our attention. We’re sorry you had a bad experience. We’ll strive to do better. ” 
  • “Thank you for letting us know about this. Your honest feedback helps us get better. We are looking into this issue and hope to resolve it promptly and accurately.”

Take Responsibility and Apologize

This is one of the most difficult best practices to follow when you’re learning how to respond to negative reviews. Saying sorry shows that you care about your customers and that you’re not too proud to own up to your mistakes. Even if it’s not your fault, and there will be times when this is true, apologize anyway. Besides, people don’t like brands that are too perfect or too proud to apologize.

There will be times when your company has to take full responsibility, particularly in cases where the negative review is accurate. Even if what happened was an uncommon instance, an isolated case, an unfortunate incident, or an off day — acknowledge the customer’s experience. At the same time, provide reassurance that your company holds itself to high standards. 

Here are a few examples of how you can respond: 

  • “We always aim to deliver a great experience. We are gutted when we miss the mark! Thanks for taking the time to bring this to our attention. We will use the feedback to make us better and to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
  • “We’re so sorry that your experience with our company did not match your expectations. This is on us.” 
  • “We set a high standard for ourselves, and we’re so sorry to hear this was not met in your interaction with our business. We’d like the opportunity to investigate your feedback further.”
  • “We are truly sorry. We are known for our exceptional attention to detail, and we regret that we missed the mark on this occasion.”

Be Nice and Don’t Get Personal

It’s important to maintain a professional and courteous tone in all your review responses. Never engage in arguments or confrontations online. Even if a review is negative, responding with professionalism can help defuse the situation.

Another key to success is to be solution-oriented, instead of taking the criticism personally. Offer ways to resolve the issues raised in the negative review. This shows that you are proactive in addressing customer concerns. No matter how cutting the feedback is, don’t slam the door on your reviewers. Extend a hand and invite them to come back. This creates an opportunity for your company to change the conversation.

Investigate Issues, Analyze Feedback, and Take Action

As you learn how to respond to negative reviews, remember that your team can always harness customer feedback and use it as an opportunity to learn and improve your products and services. Investigate specific issues that are impacting the customer experience and use analytical tools to gather insights from review data. 

As you reply to your customer, be careful not to use cookie-cutter responses that do not resolve or address the main points of the review. Be as specific as you can about the customer’s experience, and communicate any changes or improvements you have made or will make as a result of their feedback.

If Necessary, Take the Issue Offline

For more complex or sensitive issues, encourage the reviewer to contact you directly through private channels to address their concerns in a more personalized manner. 

Here are examples of how you can phrase this in your review response:

  • “We would like the opportunity to investigate your feedback further. Could you please contact our team via (your contact information)? We look forward to working with you to resolve your issues as quickly as possible.” 
  • “Thanks for your candid feedback. We are gutted to hear that your experience with our business didn’t quite match your expectations. Our team would love to know the reasons why so that we can deliver a better experience for you next time. You may reach us via (your contact information).” 

Negative Review Response Examples

Here are some more examples of how to respond to negative reviews:

  • “Hi (customer’s name), thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We’re truly sorry to hear that you had a less-than-satisfactory encounter with our (product/service). Your feedback is important to us, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.”
  • “Hello (customer’s name), thanks for taking the time to share your honest feedback. We’re so sorry to hear that your experience with us did not meet your expectations. We understand how frustrating this must be. Your concerns have been shared with our team, and we are actively working on improvements. We would love the chance to make it up to you. If you could reach out to us via (your contact information), we’d be happy to discuss your experience further and address any specific issues you encountered. Your satisfaction is our priority.”
  • “We appreciate you taking the time to leave us a review on Google. Your feedback is so important to us, and we want to assure you that we are taking steps to address the issues you raised. In the coming weeks, we have plans to implement improvements to enhance our offering. We hope you’ll give us another chance to exceed your expectations in the future. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.”

Best Practices: How to Respond to Positive Reviews

As for what to do with positive reviews — they also warrant a response. Think of it as an opportunity to reinforce and spotlight the things customers already love about your brand. (Not to mention, it’s the polite thing to do.) 

Responding to positive reviews also allows you to express gratitude to your satisfied customers. It can do wonders for your brand to have members of your team acknowledge customers’ positive feedback and let them know that you appreciate their support.

Thank Your Reviewers

It’s important to show appreciation for customers who took the time to share their positive experiences. Positive reviews and high ratings can serve as powerful social proof for attracting potential new customers and influencing their decision-making process.

Here are some examples of what you might want to include in your positive review responses:

  • “Dear (customer’s name), thank you for taking the time to share your positive experience with us. We’re grateful for customers like you who make our work a joy. We appreciate your support and look forward to serving you again soon.”
  • “This review made our day! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave us your amazing feedback.”
  • “Our team is so thankful for your kind words. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us and the Google community.” 

Reinforce the Positive

Positive reviews serve as great testimonials for your brand. By responding to them, you not only acknowledge the reviewer but also showcase positive aspects of your products and services to a wider audience. (Responding to the review of a Google Local Guide should also improve the level of engagement other users have with your Business Profile.)

When responding to a positive review on Google or another review website, try to write in a way that lets your brand personality and company values shine through. This can help humanize your brand and make your interactions more relatable. 

Another great tip: often, positive reviews mention specific things that the customer liked best about their experience. Try to identify what this is, then mention it in your response. For example, you can explain that the matcha mochi cakes that people love so much are homemade; let them in on how your company works with local organic farmers when sourcing vegetables and fruits; and tell them that others have also commented on the spectacular views that can be enjoyed from your beachfront hotel properties.

Pass Along the Compliment

Responding to reviews is a way for you to share the best feedback you get, but also make it a point to let your teams know when they’re doing great work, and to call out individuals who contributed to the customer’s positive experience. 

Creating a culture where positive feedback is celebrated fosters a positive working environment. It reinforces the importance of customer satisfaction and encourages a collective effort toward delivering exceptional experiences.

Sharing positive reviews is also a form of recognition for your team’s efforts. It validates their work and reinforces the idea that their contributions are making a positive difference for customers.

Positive Review Response Examples

Here are some more examples of how to respond to positive reviews:

  • “Hello (customer’s name), thank you so much for your kind words! We’re thrilled to hear that you enjoyed your experience with our company. Your satisfaction is our top priority, and we look forward to serving you again soon.”
  • “We’re delighted to receive your positive feedback about (specific aspect of your product or service). Your review means a lot to us, and we thank you for taking the time to share your experience. Our company is committed to maintaining this level of service, and we can’t wait to welcome you back.”
  • “Thank you for your glowing review! We are so happy to hear that you had a great experience with us. Your satisfaction is our motivation. We can’t wait to see you again soon. If you ever need anything, feel free to reach out!”

Protect Your Brand Reputation with InMoment

As your company gets started with learning how to respond to Google reviews, remember to approach your replies carefully and remain empathetic to the customer’s experience. By engaging with customers and showing that your company appreciates and values their feedback, you can minimize the impact of negative comments and reinforce positives in the customer experience. 

For managers of brands with multiple business locations, you can take InMoment’s reputation management software for a test drive to discover how our solution can improve your efficiency, supercharge your response strategy, and help your organization stay on top of what customers are saying on Google and across all the important review websites. 

Elevating Guest Experiences in Hotels with Integrated CX

The hotel industry took a major hit during the pandemic, but the aftermath was even more curious. So much time locked inside caused a massive correction. Out of nowhere, citizens were flocking in droves to distant lands, as travel by plane, sea, and car surged.

The coming year is no exception, as consumers across the globe plan to make travel a priority, despite ongoing economic uncertainty. According to a recent report, 81% of consumers plan to travel the same amount or more in 2024, compared to 2023. 

Hotel guests have lofty expectations for excellent experiences; they also have feedback data coming at them from all directions. It’s a common struggle to effectively analyze this data, and then leverage it to optimize their customer experience (CX) efforts. This is where integrated CX comes into play.

What is Integrated CX

Integrated CX platforms unify customer feedback signals from a multitude of feedback signals (listed below), blending them into a cohesive whole. Utilizing AI, this system organizes and deciphers the collected data, and makes sense of it thereafter. This method represents a novel and comprehensive strategy for an industry that, for many years, has predominantly focused on survey data, offering a limited perspective. 

Here are some of the main feedback signals: 

  • NPS 
  • Surveys
  • Call Center Data
  • Reviews
  • Social 
  • Insights/Spotlight

Integrated CX platforms have the power to interpret these varied, disparate signals into a unified view. Hotels can then leverage these insights to elevate guests’ experiences before, during, and after their reservation. 

Let’s take a closer look at how integrated CX and other AI-powered tools are shaping hotel experiences—and how the best hotels and resorts are leveraging this winning combination to provide intelligent, customer-centric experiences that grow sales and foster loyalty. 

Hyper Personalization for Every Traveler 

Modern consumers have an overwhelming amount of choice across all product and service categories. Generic, one-size-fits-all communication and experiences aren’t an effective way to reach them. Instead, 71% of consumers expect personalization from the businesses they choose. What’s more, they expect brands to adapt to as their needs and expectations inevitably evolve. Hotel customers are no exception.

Each traveler is different, with unique needs, preferences, and motivations for travel. Hotels must work to understand their customers’ preferences and use those insights to deliver tailored experiences throughout the journey. Integrated CX makes this a reality. 

Integrated CX consolidates customer signals from a whole host of sources, including transaction history, reviews, surveys, website activity, and social interactions (among others). These signals give hotels and resorts a 360-degree view of each customer, which can be used to fuel ultra-personalized experiences. Research from Salesforce found that 61% of customers say most companies treat them as a number. Hotels can set themselves apart from the competition by strategically leveraging integrated CX and AI to fuel personalized guest experiences.

Real-Time Service, Any Time of Day

In the past, consumers would book a hotel by working with a travel agent or picking up the phone. That’s no longer the case. Instead, a recent survey from Statista found that 72% of consumers prefer booking travel online. 

Consumers are using their mobile devices to browse and book hotels. They’re engaging with hotels from any number of channels, including web browsers, mobile apps, messaging channels, social media, and review sites—among others. They expect instant engagement—any time of day. Today, AI-powered digital assistants or chatbots enable hotels to meet these expectations.

After the stay, hotels can leverage AI-powered chatbots to collect customer feedback and resolve outstanding issues. Chatbots can be an effective tool for enrolling guests in loyalty programs, increasing the chances of repeat business. 

Intelligent Digitized Experiences

Hotel guests expect an experience. Friendly service, clean linens, and delicious food and drinks—the givens. But increasingly, guests also want outstanding digitized experiences—whether they’re researching their options, in the middle of their stay, or reflecting on their experience. Upon arrival, many want a mobile check-in experience, which allows for speed and convenience. During their stay, guests may use their mobile devices to get guidance on where to eat and things to do

AI-powered bots can help customers find the property that best suits their needs. Bots can also answer questions and provide information on things like availability, rates, and amenities that build customers’ confidence—and their likelihood of booking.

Guests can also use a hotel’s mobile app to get personalized content and recommendations during their stay. For example, they may find restaurant and attraction recommendations, based on their past interactions and feedback they’ve shared with the hotel brand. 

Streamlined Operations and Experiences 

Hotels have long collected guest feedback, transitioning from paper surveys and conversations at the front desk to digital channels. However, the prevalence of surveys has led to “survey fatigue,” especially among younger generations like Gen Z. These guests are less inclined to fill out surveys but are actively sharing their experiences on travel review platforms and social media.

This shift in feedback channels presents both an opportunity and a challenge for hotels. The feedback, whether direct or indirect, contains valuable insights for enhancing guest experiences and operations. The main obstacle is the nature of the feedback—a mix of structured and unstructured data, making it difficult to compile, analyze, and derive actionable insights.

AI Has Its Shortcomings, Too. 

While AI holds the potential to revolutionize guest experiences in hotels, it brings with it significant challenges. The need for personalization in customer service requires an extensive collection of data, posing privacy concerns. Hotels must balance the use of AI with the responsibility of keeping customer data secure. A misstep in handling this data can severely damage a hotel’s reputation.

Moreover, the intricacies of AI, such as its potential for bias and inaccuracy, add another layer of complexity. The workings of AI systems like ChatGPT can be opaque, and their recommendations may not always be reliable. With the widespread use of AI in various sectors, the risk of data misuse and breaches increases.

In light of these challenges, the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer highlights the growing importance of trust in brand relationships. Consumers are more likely to engage with and stay loyal to brands they trust. For hotels, this means prioritizing ethical AI practices and data security to build and maintain this trust. Successful navigation of these issues is crucial for harnessing the benefits of AI while ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty.

A Final Word 

AI has only recently hit the “mainstream”, but it’s already transforming the hotel guest experience. This will only continue as the technology evolves.

Hotel customers expect top-tier, personalized experiences at every touchpoint. While these enterprises have a plethora of data and customer feedback at their fingertips, it’s not always easy to analyze and leverage it. Integrated CX platforms, powered by AI, enable hotels to not only analyze this data, but identify opportunities to use it to improve CX.

In the coming year, consumers are prioritizing travel. However, they have plentiful options when it comes to hotels. The hotels that thrive will be those that deliver intelligent, AI-driven CX throughout the customer journey that’s personalized, yet secure.

References 

Skyscanner. Travel Trends 2024. (https://traveltrends.skyscanner.com/). Access 1/19/24.

Mckinsey & Company. The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying  (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying/). Access 1/19/24.

Salesforce. State of the Connected Customer. (https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/state-of-the-connected-customer/). Access 1/19/24

Statista. Travel Bookings: Online vs. Agency.  (https://www.statista.com/chart/29622/travel-bookings-online-vs-agency/). Access 1/19/24

BusinessWire. Recent Study Reveals More Than a Third of Global Consumers Are Willing to Pay More for Sustainability as Demand Grows for Environmentally-Friendly Alternatives. (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211014005090/en/Recent-Study-Reveals-More-Than-a-Third-of-Global-Consumers-Are-Willing-to-Pay-More-for-Sustainability-as-Demand-Grows-for-Environmentally-Friendly-Alternatives). Access 1/19/24.

Cornell. At the Forefront of ESG Leadership. (https://stories.business.cornell.edu/hotelie-100/forefront-of-esg/). Access 1/19/24.

Edelman. 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer. (https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2023-06/Edelman_BrandTrust_Top10.pdf). Access 1/19/24.

Understanding the Importance of Social Media Marketing

In today’s digital landscape, the importance of social media marketing cannot be understated. Social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, X (formerly called Twitter), TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn (among others) are essential for businesses looking to attract customers, gather valuable feedback, and foster customer loyalty. 

According to research:

  • 47% of consumers reach out to brands on social because they have a product or service question. 
  • Answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by 25%. (Convince and Convert) Customers who feel engaged by companies on social media will spend up to 40% more with them than other customers.

Social media is also an important source of data essential to understanding the kind of customer experience your company is delivering: social signals contain a wealth of information that can help you make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements.

Why is Social Media Important?

Social media is vital for its ability to connect companies with their target audience, enhance brand visibility, facilitate engagement, and provide valuable data for informed decision-making.

Social Media is a Vital Part of an Integrated CX Strategy

Social media provides a platform for real-time interaction, feedback, and relationship-building between your company and your customers. It is also a valuable source of unstructured data, which is crucial for achieving a more complete, accurate view of the customer as well as delivering improved experiences.

Unstructured data refers to information that does not have a specific, predefined data model or structure. Unlike structured data, which is organized into well-defined tables or schemas (e.g., a database), unstructured data lacks a consistent format and is not easily searchable or analyzable with traditional data processing techniques.

  • According to IBM, as much as 80% of all data today (including enterprise-relevant information) is unstructured.

Social media (comments, posts, and interactions) often contains a significant portion of unstructured data. Using information from unstructured data, companies can gain valuable insights into how to improve their brand, products, services, and overall customer experience. 

Companies that can collect and analyze unstructured data using tools like natural language processing and AI customer experience technology also often have a more complete understanding of their customers, and can therefore more easily measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Moreover, businesses that effectively harness unstructured data may gain a competitive advantage. That’s because analyzing unstructured data can reveal trends, emerging market opportunities, and competitive threats that may not be easily apparent through structured data alone.

Social Media Marketing Builds Brand Reputation

Social media marketing is also a powerful brand reputation management tactic. Consistent positive engagement, authenticity, responsiveness, and a commitment to customer-centric values contribute to building a strong and favorable brand image on social media platforms.

Social media is an excellent platform for sharing expertise, insights, and valuable information. Brands that share educational content and establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry can enhance their reputation. 

Social media also allows you to showcase your brand personality. By sharing behind-the-scenes content, company values, and employee stories, brands can humanize themselves, creating a more relatable and transparent image that’s essential to growing a positive brand reputation. 

Social Media Boosts Brand Awareness and Search Visibility

An effective social media marketing strategy can enhance brand awareness, improve search visibility, and contribute to overall brand success in the digital realm. By creating and sharing engaging content, you can immediately improve brand awareness and visibility among a diverse and extensive user base. Shares, likes, and comments on social media contribute to the organic spread of brand content, exposing it to a wider audience.

Social media can also impact the search engine performance of your brand and business locations. Social signals such as likes, shares, and comments are considered by search engines as indicators of a brand’s authority and relevance. High engagement on social media can also positively impact your search engine rankings. Moreover, your brand’s social media profiles will likely appear in search engine results, providing additional opportunities for users to discover and engage with your business.

Social Media Helps You Generate and Nurture Leads

With strategic planning, you can generate and nurture leads from social media. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok have billions of active users, providing companies with access to a vast and diverse audience. This broad reach allows you to connect with and nurture potential leads across different demographics and interests. Typically, these platforms also offer a more cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising channels.

You can also leverage social media analytics to gain insights into user behavior and develop the ability to segment your audience based on demographics, interests, and engagement levels. This segmentation helps in crafting more personalized and targeted lead generation and nurturing strategies.

Social Media Listening Promotes Better Customer Understanding

The conversations that are happening on social media about your brand can be used as a powerful tool to help your company identify trends and improve your market position. 

With an effective social media listening strategy in place, you’ll be able to influence a wide range of processes, including product research and development, business operations, advertising approaches, and customer experience management. Ultimately, social listening will help your company gather valuable unstructured feedback and make better business decisions based on social media analysis and data.

Social Media Supports Great Customer Experiences

Integrating social media data with your customer relationship management system provides a comprehensive view of customer interactions across various channels, enabling your team to deliver more personalized and cohesive experiences. It also enables the formation of communities around your brand: communities where customers can connect, share great experiences, and provide peer-to-peer support. 

Social media also supports great customer experiences by allowing for more personalized communication with customers. Your organization can use social media data to tailor your messages and offers based on individual preferences, creating a more personalized and relevant customer experience.

Social Media Plays a Crucial Role in Crisis Management

Negative comments, feedback, and reviews on social media can spread quickly. Before you know it, a single negative review, comment, or tweet can grow into a full-blown brand crisis. By proactively monitoring your brand presence on social media channels, your organization can quickly identify and mitigate these threats to your brand reputation.

Integrating social media into your crisis management activities lets your team jump into critical user-generated conversations. This makes it easier to resolve issues, respond to customers, and minimize the impact that negative social media comments may have on your brand. 

  • According to EveryoneSocial, 79% of consumers expect brands to respond within a day of reaching out over social media, but average brand response rates across all industries are lower than 25%.

Says best-selling author and customer service expert Chip Bell: “In the customer’s mind, the clock starts when he or she posts a negative comment or review, and your reputation drops with every hour you delay in providing a response. Be honest, be apologetic, and offer the aggrieved customer an easy way to access you. In the social media world, you are assumed guilty until your response alters public perception.”

Social Media Analytics: Transform Insights into Action

The most successful brands listen to and act on social media analytics and insights in order to understand customers better and deliver improved experiences. Here are some considerations you can make as your team looks to do the same.

  • Define clear objectives. Clearly define your objectives and the specific questions you want to answer through social media data analysis. This will guide your analysis and help you focus on relevant insights.
  • Choose the right metrics. Identify the appropriate metrics most relevant to your business objectives. Also, focus on platforms where your customers are actively engaging with your brand.
  • Monitor brand mentions and sentiment. Use social media monitoring tools like Hootsuite to track mentions, comments, and conversations related to your brand. This allows you to identify customer sentiment, concerns, and feedback in real time.
  • Respond to feedback. When you invest in a social media software platform, there’s a temptation to let your data management tools do all the work. This shouldn’t exempt your company from engaging with and listening and responding to customers who have shared their feedback. Technological capability is great, but it won’t close the loop on your behalf.
  • Analyze customer feedback. Don’t make data collection your goal. More information, after all, doesn’t necessarily equate to smarter business decisions. Focus on how you can gather actionable insights from social media data and customer feedback, as well as how you can address challenges based on the information available.
  • Track trends and industry insights. Apart from tracking information being posted on social media about your brand, it’s also useful to compare your social media data against benchmarks, industry standards, or competitors to gain a broader perspective and identify areas for improvement.
  • Invest in a social media marketing software platform. The world’s top brands are using Hootsuite to manage social media, monitor customer conversations, collect unstructured data, and gather meaningful insights from these conversations and data. Your company can make a similar investment to foster an organizational culture in which everyone from the C-suite to the frontline is empowered and equipped to listen to the Voice of the Customer.

Maximize the Importance of Social Media Marketing with InMoment and Hootsuite

By understanding the importance of social media marketing and analyzing unstructured data from social media platforms, you can gain valuable insights into the customer experience. This, in turn, empowers your organization to make informed decisions and positively impact customer experiences. To drive efficiency, leverage Hootsuite and its integration with InMoment’s reputation management software so you can act upon social signals, access the full spectrum of conversation around your brand, transform social data into actionable insights, and accelerate experience improvements.

References 

Sprout Social. “The 2023 Sprout Social Index Report” (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/index/). Access 12/27/2023.

IBM. “Structured vs. Unstructured Data: What’s the Difference?” (https://www.ibm.com/blog/structured-vs-unstructured-data/). Access 12/27/2023.

EveryoneSocial. “The 20 Social Listening Statistics Your Company Must Know” (https://everyonesocial.com/blog/social-listening-statistics/). Access 12/27/2023.

Google Reviews: Steps for Businesses to Succeed

Google reviews are synonymous with success in today’s business environment. Whether you operate in retail, financial services, insurance, or any other industry, consumers will not purchase your product or services if you have poor Google business reviews. 

Some people may think that Google reviews are out of their control. That couldn’t be further from the truth. You can create a strategy to handle the end-to-end process of Google reviews for business. This strategy can be used in tandem with your online reputation management strategies. 

What are Google Reviews? 

Google Reviews are user-generated evaluations and comments about businesses and services that are posted on Google’s platform. Users can leave reviews for various establishments such as restaurants, hotels, shops, and more. These reviews often include ratings, written feedback, and sometimes photos. The ratings typically range from one to five stars, with one star indicating a poor experience and five stars representing an excellent one.

Businesses can claim their Google My Business listing, which allows them to manage and respond to reviews. Positive reviews can enhance a business’s online reputation and attract more customers, while negative reviews may have the opposite effect. 

Why Are Google Reviews Important?

Over 80% of consumers look at Google reviews before visiting or shopping at a business, and according to research by InMoment, customers don’t trust companies with lower than a 4-star rating average. Up to 94% say a negative review or social media comment has convinced them to avoid a company. These online reputation management statistics show that the reviews that show up related to your business and your products/services have increasing power in driving customer acquisition. Along with customer acquisition, there are a lot of other reasons that make Google reviews important. 

  • Consumer Trust: Positive reviews build trust and confidence in a business, while negative reviews may lead potential customers to reconsider.
  • Online Reputation: Google reviews contribute significantly to a business’s online reputation. A strong, positive online reputation can attract more customers, improve brand image, and differentiate a business from its competitors.
  • Local SEO Ranking: Google takes into account the quantity and quality of reviews when determining local search rankings. Businesses with more positive reviews are likely to appear higher in local search results, increasing their visibility to potential customers.
  • Customer Engagement: Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, allows businesses to engage with their customers. It shows that the business values customer feedback and is committed to providing a good experience. Engaging with reviews can also help address concerns and resolve issues publicly.
  • Social Proof: Positive reviews serve as social proof that others have had a positive experience with a business. This can be a powerful motivator for potential customers who are considering a purchase or service.
  • Customer Insights: Reviews offer businesses insights to the emotions and experiences of their customers. This can help identify pain points and lead to making decisions that positively impact the customer experience. 
  • New Opportunities: Similarly to insights, reviews can also unveil new opportunities to introduce or improve something that your customers want. By doing this, you improve customer retention and also gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. 

Another importance of Google Reviews is their correlation with the Google Local Guide program. Participating users of this program earn points by writing reviews, or sharing pictures and videos. This program benefits both parties as the business gets added social proof with the reviews and pictures or videos while the customers get rewarded with different items, events or promotions from Google. 

How Google Reviews Impact Your Business Performance

Google business reviews can be directly correlated to how your brand shows up in search engine results. Positive reviews contribute to an enhanced online reputation, influence Google’s local search algorithms, and boost your business’s visibility in relevant searches. The quantity and quality of reviews serve as a key factor in determining the local SEO ranking, ensuring that your brand is more likely to be featured prominently on search engine results pages.

This increased visibility attracts more potential customers and establishes a positive first impression, as consumers often prioritize businesses with a strong and positive online presence. Effectively managing and responding to reviews becomes crucial, as this engagement not only fosters customer trust but also signals to search engines that your business is actively involved and responsive to customer feedback, further enhancing your position in search engine rankings.

How to Start Managing Your Business Google Reviews

In order to start managing and receiving reviews, you first need to claim your Google My Business account. Through Google My Business, you can update essential business information such as name, address, phone number, pictures, and so forth. Here is the best way to get started with your GMB account. 

1. Claim Your Google My Business Account

Visit the Google My Business website and sign in with your Google account. If you don’t have one, create a Google account for your business. Search for your business on Google. If it’s already listed, claim the existing listing. If not, create a new one by providing accurate and detailed information about your business.

2. Verify Your Business

Google will send a verification code to your business address. This is typically done through a postcard. Once received, enter the verification code in your GMB account to confirm and authenticate your ownership.

3. Complete Your Business Profile

Fill out all relevant information in your profile, including your business name, address, phone number, website, business hours, and a concise business description. Ensure that this information is accurate and consistent with your other online platforms.

4. Add High-Quality Photos

Enhance your Google My Business profile by adding high-quality photos of your business, products, and services. Visual content can significantly impact a potential customer’s perception and decision-making.

5. Enable Customer Reviews

Finally, make sure that customer reviews are enabled in your account settings. Now you can start receiving reviews and responding to them to build your online reputation. 

How to Track Google Reviews

Tracking Google reviews can be done within the platform itself, however this is only feasible if you are a one-location business. For more developed businesses managing multiple locations, the smartest way to track your Google reviews is to utilize reputation management software. 

InMoment’s featured partnership with Google My Business allows you to have access to a comprehensive solution to monitor and manage Google business reviews, as well as reviews from other sites like Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Facebook. This CX integration gives you capabilities that include, but are not limited to:

  • Review monitoring, which pulls in and aggregates all your reviews
  • Review response, which allows companies to respond to Google reviews directly from the InMoment dashboard
  • Review generation, which helps businesses proactively ask for reviews and customer feedback through email and SMS campaigns.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Google Business Reviews

When dealing with large amounts of reviews, reputation management software allows you to be able to respond and track every review you receive. InMoment software provides a functionality for users to respond to reviews automatically, leveraging the power of AI. These response prompts can be generated based on the content of the review or brand guidelines, or they can be generated using conditional logic to change the tone and formatting. For example, a five-star review response will be different from one for a one-star review. 

However, our software does not stop at giving you the ability to respond to a large number of reviews, we also give you the power to track what is being said in those reviews. The platform meticulously monitors the number of ratings, offering insights into the overall star distribution, which is crucial for businesses gauging their online reputation. Additionally, InMoment employs advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and keyword extraction techniques to conduct customer sentiment analysis. This comprehensive approach enables businesses to delve deeper into the qualitative aspects of customer feedback, identifying sentiments expressed in reviews.

Track Your Google Reviews with InMoment

Google business reviews play an important role in how today’s consumers discover and judge businesses. They can also shape a brand’s online reputation, as well as reveal valuable insights into a company’s operations, showing areas where an organization can improve customer service and experience.

By tracking, responding to, and generating reviews on Google — and by applying best practices in reputation management — you can improve your brand’s search visibility, outperform competitors, and acquire more customers. Schedule a reputation management demo today to see how we can help your business! 

References 

Luisa Zhou. Online Review Statistics: The Definitive List (2024 Data) (https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/online-review-statistics/). Access 1/24/24.

Using Hootsuite to Manage Social Media and Improve Your Brand Reputation

Social media can play a crucial role in your organization’s ability to manage and deliver more meaningful and integrated customer experiences. Social media facilitates real-time interaction, serves as a valuable source of customer feedback and insights, shapes your brand reputation and visibility, and can even function as a platform for market research.

With Hootsuite, the social media management platform for the enterprise, and InMoment, the leader in improving experiences and the highest recommended CX platform and services company in the world, your company can integrate customer experience data from social media sources to uncover the insights that enable the smartest actions.

What is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is one of today’s most widely used social media management platforms. It helps the world’s top brands and enterprise organizations manage their social media efforts in one place. 

Founded in 2008, Hootsuite supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. Hootsuite also enables access to valuable insights, analytics, and real-time results to help teams understand and improve their social media performance. The platform also has a growing App Directory that lets companies connect existing marketing, content, and other business systems to Hootsuite.

With Hootsuite, organizations can enhance the effectiveness of their social media management efforts, build a stronger brand reputation, and gain valuable insights into the customer experience.  

The Impact of Social Media on Brand Reputation

Social media can significantly impact brand reputation, influencing how a brand is perceived by existing and potential customers. Your brand presence on social media can be either positive or negative, and this largely depends on how your team manages social media and engages with your audience on social platforms.

Brands that actively manage their social media presence, engage with their audience, respond to online reviews and customer feedback, and demonstrate authenticity are better positioned to maintain a positive reputation. 

  • Outside of online review websites (like Yelp, Google, and Tripadvisor), consumers turn to social media platforms to learn more about businesses. 46% of consumers turn to Facebook, 35% to YouTube, 32% to Instagram, and 20% to TikTok.
  • Answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by 25%.

Positive social media interactions can turn customers into brand advocates. When satisfied customers share their positive experiences, it contributes to building a strong and positive brand reputation. Encouraging and recognizing brand advocates can further strengthen your brand’s image.

Hootsuite Features to Manage Your Brand Reputation

Hootsuite is a comprehensive social media management platform with a range of features designed to help users manage, schedule, and analyze their social media activities. Below are some features your team can use to manage your company’s social presence and brand reputation management.

Social Media Publishing

Hootsuite’s social media publishing features allow teams to create and publish content across multiple social media networks in one place. The platform tells you when to post on social media to get the highest engagement; there is also an option for using the bulk social media scheduler. 

Streamlined approvals also reduce risk and ensure that all your posts are ready to go thanks to a simple approval process that allows team members to review. Meanwhile, if your team is looking for creative inspiration for posts, Hootsuite has built a new AI tool that can instantly generate captions and new post ideas.

Brand Monitoring and Social Media Listening

If potential and existing customers wish to engage with your brand, they aren’t always going to visit your website, send you an email, give you a phone call, or fill out a survey form. Thanks to social media, they now have the option of tagging your brand on Twitter or Instagram, posting Facebook reviews, or sharing their feedback on other digital channels like Google, Tripadvisor, and Yelp.

Hootsuite’s social listening tools help your team avoid delays in responding to customers, regardless of where they choose to engage with your business. Out of the box, the platform lets your team add multiple user accounts so that you can see your brand’s entire social media presence in one place. Specifically, you can create different feeds or “streams” for each account. This allows your social media team to easily keep an eye on (and respond to) different types of user-generated content being published on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter from a single page.

Social Media Analytics and Hootsuite Insights

Hootsuite users can also access insights, analytics, and real-time results to help them understand and improve their social media performance. This lets your team cut out the guesswork with social media analytics tools that tell you exactly how to grow your brand on social. With Hootsuite, you can track essential metrics like follower growth, post effectiveness, and engagement metrics; you can also generate customizable reports to assess the impact of your social media strategy.

Employee Advocacy

Amplify is a feature of Hootsuite designed to facilitate employee advocacy on social media. Employee advocacy involves employees sharing company content and messages on their personal social media profiles to help amplify the brand’s reach and engagement.

With Amplify, Hootsuite lets team members share pre-approved content, such as company news, blog posts, promotions, and other relevant updates, directly from the Hootsuite platform to their social media profiles.

Show Off Reviews

With Hootsuite’s social publishing features, teams can show off great feedback and share the best reviews with their social media followers. These types of posts offer valuable social proof to prospects and can serve to guide their purchase decisions. 

Hootsuite Reputation Management: Keys to Success

Reputation management starts with comprehensive monitoring, and Hootsuite offers a solution to meet those needs. Here are some of the ways you can use Hootsuite to stay on top of the latest social conversations, feedback, and reviews about your brand.

Track Mentions and Conversations

Creating the right streams is incredibly useful especially when it comes to mentions. People are talking about your brand, and a dedicated mention stream allows you to quickly monitor these posts and engage when necessary. 

Often, people use social media to get customer service, and this provides another opportunity for your team to meet the demands of your customers and make them happy. According to research, 59% of consumers have a more favorable view of brands that respond to customer service questions or complaints on social media.

You can also use Hootsuite to track more specific elements, such as keywords, hashtags, and location data. This type of monitoring is helpful for any company that wants to keep tabs on its reputation on social media even when the conversation isn’t necessarily directed toward them in posts. The Voice of the Customer is especially loud on social media, and these insights help you find ways to improve customer service and experience for future patrons.

Respond to Reviews 

Responding to reviews is extremely important, especially for companies that are looking to convert prospects, casual visitors, and review readers into loyal customers. Taking part in the conversation and demonstrating that your brand cares about reviews and unsolicited feedback can have a significant impact on your company’s reputation and bottom-line performance.

Apart from monitoring social media content, teams can use Hootsuite streams to quickly respond to online reviews. Using the Hootsuite-ReviewTrackers integration, users can post review responses through Hootsuite, helping build brand trust and demonstrating that your company cares about customer feedback. 

Interpret Data and Act on Insights

Gaining customer insights from social media is crucial for several reasons, as it provides your organization with valuable insights that can inform strategic decisions, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance overall performance.

You can use Hootsuite to capture valuable customer feedback and actionable insights into the customer experience. Given the capabilities of Hootsuite’s social media analytics and reporting tools, you can learn what customers want, fix specific pain points that are impacting the customer experience,  analyze and interpret social conversations at scale, and spot opportunities to improve your brand reputation.

Frequently Asked Questions about Using Hootsuite

Let’s dive deeper into Hootsuite’s capabilities as a social media management platform. Here are responses to the most frequently asked questions about using Hootsuite.

What is the Most Popular Feature of Hootsuite?

Apart from its comprehensive social listening capabilities, Hootsuite is also known for its social media content management tools. Users can organize and manage their content efficiently, including creating and editing posts, saving drafts, distributing pre-approved content to employees, and collaborating with other team members within your organization.

What Does the Reports Feature Do in Hootsuite Analytics? 

Getting insightful reports is quick and easy with Hootsuite Analytics. The Reports feature in Hootsuite Analytics offers fully customizable collections of social media analytics data. Each Report has a flexible, interactive interface that tailors it to include the exact metrics you want, letting you drag and drop an unlimited number of “tiles,” which are individual displays of a specific metric. 

The number of Reports you can create within Hootsuite Analytics is unlimited. Apart from analyzing metrics on specific platforms like Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube, Hootsuite also offers paid ad analytics as well as integrations with Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics, ensuring all your social and web data is in one place.  so all your social and web data is in one place.

What Apps Integrate with Hootsuite?

Hootsuite offers a wide range of integrations with various apps and services. These integrations enhance the functionality of Hootsuite and allow users to manage their social media activities more efficiently. For example, you can link your social networks, track Google reviews, create visual content designed in Canva, and integrate your CRM data right into your Hootsuite dashboard.

InMoment also integrates with Hootsuite to enable the monitoring of social media data and reviews in one central place. With InMoment’s Hootsuite app integration, you can view online reviews in a Hootsuite stream — with filtering options for organizing and managing customer feedback — alongside social media comments and signals. As part of its review management feature set, the integration also allows you to quickly share your best reviews across your social media pages and profiles, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google.

Supercharge Your Social + Reviews + Reputation with InMoment and Hootsuite

Social data and reviews can be harnessed to help your company discover and interpret key insights into the customer experience. By leveraging Hootsuite and its integration with InMoment’s reputation management software, you can cultivate a healthy brand reputation and act upon social signals to drive improvements in products, services, customer experiences, and overall business success.

References 

EveryoneSocial. “The 20 Social Listening Statistics Your Company Must Know” (https://everyonesocial.com/blog/social-listening-statistics/). Access 12/22/2023.

Status Labs. “52 Online Reputation Statistics for 2023” (https://statuslabs.com/blog/reputation-management-stats). Access 12/22/2023.

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