In this increasingly digital world, online reviews can make or break your business

By Terri Wallo Strauss

You’re looking for a new restaurant or maybe you’re out shopping and want to know if those shoes that look so great are actually comfortable. What do you do? In today’s online world, you do what the majority of consumers do—you go online and you read reviews. Consumer experts say that by the time someone starts reading reviews, they’ve already figured out what they want to buy and are in the process of choosing a business or product. Virtual reviews have become sought-out advice and can make or break a buying decision.

According to a 2015 survey by Bright Local, which specializes in helping businesses grow through search marketing, 92 percent of consumers now read online reviews (versus 88 percent in 2014), and 40 percent of consumers form an opinion by reading just one to three reviews. The results of the survey showed that the number one influencer and judge of a business is their star rating. In fact, a recent Harvard Business School study noted that gaining an additional star on reviewer sites can boost revenues 5 to 9 percent for some businesses such as restaurants. 

Today’s savvy consumers go online to research everything from services to products. Product reviews are so significant for retailers that they even barrage buyers with follow-up e-mails asking for reviews. Using popular review websites such as Yelp and Google, consumers also do research to determine if they even want to go into a business such as a jewelry store, let alone make a purchase, says Shane O’Neill, vice president of Fruchtman Marketing in Toledo, Ohio.  

“I think online reviews are critical to businesses these days,” he says. “Today’s consumers are relying on reviews on Yelp or Google. They use reviews all the time to help make purchasing decisions, such as buying engagement rings or whether or not they should visit a store.”

Yelp keeps its stats current and cites a monthly average of 167 million unique visitors who accessed their site or app in the first quarter of 2016. Yelpers wrote more than 102 million reviews during the same period. Google doesn’t publish numbers, but with billions of users and a name that is synonymous with using a search engine, reviews on the site are critical. More important, reviews on sites such as Google affect rankings in search engines, meaning a company with no reviews is not going to pop up in a Google search as effectively as one with many reviews. Both sites let anyone browse reviews, but you have to be a registered user to leave a review.

Andrea Hill, owner of StrategyWerx in Chicago, believes that online reviews are the new norm. “Word-of mouth is one of the most important ways to build business,” she says. “People really rely on online reviews to help them make up their mind about making a purchase. The more reviews you have—good, bad, and neutral—the more online trust you will build.  

“For consumers, more reviews are better than less,” she continues. “A business that has been reviewed 200 times—and has mostly good reviews—is considered more trustworthy than a business that has only five reviews that are perfect.” 

Nikko Kandhari, owner of Geoffrey’s Diamonds and Goldsmith in San Carlos, California, says he began monitoring his store’s reviews in 2009, as he watched the shift in consumers who said they came to his store because they read positive reviews online. The store now enjoys a Yelp five-star rating, which Kandhari firmly asserts brings in additional business.

“In California, consumers read [about] what other retailers are doing and what the service is like,” says Kandhari. “The Yelp consumer is very savvy, looking for the best deal, and they want to make sure it’s worthwhile for them to go to the store and have an experience.”

With many consumers doing more of their shopping online, reviews are even more critical since customers aren’t always able (or willing) to visit brick-and-mortar locations.

“We are quickly moving to an e-commerce society,” says O’Neill. “These people don’t come in the store, so reviews are critical as they decide whether they want to buy from your business. In the next five years, e-commerce will continue to grow and companies need to be aware of this and how important reviews will be.” 

Experts say online reviews are what help build trust with an e-commerce brand. Consumers will need to see that the store offers quality products, excellent customer service, and is a reliable business. The way they will gain that positive feeling will be through third-party reviews.

Making Your Presence Known

Yelp and Google publish business listing information so your business may already exist on their sites. As the business owner, you can go to Google and verify your business or “claim” your business on Yelp.  

By doing this, you are able to respond to reviews and add photos and additional information. Both sites offer various free tools for business owners, including tracking traffic to your page (including views from mobile devices), evaluating how people are finding your business (calling, mapping, visiting your website) and other analytics. The sites give owners the option of closing their user account, but the page will still exist—you just won’t be part of the conversation. If the business is permanently closed, business owners can let the sites know. 

Once you have an online review presence, how do you get customers to review your business? Yelp discourages asking for reviews, stating that getting truly authentic reviews should be an organic process. The site recommends letting consumers know you have a Yelp site by putting a badge on your website or “Find us on Yelp” sign in your store (downloadable from Yelp).

Google has a different approach and recommends reminding customers to leave feedback because it is important and can help your business stand out.  

Hill believes that you should always ask your customers to review you, but stresses that you shouldn’t make it complicated. “You need to make it super easy for them to do so,” she says. She advises including information, such as links or logos, that you are on review sites in your marketing materials and website, as well as in e-mails or newsletters. She cautions businesses not to forget about their own website in regard to reviews and says her company even has a domain name just for reviews so that people can access it easily and not wade through a website trying to find the reviews.

“I also encourage people to make commenting possible on their website, including product comments, article and blog comments, and product voting. Potential buyers really appreciate this,” Hill says.

O’Neill agrees about the importance of making it easy for customers to review your business and keep your efforts focused. “We tell all of our retailers that Google reviews should under any circumstance be on the list [to which] you send people,” he says. “You shouldn’t send customers to 100 different sites—focus on the leaders. Unless you have a great presence, would you rather have six reviews on one site, two on another, and others spread out, or focus on one particular popular review site?” To start, a business should concentrate their efforts on two review sites at the most.

 “After a customer comes in, send out a pre-determined e-mail with direct links to your review site,” he says. “Thank them for coming in and then say ‘If you’d like to review us, it’s easy—here’s the link.’ The customer can just click the link and are more apt to do it then.” Don’t worry if one of those customers has had a negative experience, because you still have the opportunity to address it. 

There are companies that promise to get good reviews about your business loaded on to sites. Don’t go there, as it can get you kicked off review sites and raise legal issues, as well as ultimately ring inauthentic to the savvy consumer. Studies show as many as 79 percent of consumers trust reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Reviews are the new trust builder—if people see what appear to be fake reviews regarding your business, you’ve just lost your credibility. Amazon.com, which encourages buyers to leave product reviews on its site, has even published an article with tips for spotting a phony review, such as reviews that are too short or expressive, or users that have no other reviewer history. 

Also, don’t be tempted to offer your own discounts in exchange for reviews either. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged a Georgia company last year for doing so and not being upfront about it. This FTC complaint, the first of its kind, charged the company with misrepresenting online reviews by failing to disclose that it gave cash discounts to customers to post reviews. The FTC requires companies to make it clear when they have paid customers to write online reviews.

The Reviews Are In

Registering with review sites and directing customers to them are just the first steps. It’s now time to manage your reviews.

If you are a small business entrepreneur, managing your online reviews in addition to all your other functions may seem daunting. The first thing to do is set up Google Alerts so you can see when your business appears anywhere in the news or receives a review. Google will walk users through this process and you will receive e-mails accordingly.

Yelp makes it easy by sending the owner an e-mail when their business receives a review. Check your reviews consistently, says Hill. If you allow customers to leave comments on your website, she recommends setting up an alert or an approval process before new comments can be published. Though if you want to appear authentic, then you will allow all comments to be published unless they are spam, have offensive content, or are off-topic. 

“Allow good, lukewarm, and bad,” she says. “Use the bads to demonstrate your customer service, professionalism, and accountability; the lukewarms are usually pretty obvious (‘It’s too far for me to drive to,’ ‘I’m not much of a jewelry buyer’); and the goods are just that!”

When it comes to responding to positive reviews, it’s up to the individual owner. Some people choose to answer all, while others don’t take the time. Some business owners answer those clients they recognize or if the reviewer wrote an exceptional or detailed review. 

The most important aspect of managing your online reviews is responding to a negative review. You need to answer these reviews, if not for the person involved, then for everyone who will read it going forward.

Google and Yelp both have policies regarding inappropriate content and copyrighted material, spamming, and other prohibited online behavior, such as using profanity, offensive language, or sexual content. Reviews with this content will be flagged or removed. However, these sites will not get involved in fact checking, and that’s where the business owner will need to step in and respond to comments.

“The first thing you do is apologize publicly and express what you intend to do about the complaint,” says Hill. “Then you may provide the customer with a specific person to contact to discuss the problem. If you’re reluctant to post public information about a real person, you can tell them that the person is going to call them, or you can tell them you’re now going to contact them offline to get more information. But the public readers of the bad review should see that something is happening.”  

But don’t stop there. Showing there was a resolution is also important.

“Once things are resolved, you should go back to the review and state what the resolution was,” Hill says. “You can end it with, ‘We think Mr. So-and-So is happy now.’ Perhaps, the customer will chime in and let you know from his or her own perspective. Transparency, authenticity, and more transparency are the order of online brand management today. ”

O’Neill says it’s just basic customer service. “The smart thing to do is apologize that they had a bad experience, talk about how that’s not what you aim for with customers, and suggest they call you personally. Reach out and ask how you make this right.” 

Most consumers know that businesses will receive negative reviews and can understand that people sometimes may experience a customer service issue. “Keep the negative reviews in check,” says O’Neill, but learn from them if there’s a pattern.

“Most people see one or two bad reviews and they think that’s understandable,” he says. “Conversely, if you have bad reviews that are consistent, such as ongoing bad service, then consumers are going to see that as well. You can respond all day, but people will see the trend.” Take what people are saying to heart and use it as an opportunity to fix whatever is wrong, especially if it’s customer service.

“If you’re not using your reviews to improve your business, you’re wasting your own time and everybody else’s,” says Hill. 

Kandhari says most of his store’s reviews are about customer service, waxing poetically about specific employees so often that consumers can feel as if they know them before they ever walk into the store. When Kandhari’s store does receive a negative review, it’s often traced to a staffing issue, such as when a person visits the store on a busy weekend and there aren’t enough employees to help everyone immediately.

“When a customer writes a negative review that they didn’t get helped right away and they are frustrated, I try to learn from it,” he says. “For example, I might try to adjust staffing and add a comment on our Yelp site that we get busy at certain times, such as weekends, and an appointment will help.”

Handling the Untruths

But what do you do when an online reviewer isn’t being truthful or is exaggerating?

Hill acknowledges this can be concerning for business owners, though it’s fairly rare and shouldn’t affect their decision to be on review sites. “This happens a lot less often than people may think,” she says. “Frustrated or angry customers will often exaggerate, but most of the time there’s meat there somewhere. However, if the bad review is a total lie, you can post about it. You say: ‘We were so concerned when we read this, and we did lots of research and cannot find any evidence that this happened. Mr. So-and-So, if you’re reading this and want to contact me directly, please do so at ____. If this happened and I could not uncover it in my research, I definitely want to know about it.’”

If the situation is more of a big exaggeration, post about it as well, gently correcting the customer. Describe what occurred and what you did to fix it. Once again, be gracious about it, and recognize that something did occur.

“You validate that something went wrong, but your explanation will show the difference between the complaint and the reality,” Hill says. “You have to tread lightly. You want to expose the reality without making it look like you are bashing your customer.”

Choose your words carefully and be consistent in responding to bad reviews. People will see that as authentic. “If the only time you ever respond is to say ‘This was a big lie’ or ‘This was a big exaggeration,’ your authenticity will be discounted and you will look like a company that is highly defensive against criticism,” says Hill.

Whatever your response, always be respectful and never combative. O’Neill recommends addressing your responses to the people that might be reading the review, rather than the original reviewer.

Remember that if the negative review is someone’s opinion, then it is protected under the First Amendment. However, if it’s a situation where a bad review contains statements that are false, you may have other options to pursue. First, contact the site directly and cite the guidelines the review may violate. Also present facts that show the review is probably false (for example, the reviewer says something that couldn’t possibly be true, such as they visited your store before it even was opened).  

In some cases, you may want to pursue legal action if you want to undergo the expense and an attorney advises it. Lawsuits can help determine the identity of the reviewer (if he or she is anonymous); order the company to remove the review; and/or seek compensation if your company suffered damages directly resulting from the libel. The key is that the review must falsely describe a fact and not just be someone’s opinion. 

Lawsuits are on the rise, as well-known cases against some reviewers have been successful. Before pursuing a lawsuit, an attorney will help you determine if your state has an Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law and if so, would that play a role with your case. These laws were enacted to stop businesses from filing baseless cases intended solely to hush critics. Currently, 28 states have Anti-SLAPP statutes that allow victims to get these frivolous cases dismissed quickly.

Pageo Jewelers in Newton, Massachusetts, made headlines last year when they filed suit against a Yelp user, known as Linda G., for libel and defamation and went to court to obtain the identity of the person. Linda G. left a scathing Yelp review, saying she and her husband were loyal customers, but sold the jewelry back to Pageo’s for a fraction of the cost. Owner George Pelz subpoenaed Yelp for the user’s identity and submitted sworn affidavits that raised doubts about the authenticity of the review. The court ordered Yelp to hand over the user’s identity. Once he had the reviewer’s information, Pelz realized the woman was a “marginal” customer who he says had bought and returned jewelry for full credit more than a decade ago. Linda G. has since deleted her account, which contained the review, but is said to have a new account. Noting that he still believes the review is fictional, Pelz says the entire “horrendous experience” has colored his view about review sites.

Experts caution that reviews, positive or negative, and even untrue ones, are going to occur whether you are part of the process or not. You might as well participate so you can help steer your message and online presence.

It can be challenging for a company to make the shift, but it’s something every business owner needs to be thinking about, say experts. “It’s difficult these days with all these platforms and digital marketing,” says O’Neill. “Every company now needs an online presence, and reviews are just under that umbrella. However, reviews are just one cog in the system. Pay attention to it or hire someone who can. It’s that important.”