We don't need to remind you of the impact of customer reviews on your business. With hyper-connected customers, online reputation is becoming as important as your local visibility. What you may not know is that they're directly linked to your visibility on Google and your sales! In any case, this article explains how you can better manage customer reviews using simple methods: centralizing reviews, automation, templates...
The first step in managing customer reviews is to give them the importance they deserve. Understanding the importance of online reviews should enable you to devote the necessary time to them. Quite simply, the Internet has revolutionized the way we shop, and the main reason is customer reviews!
They have become the first source of information before deciding to buy a product, go to a restaurant or enter a store. As a result, customer reviews boost sales in many ways.
We'll go into more detail below on theenormous impact of customer reviews on your SEO. Appearing first on Google and other search engines (Bing, Qwant...) has a huge virtuous effect on sales. Organic traffic costs next to nothing, and generates point-of-sale presence without having to multiply your advertising spend!
As an added bonus, customer reviews allow you to spread your brand awareness effortlessly. A positive e-reputation has both quantitative and qualitative effects. With online reviews, your customers become influencers. It's the principle of advertising 2.0: you don't have to say you're the best, your customers do.
This visibility is self-sustaining, and enables us to reach many more customers. Indeed, customer review sites have become enormous (Tripadvisor, Lafourchette for restaurants, Yelp for shops...). As if that weren't enough, they've now been joined in this niche by Google and Facebook, which generate huge numbers of customer reviews for shops and restaurants. If you're visible on these sites, you're visible everywhere, and above all to your potential customers - with considerable impact on your sales.
Finally, generating a large number of customer reviews enables you to find out what they like, what they don't like, what they'd like... Constructive criticism, in particular, enables you to take a step back from your offer or menu. Better customer knowledge is also an opportunity toadapt your service and offer to generate more sales as a retailer, or a higher average basket for a restaurant.
Positive customer reviews are a one-way ticket to first place on Google! SEO is made up of a large number of factors, not always clearly identified. One thing's for sure: there's a strong correlation between a large number of positive customer reviews and top position on search engines, especially Google.
This is especially true for shops and restaurants, where local SEO on Google My Business is strongly linked to customer reviews. But that's not the only impact customer reviews can have on your SEO! Here are the 5 main effects customer reviews can have on your Google, Bing or Qwant ranking.
Local SEO is infused with customer reviews. Favorable Google reviews mean top positions on Google Maps. As a result, you'll also appear in the Maps inserts we systematically see at the top of Google results pages, when searches are for local businesses.
It's not enough to appear on Google, you have to get people to click on your link. This is measured by the CTR, or click-through rate. It increases enormously if there are reviews (with a 5-star rating) below the link to your site. According to Google, customer reviews boost CTR by an average of 17%. And when CTR rises, so does Google ranking! This applies to both SEO and SEA (Google Ads).
A low bounce rate is an excellent signal to Google: it means that visitors are enjoying your site. This is more likely to happen if your site includes verified customer reviews. Indeed, visitors always prefer a site that publishes positive customer reviews (it's social proof). They'll be more likely to visit your site and make a purchase if this is the case.
Customer reviews can be used to generate content about your business or restaurant. You can repatriate them to your site using a customer review collection platform. Responding to reviews generates interaction, another positive signal for search engines.
Tripadvisor, LaFourchette, Facebook, Google My Business, Yelp... All these online review sites are used to dominating the top positions of search engines. Appearing at the very top of these sites offers you a boulevard to gain visibility by taking advantage of their SEO.
At Pongo, we have a unique perspective on customer reviews for shops and restaurants (notably through Fetch, a tool for better managing them). As a result, we've long since identified a number of best practices, which we share with you here. Managing customer reviews is based on three pillars:
The key to managing customer reviews online is to be able to monitor them in real time. The problem is, there are so many sites to check regularly. Between Tripadvisor, Yelp, LaFourchette, Google, Facebook and the rest, you don't know where to turn? This is a problem for busy managers who don't have much time to devote to it every day (and who have other things to think about).
The time-saving solution is a customer review platform that centralizes all customer reviews in real time. Gathered in one place, it's much less time-consuming to view and respond to them. This is precisely what Fetch, a solution made by Pongo, offers. It's tailor-made for independent shops and restaurants that want to manage their customer reviews without wasting time.
With a tool for centralizing customer reviews, you save an enormous amount of time. You can respond in a more responsive and optimized way. It's easy to increase the volume of your customer reviews, and you'll always have a reliable overview of your e-reputation.
Once you've got the tool to centralize customer reviews, what next? Internet users are always creating positive, negative or neutral reviews - no one can escape them, not even the best. You need a strategy for each type of review! Especially when it comes to negative reviews, it's important not to let them go unanswered. We always recommend providing a counterpoint with patience, listening and availability.
Here are our tips for responding to all customer reviews:
All these tips are detailed in our article on how to respond to negative reviews. You'll also find a few tips on how to respond to constructive criticism or criticism in bad faith! These tips for dealing with negative reviews are aimed at restaurants, but they can also be applied to any business with customer reviews to manage.
What about positive reviews? You need to respond to them too, of course, even if it's not as urgent as for negative reviews. If you're overwhelmed by positive reviews (we hope you are!), respond to a few from time to time, as these interactions are good for your Google ranking and sales.
Final tip: to manage negative or positive reviews, you can save time by using templates. A template is a predefined framework that allows you to publish a response more quickly. You still need to personalize it and adapt it to the context, but the time savings are real, as you won't have to copy polite formulas and any response pieces.
It's possible to create different templates for all the different types of reviews: positive/negative, in good faith/bad faith, on the theme of the room/waiting area/plate/etc. The key is to strike the right balance between automation and personalization of responses. If you succeed, you'll be able to respond more quickly to a very large number of reviews!
Alongside these tips, there are strategies for generating more customer reviews. Pongo has become the specialist in this area, with a simple and effective solution for building customer loyalty. But there are other ways to collect more customer reviews: you can, for example, highlight the online review site you want to conquer. You can mention reviews in a conversation with satisfied customers (it's estimated that if you do nothing, only 1% of your customers will leave online reviews).
You can also launch an SMS survey, increase customer loyalty, boost satisfaction... To find out more, read the article: "Google reviews, the ultimate guide"!
Managing your customer reviews is the essential strategy for boosting your sales as an independent business or restaurant. It can quickly become an easy task, provided you have the right tools, an infallible method and a little common sense. A final tip for generating more positive reviews: increase team satisfaction! There's no doubt about it: happy employees are reflected in customer satisfaction and the quality of online reviews.
