Responding to Google reviews is vital for your business's success in local search results. By responding to both negative and positive feedback, you show customers that you're committed to listening to their concerns and exceeding their expectations.

One in five customers look to hear back from y'all when they get out a review. Yous don't desire customers who leave a positive review to feel unappreciated, and customers who leave a negative review feel unheard.

In this mail service, discover the importance of responding to Google reviews, and learn how to reply to the ones you receive from customers.

Download Now: 20 Review Response Templates

Responding to Google reviews is incredibly important, given that Google is the world's most popular search engine.

When your potential customers apply this huge source of data to offset researching products and services, concern listings appear — along with recent customer reviews with starred ratings and comments.

According to BrightLocal, 79% of consumers trust online reviews every bit much as personal recommendations. The reviews on your Google My Business profile can accept a big affect on y'all finding new customers. Google itself has disclosed that responding to reviews — adept or bad — increases your ratings.

It's of import to do it quickly, too. If y'all wait weeks and months before responding, at that place's a good chance your customer will take forgotten they left that review in the showtime place.

Responding to reviews can be time-consuming, difficult, and apartment-out awkward, but luckily, you don't accept to offset from scratch. Y'all can apply the templates below to respond to Google reviews apace and effectively.

Featured Resource: 20 Free Review Response Templates

Response template for positive and negative Google Reviews

Earlier starting, information technology would be wise to prepare Google My Business concern notifications, so anytime a new client review is posted, y'all receive a notification. Below we'll outline the steps to responding to Google Reviews on both mobile and desktop.

How to Reply to Google Reviews from a Desktop

  1. Sign in to Google My Business organization by going to business.google.com.
  2. On the left sidebar, click "Reviews."
  3. A list of your recent reviews will come up. Discover the review you want to respond to.
  4. Click "Answer."
  5. A message box volition open for y'all to write your response.
  6. Click "Postal service reply."

how to respond to google my business reviews: reply

How to Reply to Google Reviews From a Mobile Device:

  1. On your mobile device, open the Google My Business app.
  2. On the bottom navigation bar, click "Customers."
  3. A list of your recent reviews volition come up. Tap the review you lot want to respond to.
  4. A message box will open up for you lot to write your response.
  5. Click the "Transport" icon on the upper right-hand corner.

Manage Google Reviews

Depending on your private business needs, the manner you choose to manage your Google Reviews may exist different. For example, some businesses may make it a priority to respond to every single review they go, while others focus on reviews that contain specific elements, like a complaint or request.

Regardless of your strategy, consistent management of your Google Reviews looks equally follows:

  • Creating a business-specific plan for when to respond to reviews based on your private business needs.
  • Abiding monitoring of your Google My Business business relationship.
  • Reading all reviews as they come in, both positive and negative.
  • Deleting fake reviews when yous come up upon them.
  • Responding to reviews when they come in.

When you really begin responding, you'll likely observe that you receive both positive and negative reviews from customers. Each type of review requires a specific blazon of response in order to ensure customer satisfaction and to prevent potential churn.

In the next sections we'll discuss how you should reply to negative and positive Google Reviews, and provide examples of responses to each type.

Many companies and business owners fear responding to negative reviews because it is a digital confrontation. However, bad reviews should not cause anxiety. Instead, they should be a moment to better your brand and customer service. Later all, research shows that customers are one.7x more likely to visit your business if your company responds to negative reviews.

So, how should you respond to them?

1. Assess and evaluate the feedback internally first.

Yous're better off assessing the situation instead of immediately responding to a bad review. Customers have a lot of power online, and if you lot react to a negative review without thinking it through, you volition fuel your angry customer.

A negative response to a negative review will cost y'all customers. As 73% of consumers only look at the reviews from the last month, it is vital to answer in a positive way. Practice non go emotional when it's your turn to reply to a bad review — have a logical procedure in place before clicking "respond." Have the residual of the 24-hour interval to contemplate your response, merely don't take as well long. BrightLocal claims that 20% of those who leave negative reviews expect an answer within 24 hours.

2. Piece of work off of a review response template.

Information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to respond to a negative review with frustration and defensiveness. This solution tin hands backfire, frustrate customers, and tarnish your reputation online. Information technology'southward best to work off of a negative review response template to help mellow out any animosity you might be feeling and answer kindly and appropriately.

3. Publicly respond to the review.

This means, don't hide and privately accomplish out to your customer, merely respond to them on the platform that they posted the review (privately responding aslope a public response is good as well). Whether they left you lot a bad review on Capterra or Google, do non avoid digital conversation. Responding publicly to bad reviews shows your customers and potential customers that you intendance and are attentive.

Why should you care that you're attentive? Because it can lead to increased business. A study conducted by Cornell University revealed that responding to negative hotel reviews "appears positively related to the consumer's view of the hotel, as measured past increases in the TripAdvisor score."

4. Work towards a 1:1 conversation.

Your first response to a negative review should always be made on Google. All the same, Google Reviews isn't ever the best place to host a customer service conversation. It'south non a real-fourth dimension advice channel nor is it a 1:ane interaction with the client. Other people can like their comments and write boosted reviews supporting or adding context to the beginning customer's experience.

If you know a negative review is going to have some time to reconcile, so you should piece of work towards a 1:ane conversation with the customer. That doesn't mean you're trying to hibernate the problem or save face online, merely rather, your priority is to meet customer's needs and that means communicating with them on the best channels bachelor. Google Reviews did its job by highlighting the poor feel for your business. Now it's time to rely on your trusted customer support channels like phone, live conversation, and email, to solve the problem.

five. Be transparent nigh mistakes.

No business concern is perfect, and as your client base of operations grows, your squad is bound to make mistakes. Subsequently all, customers often have conflicting needs that make it impossible to satisfy everyone. It's how you respond to these mistakes, though, that determines how customers perceive your brand.

Being transparent is the best course to take when responding to a negative review.In fact, research shows that over 90% of Americans say brand transparency is an important factor when making purchasing decisions.Customers know your squad isn't going to be perfect, but they expect you to take responsibleness for your mistakes when they occur. This builds customer rapport and leads to long-term, loyal advocates.

half-dozen. Ask questions when details aren't clear.

Customers don't get paid to write reviews and some volition focus more on submitting a negative score then explaining their problem with your company. Y'all might come across a vague review like this one where it's hard to decide the customer'south problem.unclear google review with little information

Image Source

With this review of a coffee shop, we don't know what about the feel was dissatisfying. It's difficult to tell whether it was an issue with the coffee, service, or the actual store.

If we desire to finer answer to this review, we need to enquire questions and get more than information from the client. This will start a healthy dialogue that will aid u.s.a. diagnose the customer'southward roadblock. Once we know the problem, we can provide a solution.

vii. Understand and offer solutions.

If you merely spend your fourth dimension writing a fluffy response back to the customer apologizing for their feel and you've really taken the time to not exist impulsive, but did not provide some sort of solution or actionable items to mitigate the consequence, so you haven't properly responded to a negative review. Brand sure to offering to make it right by providing some sort of solution.

8. Provide an incentive if necessary.

Some customers only write negative reviews to blow off steam and have no intention of returning for your response. In these cases, y'all tin can recapture their attention by offering incentives that reinforce the sincerity of your response.

While you don't want to do this with every bad review, you lot can use customer lifetime value to determine if someone should become an incentive or not. For case, if a customer isn't spending much coin with you lot, and is constantly writing poor reviews, then they may not be a "adept fit" for your business. If you proceed offer them a discount every fourth dimension they mutter, you'll end up losing money on this customer when you lot could have been using that discount to acquire or retain a client with a higher lifetime value.

9. Sign your name at the cease of your response.

This is a small detail that goes a long way. Signing your name after each response shows the client that you're a real person. And, customers aren't only nicer when they're working with a human agent, they're likewise happier because it shows your company is invested in their review.

ten. Request an update for the review.

It's important to remember that customer reviews are the start of a larger conversation. The customer's perception of your brand isn't stagnant and can change equally they continue to interact with your company.

One time you send your initial response, be prepared to have an in-depth conversation with the customer. Talk to them about their experience and attempt to pinpoint exactly where your visitor barbarous short of their expectations.

If you feel like the client is satisfied with your squad'southward response, ask them if they'd be willing to update their review. Since you lot've just changed their perspective, it's the perfect time to ask them to edit their original feedback. Call up, that review is still public and future leads may not read the whole thread and see the positive outcome. Updating the original review is the best way to preclude you lot from gaining a negative reputation online.

Whether it'due south providing your contact data and following up with the customer offline, you should display empathy and endeavor into solving the complaint.

Examples of Negative Review Responses

Here are ideas for responding to negative reviews as a concern possessor.

1. Business organization/Bureau Negative Review Response Instance

If your company generates acquirement from recurring, subscription or contract-based relationships, information technology's imperative that you respond to negative reviews. Information technology can help you win back unhappy customers, and it tin can forestall other potential customers from reading them online — and passing on y'all. If a current or old customer trashes you online, here'southward an example of how you could reply.

Originally published Jan 10, 2022 7:fifteen:00 AM, updated January 10 2022