In this blog post I’m going to break down the value of a review and uncover some of the fees for other marketing services. If you’re a local business you need more eyeballs on your brand. You do that by getting people to:

– Visit your website.
– View your social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ect..).
– View directory listings like Yelp, Yellowpages (that still exists?), and other 3rd party sites.
– Local commercials, radio and print media.

Let’s look at each one.

Visit Your Website
To do this you need more traffic. You can do that by running Google, Facebook or some type of digital ads to your website. You’ll also get traffic from word of mouth and people directly typing in your website URL. And then if you do any SEO and rank on Google, that will bring in more traffic.

Visit your social media pages
Again you can use paid traffic to expand your social reach. You’ll also get some organic traffic because social media sites usually rank on Google. And then you’ll get people sharing and talking about your brand which will bring in traffic.

View directory listings
These also usually rank nicely in Google. If you type in your “brand name” you’ll see your Yelp listing on that first page in Google. Yelp does have an advertising program (which isn’t the best). And another way to get more exposure is to get more reviews on these sites.

Local commercials, radio and print media
These are old school methods to get traffic to your brand. I used to work at an ad agency that owned local TV and radio stations. I’m more of a numbers guy so tracking these types of ads is very hard. But you can run paid ad spots on each one. Or pay for a local paper or billboard.

The reason you see words in bold above is because you need to spend money on each of those. And below I’ll break down the costs.

QUICK NOTE: I’m not saying that any of the tactics below should not be done for your brand. You should do anything that brings a positive ROI to your business. Heck we do most of these for ReviewRail!

Cost Breakdown Of Different Marketing Methods

SEO

When I worked at that ad agency we did old school advertising methods but also managed digital ad campaigns. SEO is pricey. It used to be a few hundred bucks a month, and some company would get you a few backlinks and you would rank.

Those days are waaaay over my friend.

It’s pricey because there is a lot of work involved. Basically you need:
– A good website with perfect onsite optimization
– Unique content
– Quality, relevant backlinks
– Consistent citations (Yelp, Yellowpages, ect..)
– Continued backlinks and content

COST BREAKDOWN
Decent SEO agencies charge $1500+/month. You can get some for less and some for more. I know an awesome agency that does great work and charges around $4K/mo.

AVG Yearly Cost: $18,000

Digital Ads

You run an ad on Google or Facebook and more people see your website and brand. Sounds simple. Not really. You can learn these skills or hire a professional. I can certainly learn how to change my breaks on my car but I take my car to the shop to get that done.

COST BREAKDOWN
Google Ads: $500-1K+/month in ad spend plus a management fee of at least $500/month.
Facebook (and social ads): same as above with a similar management fee.
Yelp Ads: I worked with a client that ran Yelp ads. He did not have the best experience. It was a minimum of $500/month for 6 months.

These are all general numbers. You can spend way more than that and the decent agencies usually charge $1K/mo for mgmt at least.

AVG Yearly Cost: $12,000 (on the lower end)

Reviews

People read reviews when they make a purchase or use a service. Any local business should be getting them. They aren’t easy to get but can bring in more revenue. The issue with reviews are it’s hard to track your ROI.

For instance, if you have the correct tracking put in place for a Google ads campaign you can see how much a lead costs. And then if you know your close rate it’s easier to cacluate your ROI.

But with reviews you really can’t do that. BUT it’s by far the cheapest way to generate more business.

COST BREAKDOWN
You can essentially get reviews for free if you just ask your customers or hand out flyers with your review links.

Of you can use a review platform like ReviewRail. Most platforms cost around $50-100/month. There are some platforms out there that cost $300+/mo.

AVG Yearly Cost: Free or around $600

Commercials, radio and print media

I do not know this space very well because when I worked at that ad agency, I was on the SEO and PPC team. But I know these media spots were very pricey. Similar to reviews, it’s not easy to compute an exact ROI.

COST BREAKDOWN
Some very average costs for media spots are:

Local TV – $5,000 per one million viewers
Local Radio – $3,000 per one million listeners
Regional Newspaper Ads – $693 to $40,855 for ¼-page ad
(Source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/tv-advertising/)

AVG Yearly Cost: Varies but approximately 5-10K+

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I will repeat, if any of the above tactics bring in a positive ROI then essentially it doesn’t cost you anything to use them. That should be your goal when advertising. My point of this post is to show you that getting more reviews is the cheapest investment you can make for your company.

I think the best strategy for any local business is to have a long term SEO campaign in place, and different paid ad campaigns. I’m not a big fan of the old school tactics but you could test those too. But a lot of local businesses might not have an extra 1-2K/month for paid ads or for an SEO campaign. Therefore you can either start asking for reviews or use a paid platform like ReviewRail.

You need more reviews for your local business. That’s not anything new. I tell local SMBs all the time, it’s the cheapest way to grow your business. Think about it this way:

Average SEO campaign = $1000+/month
Average Google Ads campaign = $10-30/day ($300-$1K+/month) + mgmt fees
Direct Mail Campaign = $500-$1K+
Getting more reviews = Free-$300/month ((Most of the review tools range from around $50 bucks to $300. There are many good options for under $100/mo like ours! :))

I get that reviews aren’t a direct way to get customers like Google ads. But the thing with reviews is they live forever. So even getting 1-2 reviews a month could get you many customers throughout the year.

2 reviews a month X 12 = 24 reviews
24 different recommendations for your business! Think about the power that holds.

The nice thing with a Google review link is that it automatically opens up the review box. NICE! The bad news is that someone needs to have a Google account to leave a review. Gmail and G Suite are super popular so many of your customers will probably have a logon. For ReviewRail, we use G Suite.

I’ll go over how to:

1. Finding Your Place ID in Google
2. Using Your Place ID to Create Your Link
3. Shortening your link
BONUS: Using Your Link To Get More Reviews (Free & Paid Strategy)

Let’s jump into it.

Finding Your Place ID in Google

Google has a nifty tool to help you find your place ID. We are going to search for your business, find your Place ID and then save it somewhere. Follow these steps below:

1. Visit https://support.google.com/business/answer/7035772#place_id.

2. Start entering your business name. You’ll start to see it populate.

3. Select your business name from the drop down.

4. Copy the place ID. It’s a bit funky looking but it’s important to grab the whole thing. Should look like this:

ChIJq_Wh0J-rxokR5E9d9wRw4Ww

Save this place ID somewhere as we’ll be using it.

Using Your Place ID to Create Your Link

Now take your place ID and paste it at the end of the link below from Google.

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

Our example would be:

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJq_Wh0J-rxokR5E9d9wRw4Ww

And if you click on the link above, it takes you to that local businesses page and automatically opens up the review box. BAM!

(That’s a great local roofer in the PA area that we know.)

Shortening Your Link

Let’s be honest, the link is long and ugly. I recently wrote a post on how you can get more recommendations on Facebook and go over how to shorten your FB recommendation link. It’s the same process. Follow the steps below:

1. Visit https://bitly.com/.
2. Pop your long link into their search box (you don’t even have to sign up!).
3. It will look something like this https://bit.ly/2VuCKvG. You can even just use bit.ly/2VuCKvG and if you sign up for an account, you can customize the ending.

Using Your Link To Get More Reviews

There are 2 ways to get more reviews. You can get them for free or use a review platform (like ReviewRail) to automate the process. Let’s go over each option.

Free Way To Get More Google Reviews
It’s not hard to get reviews but it’s also not easy! 🙂 Yes I know a silly statement but really all you need to do is ask your customers. The hard part is that not all will leave you a review and you need to be consistent. We typically see around 10-30% of a conversion rate. So if you ask 100 customers for reviews, you can expect to get about 10-30 reviews. Here are some rules to follow:

– Don’t ask your customers all at once. It’s against Google’s TOS to ask customers in bulk. A good rule to follow is to ask about 25% of your monthly customers a week. Or if you don’t have many customers, you can break that out to 50/50 two times a month. Our platform staggers out the requests so we are not contacting them all at one time.
– Ask them shortly after they have that aha! moment with your business. This could be after they finish a meal at your restaurant, or if you’re a chiro, after they finished X amount of sessions.
– Be consistent! You want to stick with a plan and ask them each week/month. It’s not going to happen overnight.

With your Google review link, send an email to your customers. Use this as a template:

Subject line: Hey NAME quick favor…

Hey NAME, hope you’re having a great week! I have a quick favor to ask. I was wondering if you could leave us a Google review. The link is below:

Google link

And if you aren’t happy for any reason, reply back or call me directly at 555-555-5555.

Thanks!
YOUR NAME

This email is simple and to the point. It also gives them an option if they aren’t happy to respond back or call you directly. Plus it’s personal! Doesn’t sound canned.

Let’s discuss some paid ways to get more Google reviews.

Paid Way To Get More Google Reviews
When we first rolled out our review platform there weren’t many competitors. Fast forward to 2019 and now there are probably over 100 different platforms out there. So you have options which is great.

Review generation software like ReviewRail helps you automate the process. Most platforms follow the same process I outline above:

– We contact your customer by email (SMS coming soon!).
– We optimize your Google link so the review box automatically pops up.
– And the kicker is, we follow up with your customers if they don’t respond.

And the followup is where the magic happens. Let’s face it, most people aren’t going to give you a Google review the first time around. People have a lot going these days (probably too much!). So leaving your business a review isn’t a top priority. So it’s best to “poke” them a few times to kindly remind them to leave you one.

I hear it all the time. A ReviewRail user will email me and say “I’m not getting reviews.” I then jump into their account and see they only uploaded customers yesterday! I tell them “let our system do its job and let the follow ups happen.”

The reviews happen in the follow ups. Even with the free strategy I outlined above you can add a few follow ups to your original email. It would be more work but would be effective.

Most of the review platforms out there are around $50-$300/month. $100+/month is usually on the higher side. We are priced lower and are soon raising our pricing since we’ll be rolling out a new and updated platform. With the new version we will be in that $50/mo range.

No matter what the strategy is, consistently ask for reviews. Whether it’s paid or free, getting more Google reviews will help bring in revenue for your business.

Comment below if you have questions!

Facebook is now using recommendations instead of reviews for business pages. Instead of a 1 to 5 scale it’s now a basic Yes/No type rating style. A user can also include tags and photos with their new recommendations.

Facebook has some really interesting stats on their site:

“2 in 3 Facebook users visit the page of a local business at least once a week”
“1 in 3 People on Facebook use the platform to look for Recommendations and reviews”

If you think you ONLY need Google reviews, then you could be missing out on potential customers looking for your type of business. The best review strategy is to promote a few different review links for your business. I usually recommend Google and Facebook. Because if someone doesn’t have a Google account they need to sign up for one in order to leave a review. But most people have FB accounts so they may decide to leave you a review there. And with 33% of people using FB looking for recommendations, that’s a great place to gain some business.

Let’s break down what you need to know about Facebook’s Recommendations. I’ll go over:

– What Happens To Your Reviews and Score
– Advantages & Features of Facebook Recommendations
– Do I need to activate recommendations?
– How do I get more recommendations?

Alrighty let’s do this.

What Happens To My Reviews and Score

Facebook will still display your old reviews but I imagine they will start pushing them down further and further so the new recommendations show more. We can’t confirm that but it makes sense to push the old down, show the new higher.

What’s cool is that your old reviews (since it was a scale of 1-5) are still part of your overall rating. Your rating is a combination of your old reviews and new recommendations. A few things that are interesting from FB’s Ratings & Reviews page:

– If you haven’t received enough recommendations, your business page might not show a rating.
– You must allow FB to show your recommendations in order to show a rating.
– Your rating is only calculated from people that share their recommendation publicly. So if they only share it between their friends, it won’t count towards your overall score.

On the Ratings & Reviews page you can also find quick instructions on how to report a recommendation if you believe they are not following FB’s community standards.

Advantages & Features of Facebook Recommendations

Let’s go over some of the new features and advantages of recommendations.

More Relevant
I think the first thing to note is if a Facebook friend is “recommending” a business, you will more likely use the business. Not saying that you weren’t likely to use it if they gave it a 5 star rating, but I think the word “recommend” means a lot.

I recently asked for recommendations of a new dentist in the area where I live. And this was not on Facebook but at a local family/friend gathering. We all relate to “recommendations” because we often ask for them. I think this is the main reason FB did this. It makes it feel more like a community.

Reach More People
Recommendations will appear in the newsfeed and across all of Facebook. I don’t remember ever seeing a 5 star review in my newsfeed. You’ll see recommendations from your friends first and even in the maps section. And the power is in your friends. If they recommend something on FB, you are more likely to use that business.

Tags!
This is a really nice feature. When someone is leaving a recommendation they will select yes or no. They will also pick whether to make it public or private. They can write their experience about your business and can now also pick a tag. Sample tags could be:

– Best pizza
– Great service
– Free wifi

Since we don’t know everything that happens behind the FB doors, this is just speculation. But I would imagine they use those tags as keywords like Google does. So if your friend is searching for the best pizza in town, your recommendation will show up as a suggestion. Very smart FB, very smart…

Add Photos On Mobile
You can add a photo when posting a recommendation on a mobile device. What’s interesting is that you can’t post a photo when posting a recommendation on a desktop. We tested:

– Desktop: can’t post a photo
– Mobile from a web browser: can post a photo
– Mobile FB app: can post a photo

Since most people are on their mobile devices, I don’t think it matters. Instagram’s massive success is because of the power of a picture so this will only help your recommendations.

Do I need to activate recommendations?

You do not have to activate anything in order to have people recommend your business. Depending where you are in the world, it has probably already been activated. The FB Reviews tab needs to be on in your business page settings.

How do I get more recommendations?

Ask for them! We’re a software company that helps you get more reviews but still the best way to get more recommendations is to ask face to face. Following up with an automated strategy like ReviewRail will only help but ask your customers. I break down free and paid strategies on getting more recommendations below.

Free Way To Get More Recommendations
The process below takes a little bit of work but after you do it a few times, you can spend a few hours a week to send out a bunch of emails. Follow the steps below to setup this strategy:

1. Head over to your Facebook business page.
2. Click on Reviews link in the left hand menu.
3. Copy this link URL.
4. Then head over to https://bitly.com/ and paste your Facebook link into the shortener. Bitly will give you a nice, short link you can use in your emails.
5. Jump into your businesses email and craft a message. Use the sample we provide below and your bitly link.
6. Personalize each one and start sending out requests! I recommend NOT blasting this out to all of your customers are once. Email a few a week to get going and then stick with that amount.

Here’s a sample email to use:

Subject line: Hey NAME, quick favor to ask

Hey NAME, I was wondering if you could give us a quick recommendation over at Facebook? The link to our page is below. Recommendations help get the word out about our business to potential customers.

Our Facebook page: https://bitly.com/

And if you aren’t happy for any reason, reply back or call me directly at 555-555-5555.

Thanks!
YOUR NAME

A few things to note here:
– It’s very personal. Even though you are blasting this out to customers it still sounds personal.
– Don’t get lazy. Make sure to include the name of your customer. Personalization is key! It takes extra time but it works wonders.
– It’s not scalable but it’s possible to send a dozen or so out in an hour once you’ve done it a few times.
– Spread them out, don’t send too many at once.
– Be consistent! A lot won’t leave you recommendations. It’s just the way it is. So it’s a numbers game. The more you send over time, the more recommendations you’ll get.

Paid Way to Get More Recommendations
The free way works but it does take time each week to complete. There are a few paid platforms out there. I’ll explain the benefits to using a paid platform.

– Most of it is automated. Some platforms connect with other apps (like us!) so after you connect, you don’t have to do anything. If not connected to an app, the most you will need to do is upload your list to the platform a few times a month. Very easy to do.
– Some of the platforms will send out SMS and email. We are adding in SMS around May 2019 so it’s coming!
– Requests get spaced out. We have a setting where you add time in-between when messages will be sent. That way even if you upload a list of 100, they won’t go all out at once.
– It’s easy. Most platforms are very easy to use. Easy means you’ll use it consistently and that’s the only way to get more recommendations on Facebook.

Give our review platform a try here. We are rolling out a completely new and updated platform in May 2019. If you do sign up now, you’ll get locked into the price you currently pay as we’ll be increasing our pricing in May.

Questions? Comment below! I’m here to help.

Whether you’re an agency and work with local businesses or you are a small business owner yourself, it’s bound to happen. A negative Google review. Ahhh! What to do?!

There are two types of bad reviews that you or your client may get on Google.

• A real customer review
• Fake or bogus review

But is it actually possible to remove a Google review?

I’m going to lay out a few real life scenarios that have happened with clients I work with. To keep their information private I will not use their real business names and will switch up their industry a bit. The first scenario was a review from a real customer and the second was from a bogus account so you can see how each played out.

Scenario 1: Removing A Real Customer Review From Google

The client I work with deals with homeowners. They have many positive reviews and barely any negative ones. I get alerted when my clients get negative reviews from their Google My Business page and was very surprised when I saw this negative one come through. This particular customer was over 2 years old. And for some reason they were just leaving a review now. Jeez people are weird! 🙂

My first reaction was to inform the client just in case they didn’t know. Within the same day this client had an action plan in place and I asked him to write out what he did because he was successful in removing the review.

This is exactly what he did below. Pretty basic but you might find a few helpful tips.

• Investigated to see if this was a real customer. Which it was but like I said above, it was over 2 years old.
• He called her right away on the phone. Talking to someone (nicely) is the best way to resolve online issues.
• He asked her a bunch of questions to make her understand that she never gave them the chance to fix any issues.
• He also reminded her the job was 2+yrs old and she left them thinking they did a great job. He pointed out it would be one thing if she told them about any issues and they didn’t do anything, but he reminded her that she never reached out.
• He did mention to her that sometimes they make mistakes but are always happy to correct them for their customers.

He told me his goal of the call was to make her realize that they didn’t deserve a 5 star review but also didn’t deserve a 1 star review.

At the end of the call he politely asked if she could edit the review and disclose the fact that she didn’t follow up with any issues and that they did follow up. She understood his point of view at the end of the call and decided she would remove the review all together.

The goal with this type of call is to dig in and see if there was a clear issue. If there was, offer to fix it or resolve it anyway you can. If there isn’t an issue then just being honest with the customer and running through some of the tips above can help. At the end of the day, it’s customer service 101.

My client is awesome and I was very happy he was willing to fill me in on exactly what happened. A quick plan of action is:

1. Investigate the bad review (is it real or fake).
2. If the review is real, locate the customers information and call them! Don’t send an email, a text or a letter. Pick up the phone and call them.
3. Dig in and see what the issue is.
4. If you can fix it, do it. If you can’t then just be honest with them.
5. Ask them to remove the review. If they say no, ask them to edit it at least.

Unfortunately things don’t always go this way. Below in scenario 2 you’ll see what happens with a fake review.

Scenario 2: Removing and dealing with a fake review

This client emailed me one day and was in a state of panic! Someone slammed her business and she told me the customer never even used their services. Right off the bat I thought it was either a competitor or someone that they talked to but never turned into a customer. The review actually had some information in it that was borderline slander. Without going into detail it was saying someone was abusive at their business. She said it didn’t happen and they have don’t have a record of this person except that they may have been a prospect at one point.

This client did not have any luck with removing the review.

They Contacted A Lawyer

The first steps the client took was contacting a lawyer. They drafted up a letter and tried to contact the person posting. That was not successful. The lawyer told them to try and have Google remove it (wow, great advice :)).

Contacting Google To Remove A Review… good luck

Below are some of the actions they took to contact Google. This rarely happens but it’s worth a shot.

Email

He emailed them and explained the situation. They told him they could not remove it. Below is a nice little trick to get an email form where you can contact them.

STEP 1

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STEP 2

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STEP 3

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STEP 4

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STEP 5

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STEP 6

Call

A nice little trick is to grab the support number from Adwords and call them. Last time I called Adwords support, there was an option for Google My Business. If you don’t have Adwords, give this a shot:

My client did not have any luck with this either. She even said she contacted a lawyer but they didn’t seem to care.

Support Forum

Google has support forums for their products. My client posted on the support forums and explained her situation. There was some user advice but nothing that would help. To post on the forum, visit this link.

The Verdict

I told the client that they have a few weeks after the negative review to respond. Reason being is that if you take too long to respond to negative feedback, it looks like you aren’t on top of things in your business. Check out my negative review guide to help with responding to those. They responded and moved on. Their business is still doing great and no one ever asks about the negative review.

If you’ve had any experience with removing a negative review, please comment below!

You get an email from your client. They are freaking the F out!

“Someone wrote a bad review, help me!”
“Can I sue them?”
“We need Google to take it down!”
“Get rid of it for me!”
“Yelp filters all my good reviews, why does this one show!”

Yep been there, heard that. It can happen to any business and will happen to your clients one day. Now they may decide to respond or not respond. That’s up to them. But hopefully this post will help you guide them through the nightmare of a negative review. WARNING: This information is pretty basic but I’ve found most clients really don’t know how to handle negative reviews. I’ll go over:

– Day 1: Steps to take immediately after the bad review
– Day 2: Crafting a response
– How to post the reply on Google, Facebook & Yelp
– 3 Ways to Manage and Prevent Negative Reviews
– Can I sue the world…? (short answer, no)

Let’s get started.

DAY 1: Steps to take immediately after the bad review

Panic sets in when a business owner sees that 1 star. It’s like a knife to the heart. I’m a business owner so I get it. Who wants to hear bad stuff about their company. No one.

But if you don’t follow these first two steps, it can and will go downhill extremely fast.

Chill And Cool Off: Let’s face it, they are probably pissed off. I would be too. Either it’s a fake review, pain in the butt customer or a legitimate complaint. Anger will set in so they need to cool off for a few hours or a day. One bad review isn’t going to take out a business overnight. But the WORST possible thing a business owner or manager can do, is respond and blow up at the customer. It looks unprofessional and others will read the explosive response. That is worse than not replying at all. It’s better to not respond then to blow the F up.

Investigate: During this cool off time they need to look into the issue. Was it a problem with one of their staff? Was the customer told something they didn’t get and were mislead? Is the temperature in the business too cold for customers? They will want to look into the complaint and see if this customer even existed. Some will post under another profile so they don’t give away their real name. Why? Because most hate confrontation so they don’t want to be confronted.

Don’t respond today! Your client needs to cool off and wait a day to respond. Things will be a little better tomorrow.

DAY 2: Crafting a reply and tips to responding to a negative review

Day 2 is here. Your client now has somewhat of a clear head and can craft a reply back to the negative review. A few tips to keep mind for your client:

• Keep it short and simple. We browse online, our eyes wander and most of the time we don’t read every word. That’s why I have made some words in this article in a bold font. I want to make sure your eyes catch those words. A few sentences max should be enough of a response. If there is need to explain something a bit more, then explain but again keep it short.
• The customer is always freakin right. Yeah I know that saying sucks because some customers are just terrible people but in the eyes of new potential customers, they need to abide by this. They will need to suck it up and at least apologize that the customer is having an issue with their business.
• Fix the issue! If there is a major problem at their business, they need to fix it. And let them know that the issue has been fixed in the reply. This type of customer support looks incredible to potential customers. I read reviews like a crazy person, eating up each one. And I don’t really care about a few negative reviews. If the business is sincere and has an appropriate response, that’s almost as better as a 5 star review.
• Personalize it. Use the person’s name if it’s in their profile name. I recommend just sticking with the first name.
• Don’t be generic. This is a piggy back off of my tip above but you don’t want to craft a general message that looks like you copied and pasted. This looks bad and it’s almost better to not respond.
• Don’t post it 2 months later. Your client can wait a few days, even a week or so but don’t post a response a few months later. Again this looks bad. It looks like they don’t care how their business looks online. A few days is completely acceptable.
• Write down a response and sit on it for day. This is CRUCIAL! The reason you don’t want to post a response right away is because it could be on the “rude” side. Your client needs to read it over a day later, edit and then post it. It’s like when you write a “not so nice” email to someone, read it a few hours later and then delete the whole thing because you sound like an ass. I’m saying this with experience because I’ve done this many times.
• Send it to a friend. This is also a good tip. Have a friend, coworker, partner, anyone else read the review. Look it over for your client before they post it online and give them some honest feedback.

The reply should look something like this (my pissed off customer is Paul):

“Paul, we are so sorry you had a bad experience with us. Our AC wasn’t working properly that day and we are looking into the issue so it never happens again. We will reach out to you and if you have any more concerns, please contact me directly. Blah blah blah….

We appreciate you being a customer and want to make this right for you.

Stephen
Blah Blah Manager”

You will need to craft the message to the issue. Personalize it in the beginning, apologize right off the bat (I know this sucks even if they are wrong), and then thank them at the end for being a customer. Sign off with your name and title.

How to post the reply on Google, Facebook & Yelp

Below I’m going to lay out some quick how-to’s on replying to a message on the big 3 platforms. In my free negative review handout that you can download, each of these how-to’s will be included.

Google
Google My Business is always changing things up so by the time you read this, things could be different. To respond to a review do this.

1. Log into your Google My Business account.
2. Click on Reviews.
3. Click Reply, write your review and the click Post reply.

Facebook
Replying to a Facebook review is pretty simple. It’s basically the same way you reply to a post on Facebook.

1. Go to your Facebook page
2. Click on the Reviews tab
3. Comment on the review like you would on a Facebook post

Yelp
The big bad Yelp. Some love them but a lot of business owners dislike them. To respond to a review do the following:

1. Log into your business Yelp account and go to the Reviews section
2. Find the review you want to reply to and click Add Public Comment
3. After you enter your reply you can click Preview and then Post Comment

3 Ways to Manage and Prevent Negative Reviews

Your client needs a process in place. Having a process is being proactive in asking for feedback about a business. If a pissed off customer is going to leave a bad review online this might prevent them. Not all of the time but most of the time they are looking for a way to vent their issues. Yes below I will pitch my software BUT I’ll also include a few suggestions you can give them that won’t cost them a dime.

Use review software. There are many options out there and most work in the same way. You add a customer to the platform and then the customer is followed up with a response for feedback. With ReviewRail, we see around 5-20% of customers that go through the process will leave a review online. And with our new agency platform that we’re working on, we have some tricks up our sleeve to improve that. Make sure to jump on the waiting list below. You’ll get a nice discount when we launch.

Ask them. What! You mean talk to them? I know, groundbreaking advice. But the truth is if most businesses just asked for a review, a percentage of their customers would leave one. Plus how more personal can you get than that!? Everything is done digitally/electronically these days so when people actually talk face to face, it’s more effective than it used to be.

Follow up with email. Most of the review software uses email to ask for reviews but you can also set up a simple follow-up email in a free email service like Mailchimp, and your client can add customer emails to their feedback list.

Can I sue the world…? (short answer, maybe but probably not)

Can a business sue someone that leaves a negative review online? This is a great question and one that I get often. I’m not a lawyer so this advice is not proper legal advice, but most of the time the answer is no. Here is a great article from Freshbooks about it and also some points you can find in the article.

– Reviews are protected under the 1st Amendment. Opinions are covered here.
– However, if that customer is defaming a business, then you could possibly sue.
– Don’t even try to sue Google or Yelp, the U.S. Communications Decency Act protects them.
– If there is some defamation in the review, the review site might remove it.
– If the reviewer is fake, it will be very hard if not impossible to get their contact information from the review site.

The best thing to do is reply in a timely fashion and bury the review with more positive reviews. If you do have a case, by all means try to rectify it but I would consider responding to them using some of the tips above.

Comment below with questions!