Hey there, I’m Emily Washcovick, Yelp small business expert, and I’m so excited you’re tuned in today to a 5-star state of mind. This presentation is all about reputation management. We’re going to talk about the side of it that isn’t so fun and the side of it that’s going to help you grow your business. So, let’s dive right in. A 5-star state of mind—how review responses drive business.
Today I’m going to talk a little bit about how to maximize Yelp and just make sure you know the basics about your profile, but I’m going to spend most of the time talking about reputation management and maximizing reviews. Again, my name is Emily Washcovick and I’m Yelp’s local business expert. I’ve been with the company for nearly 11 years now and I have to say, talking about reviews is one of my favorite things to do with business owners. Reviews are such a great way for you to grow your business, engage with customers, and market everything you’re doing in person to create memorable experiences. So, let’s dive right in and see what we’re going to cover today. I’m going to spend a few minutes talking about consumer behavior, just stage setting for us a little bit, and talking about how consumers behave online. Then, we’re going to talk about feedback and reputation management. I’ll give advice, tactics, and tips for responding, maximizing, and sharing your reviews. And then I’ll give you some resources at the end for how you can stay in touch with Yelp and continue to grow your business.
Let’s start with consumer behavior. Consumers have used reviews for a very long time, but in recent years, they’ve used them more than ever. And not only do they look at them, they actually trust them. Sixty-four percent of survey respondents said that they think reviews are just as trustworthy as a referral from a family member or friend. Reviewers also like to see more about what the experience was like. They prefer to read something beyond just seeing a star rating. And that’s what makes Yelp so valuable and trustworthy.
Consumers are also looking beyond reviews. They want to see photos or videos and get an expectation for what the business might be like. They also want contact information. How can they get in touch with you? Where are you located? So, it’s crucial that all of these bits of information are accurate and managed by you as the business owner. And all of that is free to do through your business user account. And you want to think about the consumer when you’re leveraging these free tools because you’re ultimately trying to add all of the most important information to help you stand out amongst your competition.
It all starts by going to business.yelp.com. You’re going to either search for your business and see if a page already exists or add your business to Yelp the very first time. So, again, that’s business.yelp.com. You’ll start by doing a search to see if your page exists or to claim your account if you already have and log back in. Or you can add your business page to Yelp. Once you get logged in to business.yelp.com, you want to start by checking the basic information. Is the name of the business right? Is your website linked? Are you in the categories that are relevant for your business? On Yelp, you can be in up to three categories. So, think a little bit about your business and who you serve. Let’s say, for example, you’re an Italian restaurant that also has a bar with TVs. You might want to list as Italian food and sports bar. Those are two different customers, but you can serve them both. Same is true if maybe you’re a real estate agent and you provide mortgage services. Those would be two categories to add onto your page.
If you have a brick and mortar, make sure your address is listed. And if not, include a service area to let customers know how far you’re willing to travel. You want to add your hours to Yelp. And if you’re not a brick and mortar, just put the hours that you’re operating and willing to work with customers. Sometimes people search for ‘open now’ or ‘open at a specific time.’ So having hours on Yelp is very important.
You also want to fill out your additional information sections, the specialties, history, and meet the owner or manager. Each of these sections has a maximum character count, but they allow you to tell more about your business and what you do. Especially if you’re a niche business, use these sections to really clarify and highlight what your business offers. And when you’re filling this out, just focus on the things that you do provide. You don’t want to waste time or space listing all of the things that you don’t do.
You also want to add photos to your page. I always say, even if customers have added photos for you, as a business, add at least 10 photos of how you want to visually represent your brand. Maybe pictures of yourself or your team, the services you provide. If you have a brick and mortar, show the outside or the inside. If you’re a service provider, what do the vehicles look like? Do your teammates wear uniforms? These are all great things to add visually to your page. And make sure you add captions to the photos as well. The keywords and phrases you include will help you appear in search results.
Now, we’re to the most important part of today’s presentation: reviews. Every business wants to have a great online reputation. And I truly believe that every business can if they have the right mentality. And reputation management really is about mentality. And it’s all about your attitude and approach as well. So first I want you to ask yourself, do you embrace customer feedback? And I don’t just mean in the ideal scenario. If a customer comes to you in person and tells you something directly, that’s obviously the dream way to get feedback, especially critical, but it doesn’t always work that way. And sometimes business owners aren’t as receptive to things if they hear it online. But I want you to think about that a little differently. I want you to think of an online review, positive or critical, the same way you would as a customer sharing that with you in person. You would acknowledge it always, right? And the same should be true online.
Now, sometimes business owners tell me, “You know, Emily, the reason I don’t pay as much attention to online reviews is because it’s where customers go to complain.” And while sometimes people use online reviews to complain or share negative experiences, a vast majority of what people turn online to review are positive experiences: places they love. On Yelp, we have more 5-star reviews than one, two, or three-star reviews combined. So, overwhelmingly, people go to Yelp to highlight places they want other people to find. But as a business owner, the criticism hurts more and you remember it more, right?
I want to talk today about how to maximize both the great things people are saying about you and the critical things to grow your business. And it all starts by actively listening and then joining the conversation. And this is really a way that you can stand out amongst the competition. And I have to tell you, I’ve been saying this for over 10 years. And I used to think maybe at some point it wouldn’t be true anymore, right? Maybe responding would be what every small business does. But even today, if you are responsive and you show up online and address customers when they’re talking about your business, you will stand out from the competition. It still is a way to show your customer service practices and really stand out as someone who cares about what your customers think.
So, you need to start by knowing what people are saying and when they’re saying it, and then knowing how you’re going to respond. And if you’re not feeling motivated to respond, I hope this bit of insight helps you. Consumers not only say that they read reviews, but they say when they see a critical review, they’re more likely to look past it if a business owner has responded and addressed the issue. The way I interpret this information is we should always be responding as business owners because that reflects our customer service practices to future consumers. And we’re not necessarily responding and getting into a back and forth dialogue about every detail of a review, but we’re responding to show that we care and to show that we’re paying attention.
Now, when it comes to getting together a strategy for maximizing customer feedback, the way you’re going to do this is by actually digesting the feedback itself and finding ways to leverage it to help your business. So, look for areas where you can improve. Look for things you’re doing really well, things you want to do more of, and look for things that your customers care about that you maybe didn’t even think about.
The best thing to do to first get a handle on your online reputation is figure out where people are talking about you. You know they’re using Yelp. You know they’re using Google. You know they’re probably going on social media. So, where can you go direct and see what they’re saying? And then how can you manage everything that people are saying? And sometimes you might need an aggregate platform to do that. So maybe Sprinkler or Thrive where you’re getting reviews across multiple platforms all in one place.
But the most free and usable tool that you can set up in seconds without having to set up an entire dashboard is Google Alerts. If you turn on Google Alerts for the name of your business or anything else related to the business, maybe the name of the owner, that’s a great way to see if you’re being mentioned on platforms or sites that you’re maybe not as familiar with. So, turn on your notifications for sites like Yelp and social media and set up Google alerts for the name of your business. This will allow you to start gauging where conversations are happening.
Then, when you know where the conversations are happening and you start to digest what’s being said, you want to identify trends and themes. And the reason you want to do this is because this is where all of the value is. This is where you can hear what people think about your service. If they have opinions about price or value, if they had something in their experience that was very memorable or maybe odd to them, what did they think about the quality or the facilities or the amenities? These are all bits of information that you can start to gather once you begin listening to the conversations happening online.
And you know, for anyone who’s really starting this journey of putting together a reputation management playbook or coming up with a plan for how they want to show up online, I always recommend this book by Jay Baer called Hug Your Haters. And Jay says, “The key to a solid online reputation is answering every complaint in every channel every time.” And that sounds really hard to do, but the reasoning behind it is that when someone has a complaint or they share something about your business that’s critical, they care enough to have shared it. And it’s an opportunity for you to make a connection with that customer. It also shows who you are as a brand and really works as a way to market your customer service for you.
The first thing when you’re putting together a reputation management playbook is having a plan for how you respond to positive reviews. We always think about the critical—we always think about the critical reviews because those are the ones we’re worried about. But the positive ones are so important, too. These are people that love you. By responding publicly, you show future customers that you read reviews and that you care about what people have to say. It’s also a great way to double down on something that was mentioned in a positive review or maybe welcome that user back for something that they didn’t experience at the business. Use those public comments to positive reviews to reflect your customer service practices and show people that you love hearing about their experiences.
When it comes to responding to critical reviews, I think of critical reviews in three different buckets. The first is legitimate criticism. Businesses are run by people and sometimes mistakes happen and there are less than 5 star experiences. When those things happen, it’s awesome if as a business you can acknowledge it, take a little bit of accountability and just say, “This isn’t our natural or standard practice. We’ll do it better next time.” That’s a really great way to humanize your business. Sometimes there are things that are raised in reviews that cause you to make changes. If that’s the case, you definitely want to highlight that when you respond to a critical review and let them know what you’ve changed or adapted.
And sometimes you don’t need to respond publicly. If it’s a rant or maybe someone that seems like there’s no sense in trying to get into a dialogue, you don’t need to respond to every review. But I think that responding is a great way to show who you are as a business. And you can keep it simple. Thank them for writing the review. Maybe address one or two of the things that they mentioned. And then take the review offline. You don’t need to get into a back and forth dialogue about every detail. But in the act of responding publicly, you show customers that you care and you make it more likely for them to share their feedback directly with you because they know that you’re going to want to make it right. So respond to critical reviews as a way to market who you are and how you handle things as they come up.
At the end of the day, your business has probably been growing through word of mouth for years, and it will continue to grow through word of mouth. Online reviews are word of mouth amplified, and they’re free marketing for your business as well, but you have to make sure to use them as a marketing tactic. So, amplify the positivity. Share your reviews on social media, on your website, even in your business. If you have a brick-and-mortar, maybe you print reviews off and frame them on the wall. If you have vehicles for a service-based business, maybe you put your favorite review on the side of a truck. Anything you can do to share customer experiences firsthand as a way to market your brand will help that word of mouth spread. And at the end of the day, when you start engaging with your online reputation, you need to remember that this is a business. People are going to share their experiences and sometimes you have to take a minute and step away. You might get some feedback that feels a little frustrating, but it’s important to always take the high road and respond professionally. You’re reflecting your business digitally and you don’t want to come across as argumentative, aggressive, or defensive. You want to be professional and polished. And lastly, take comfort in knowing you can’t please 100% of your customers 100% of the time. Sometimes getting a critical review is just a part of doing business. And by responding to it, you put into question if that critical review should be taken seriously and what a great business you are for engaging with customers and trying to make things right.
At the end of the day, it’s very important on Yelp that you don’t solicit or ask for reviews. You want them to come naturally. Don’t pressure people to remove reviews and don’t post reviews for yourself or competitor. You want to make sure that reviews come naturally. What you can do in order to encourage great reviews is provide amazing customer service and make memorable experiences in your business. Everything you do in person to engage customers can translate into an online review. If your profile is complete and all your information is filled out, that’s the best way to make sure you’re being found and found for the right things. And if you’re responding to reviews, that’s a great way to show that you care and that you’re engaged with customers.
I know that was a lot of information, so be sure to check out the business.yelp.com yelp.com site if you want to see any other tips or tricks, if you need to claim your page, or if you just want to manage your profile. You can also download the business owners app, which allows you to update information, respond to reviews, and even change your business details on the go.
You can also go to business.yelp.com/resources for articles, inspiration, recorded events, and even some podcast content. I host Yelp’s podcast in partnership with Entrepreneur Magazine called Behind the Review, and we just launched Season 4. If you want to hear from other entrepreneurs, business owners, industry leaders all about how they handle online reviews, check out the podcast and subscribe either on YouTube or your favorite listening platform so that you can hear every week what our guest has to say about this topic. Like I mentioned, reputation management is one of my favorite things to discuss and I’m so glad that you care about it for your business as well. I know that even just paying attention to your reviews and beginning to respond to them is going to help your business grow. And I’m pretty sure it’s going to increase your profit as well. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you have questions, you can email me directly at emilyrw@yelp.com. See you next time.
