I, for one, tend to take comfort in the shared characteristics of my fellow specialty coffee-swilling millennials… well, mostly.

The thing with stereotypes, though, is that they can cause us to assume things about people. And in many cases, there can be negative associations with such groups. 

When we conduct the annual Local Consumer Review Survey, we examine the results to look for patterns around demographics like gender or age. Do younger consumers search for reviews online more regularly than older groups, for example?

The 2024 report pointed to several key themes among consumers, such as a sense of fatigue from being prompted for reviews too often and wariness of taking what they read at face value. Yet, while 73% of consumers had written a business review in the last year, it was interesting to note that some consumers lean towards only leaving positive reviews, while others lean towards only leaving negative ones.

In fact, we found that the percentage of consumers only leaving positive or negative reviews had grown year on year.

So, what type of person only writes a positive review, and are they very different from those who only write negative reviews? Why would someone specifically only leave positive or negative reviews? What kind of crusade are they on?

Let’s take a look. Some of the findings might just surprise you. Have a look at the profiles we’ve put together below, or scroll down further for a breakdown of the findings.

The Positive Reviewer

Going back to our stereotypes, you might assume that older consumers would have less patience and, therefore, be more likely to leave negative reviews. Our results showed quite the opposite, as 45-60 year-olds were the largest age group of Positive Reviewers.

Typically, the Positive Reviewer will ‘always’ read online reviews when researching local businesses and will ‘always’ write a review after an experience. This commitment shows us that they have faith in the review system, so their motivation for leaving reviews probably stems from a desire to contribute to the system and be helpful by sharing their experiences.

It’s very interesting, though, that when we consider they always write business reviews, these reviews are also always positive and not a mix of sentiments.

Does the Positive Reviewer simply never have a bad experience? Or, are these reviewers determined to always find the positive in any given situation?

The top factor that impacts the Positive Reviewer’s decision to use a business is reading other reviews describing positive experiences. So, it could be that they are more careful in the businesses they choose and that they spend time reading the written content of reviews.

Additionally, the Positive Reviewer likes to use local news as an alternative platform for business reviews. While this could be in digital or print form, it tells us that the Positive Reviewer views business information printed or published by a local news authority as trustworthy and credible. 

When we consider that they use two platforms on average to read business reviews, they could be verifying reviewer-written content with information found in local news.

The Negative Reviewer

It might surprise you that the Negative Reviewer tends to be between 18 and 29 years old. With this in mind, though, it likely won’t come as a surprise that they tend to use Instagram as a top alternative reviews/recommendations platform.

This reviewer type reads online reviews ‘regularly’ as part of their local business research and generally writes a business review more than half the time. So, while reading business reviews is an important part of the research process, Negative Reviewers do not feel compelled to ‘always’ write business reviews when they’re asked to. 

At a glance, the Negative Reviewer appears less trusting than the Positive Reviewer in that they typically check more review sites (three) and expect to see named reviewers in order to trust their review content. So? This tells us that trust indicators are important to them, which means you must give them a reason to trust your brand. 

While you can’t control the content of customer reviews, you can ensure you maintain consistent reputation management profiles. That means ensuring your brand is present across a range of review platforms and dedicating enough time to generating reviews across all of them. If the average Negative Reviewer checks three review platforms, and the reputation score is wildly different on each one, that isn’t a good indicator of trust.

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Positive vs. Negative: Findings Breakdown

Some of the findings don’t stand out as a particular trait belonging to either profile, but we can compare them side-by-side to highlight similarities and any other areas that might be worth discussing.

Reviewer Type by Age Group

• 63% of Negative Reviewers are aged between 18-44 years.
• 58% of Positive Reviewers are aged 45+. 

If we consider why a consumer might be driven to write a negative review, it’s likely an emotional response to things like bad customer service. The consumer is reacting to disappointment, maybe even feelings of injustice.  

The 18-29 years age group was the largest segment of negative reviewers (36%), with the chart reflecting a decreasing trend across the older age groups. 

Although we don’t know exactly why this might be, it could be that, as digital interactions are so ingrained among 18-29-year-olds, leaving a review for a bad experience feels like a natural first port of call for this age group. 

Review Reading and Writing Frequency

It seems surprising that 19% of Positive Reviewers only read reviews ‘occasionally’ as part of their local business research, compared to 11% of Negative Reviewers.

However, looking at this through a lens of trust might suggest that some of our Positive Reviewers are just happy to find a local business and give it a chance based on first-hand information they find. This could be a brand’s website, owned social media profiles, or official business listings, for example.

For Negative Reviewers, this could further indicate that they are more mistrustful and want to make sure they are reading multiple sources before making a decision.

Top Review Platforms Used to Evaluate Local Businesses

Google, Facebook, and Yelp are the top three platforms used by both Positive Reviewers and Negative Reviewers.

What’s most interesting here, though, is that we also know almost a third of Negative Reviewers are members of the Yelp Elite program. So, why is Yelp not number one among Negative Reviewers? And why do only 42% of them use Yelp, compared to 47% of Positive Reviewers?

It is possible that people are members of Yelp Elite because of the perceived and exclusive benefits the program offers but do not actually use the platform that often to evaluate other business reviews.

The only platform that it seems Negative Reviewers use more than Positive Reviewers is Apple Maps.

Alternative Platforms Used to Find Business Reviews

• Positive Reviewers use local news significantly more than Negative Reviewers to find local business reviews and recommendations.
• Negative Reviewers appear more likely to use newer social media platforms like TikTok and Threads as alternative sources of local business information.

Important Review Factors

The factors that are most important to positive and negative reviewer types generally reflect the pattern and order we saw in the main report, with written positive experiences by far standing out as most important. This tells us that both Positive Reviewers and Negative Reviewers are spending time reading—or at least skimming through—the content of reviews.

Yet, while this review factor is top for both types of reviewer, their motivations might be very different. As we’ve posited, the Negative Reviewer might check review content across multiple platforms because they are naturally less trusting.

For Negative Reviewers, the second most important review factor to them is seeing reviews are written by named users, instead of anonymous profiles. Again, this points to a sense of wariness or mistrust in the information they’re finding online, potentially conflating anonymous reviews with inauthenticity. 

‘High’ star ratings are deemed important to both reviewer types, although it’s worth noting that it appears more important to Positive Reviewers than Negative Reviewers (54% vs. 41%). 

If we examine their expectations for average business star ratings, we see that Negative Reviewers are more likely to use businesses with lower star ratings than Positive Reviewers.

Expectations for minimum average star rating

You might expect this to be the other way around. But, it could tell us that Negative Reviewers are weighing up other review factors, such as the experiences described in written review content or who is writing them, rather than just taking star ratings at face value.

Why might the Positive Reviewer be more selective around businesses with ‘high’ star ratings? Perhaps it comes back to the earlier suggestion that these consumers are determined to have positive experiences with local businesses and, therefore, won’t take a chance on a business with (what they perceive to be) low star ratings.

Expectations for Review Responses

As we know from the main Local Consumer Review Survey report, it’s a significant expectation for business owners to be seen to respond to all types of online reviews, good or bad. That trend is no different here.

The fact that both positive and negative reviewer types are looking for responses to all reviews reinforces the importance of monitoring your reputation platforms for new reviews and ensuring review content is properly addressed.

It also suggests that not all is lost when it comes to the Negative Reviewer! They’re not just looking for responses to negative comments and, interestingly, may be more willing than the Positive Reviewer to use a business that doesn’t respond to reviews at all (56% vs. 52%).

Prompting Consumers to Write Reviews

When looking at the review prompt methods consumers would likely respond to, we can see that Positive Reviewers are more receptive than Negative Reviews to six prompt types in particular:

• SMS (16% more than Negative Reviewers)
• In-person (15% more than Negative Reviewers)
• Receipt or invoice (11% more than Negative Reviewers)
• Email (9% more than Negative Reviewers)
• Social media (7% more than Negative Reviewers)
• Business card (7% more than Negative Reviewers)

But, overall, email is the top prompt method for both reviewer types. 

Negative Reviewers are more receptive to prompts on social media than to all other methods except email. As discussed earlier, this could show a relationship between younger demographics and their ‘natural’ online behavior.

However, as we’re talking about Negative Reviewers here, it might be worth considering how your brand uses social media as a call-out for reviews. Is it calling out for new reviews in one post while ignoring negative feedback shared on other posts? 

What does this mean for your business or brand?

The profiles above may seem a bit of fun (and we’ve aimed to present them in that way), but there are important considerations to take away for your own reputation management strategies. 

1. Customer service is key

As highlighted in the main report, the most important step towards generating regular, positive reviews should, of course, be a focus on delivering the best customer experience possible. You need to give your customers something to remember, something to talk about, something that prompts them to write a review that is unique. 

2. Responding to all business reviews

The next takeaway is to acknowledge and act on all feedback, good and bad. You can’t change a bad review, but you can do the right thing by responding to it—and be seen to do so. We know that it’s a critical expectation in all consumers’ post-experience journeys, whether they default to a positive or negative reviewer. Not only does it show prospective customers that you actively respond to and take on feedback, but it should be seen as an opportunity to convert your negative reviewers into those who are willing to try again. 

3. Opportunities to create brand advocates

Meanwhile, engaging with and responding to your positive reviewers should be seen as an opportunity to nurture advocacy towards your brand. There is plenty of evidence out there that highlights the benefits of repeat custom and customer retention for your bottom line, but with the prevalence of user-generated review content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, who knows where else positive brand mentions could show up?

4. Consider your review prompts carefully

Finally, on the subject of social media, while it is a method of review prompting that reviewers are receptive to, ensure you are considerate and vigilant in how you manage this. A blanket ‘one size fits all’ approach may not be appropriate here, where responses and engagement are publicly visible. 

We hope these profiles have given you some food for thought for how you approach different consumer types.

Thankfully, with the right tools and strategy, your client or business can work towards streamlining their review management across multiple locations, and hair loss can be prolonged for at least another few years. Let’s get into it!

What is different about managing reviews at this sort of scale?

Several factors come into play with multi-location review management, which can vary depending on the locations your business may have.

Let’s say you monitor reviews for Cafe Mexicali in Colorado. They have five physical locations between Fort Collins and Boulder, five Google Business Profile listings, and profiles on sites like Facebook, Yelp, and Tripadvisor.

• The volume of reviews across different platforms will be less, making monitoring and responding to individual reviews much more manageable, but you may need to allocate staff time and budget for software services.
• You may still be able to have one person oversee all review management, and this approach can help them maintain consistency in tone of voice.
• The impact on the overall brand related to negative reviews is less likely to be affected at the same level as a business with many locations.
• Coordinating review management for five locations will be less complex, but each platform may still have its own management interface and requirements.

Now, let’s say you manage reviews for F45 Training. As of 2023, F45 had almost 650 locations around the US, meaning 650 Google Business Profile listings, Facebook profiles, Yelp, and Tripadvisor listings. 

• Ensuring consistency across all locations can be particularly challenging, especially if each location has a different customer base or operational practice. Not all locations will have the same local regulations, market conditions, or customer preferences.
• Managing reviews for 100s of locations requires extensive resources, including staff time and budget, and will require a dedicated staff member or even a team.
• Each location may have unique challenges or issues that require a much more tailored response. This can directly feed into maintaining a prompt response time, and there can be missed opportunities for engagement or resolutions.

Who manages your reviews?

If your client or business has a multi-location SEO strategy, this likely means they are a business with multiple locations spread across a large area or a corporate office with many franchise locations underneath them.

It’s essential to understand the two main models for review management.

Model 1: A Corporate Team Manages Reviews

This model refers to a marketing or customer service team managing reviews across multiple platforms or channels for all locations. Your client or business retains control over communications and branding while benefiting from streamlined data tracking through central management.

However, a potential drawback is that the business may lack visibility into the unique happenings at individual locations. Delays in response time may occur if location managers take time to communicate with the marketing or service team, especially when handling issues such as negative reviews.

For particularly large businesses with hundreds of locations, there’s also a chance this could be done region-by-region.

Model 2: Individual Locations Manage Their Own Reviews

The next model is to have individual locations manage their reviews. Within the franchise model, individual locations often have greater autonomy in shaping their marketing strategies and customer service approaches.

While they may need to adhere to strategy guidelines provided by the corporate office, they can promptly view and respond to reviews. Reviews can also be considered feedback, and a manager can make quick changes to address issues at their specific location.

The downside to having individual locations manage their reviews is the risk of brand dilution. Instances where certain locations underperform could detract from the overall brand image, especially if they stand out negatively amidst others performing well.

Do you have a multi-location review management process?

You need a standardized process for managing reviews. It ensures consistency across all locations and channels, fostering brand identity and trust with their customers. It establishes clear roles and responsibilities within your team and ensures that reviews are managed effectively and important issues are addressed quickly.

A standard process also helps save time and resources, allowing teams to focus on other marketing and customer service areas. It helps a business grow and expand when a framework that won’t sacrifice quality or consistency is in place.

An example of a standardized process could look like this:

1. Utilizing a review monitoring tool and platform to see reviews from various channels like Google Business Profile and Yelp in one place.
2. Categorizing reviews and prioritizing those based on urgency.
3. Collecting and analyzing data to identify trends or recurring issues.
4. Developing a clear protocol for responding to reviews, including timelines, tone of voice, and escalation procedures.
5. Create templates to maintain brand consistency.
6. Providing training and support to location managers on how to best respond to reviews and address customer concerns.
7. Establishing KPIs to track the performance of review management efforts and regularly reviewing these numbers to identify areas of effectiveness.

Where do you get reviews?

The most common review sites are Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Trustpilot. If your client or business has listings on all these, you will want to ensure it manages and monitors reviews on each platform.

Each of these platforms has a number of notification settings you can take advantage of. However,  doing this at scale can get overwhelming, so consider the best way to centralize and speed up your approach.

Google Reviews

Gathering all location listings under one account or location group is helpful for handling reviews for multiple locations on Google Business Profile. This makes management smoother and ensures consistency, which is especially valuable for businesses with locations across different states or countries.

It is best practice to respond to all the reviews for each location as quickly as possible, and having all locations under one location group helps to streamline the process. However, continually managing and responding to reviews can be a heavy lift, which is where a tool like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager can be extremely helpful.

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Responding promptly to complaints is crucial, and with just a couple of clicks, you can address Google reviews directly from your dashboard without any hassle.

Facebook Reviews

Facebook has 2.9 billion active users, with 2 out of 3 visiting local business pages at least once a week, making it an important platform for managing reviews and building a strong online presence.

When someone leaves a review on Facebook, you’ll get a notification you can click on to go to the review. To have a business account, you’ll need to have a personal Facebook account attached to it. For a small business, this may be the business owner. For a bigger business, it could be your community manager, customer support, or a whole team.

Guide to Facebook Recommendations

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Yelp Reviews

Yelp is a great review platform for local businesses, with nearly 50% of customers likely to look at Yelp before reaching out to a business. When managing reviews, ensuring your client or business checks its Yelp inbox is a good habit so they promptly respond to any messages or requests. They can also turn on email notifications to ensure they’ll be alerted when someone sends them a message or leaves a review.

Tripadvisor Reviews

Tripadvisor is one of the biggest review platforms, with over 1 billion reviews left by travelers to date. Your client or business can easily see reviews left by past customers within the “Respond to Reviews” section of the Yelp Management Center page.

Similar to Yelp, your review manager(s) can turn on notifications within their profile to get notified of when someone leaves a review, making it simple to respond to feedback quickly.

Trustpilot Reviews

Trustpilot has several tools to help you reply to and filter customer reviews. Navigating the services reviews page can be done by going to Trustpilot Business > Manage reviews > Service reviews > Inbox.

From here, you can see any of the reviews left by customers over the last 28 days. They are conveniently filtered by star rating, which makes it easy to prioritize which should be responded to first.

How to Get More Reviews for Multiple Locations

Getting reviews for your business is straightforward; you provide a top-tier product, service, or support, and customers will be racing to share their experience in the form of a shiny and new online review… right?

If only it were all that simple. Unfortunately, many people won’t leave a review unless they are prompted to or they have had a negative experience.

Obtaining reviews across multiple locations can be difficult, but they are significant, especially for local SEO! With automation tools and software, your client or business can send follow-up emails after purchases or service completion, nudging customers to share their thoughts and experiences.

How to Ask for Reviews

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They can send text messages to customers’ phones and include prompts in marketing materials or receipts. Additionally, you can include a banner on your website or pin a post on social media to encourage customers to leave a review. This can help ensure that customers know how much their feedback is appreciated.

Use customer feedback to turn potential setbacks into future opportunities. Your client or business can enhance customer experience by addressing training issues with their employees, utilizing technology to adapt internal processes, and creating new products or services to better meet their needs. This will create happier customers and better reviews for the business. 

How to Monitor Reviews at More Than One Location

Monitoring online reviews can be done manually and with software, so it is good to know which your client or business may prefer based on their specific goals and budget. 

If the business is concerned with budget, a more manual approach may be what they need, and that’s perfectly okay. This can require more time and effort, but it’s not impossible. A manual approach would require periodically checking review platforms and reading through reviews to identify new customer feedback or comments.

You can also use a spreadsheet or other document to track reviews at specific locations and actions taken in response to those reviews. While this is a less convenient option, it is still possible to establish a multi-location review management strategy that benefits the business and supports its goals.

These manual approaches are where many businesses will start, but as things scale up, they can become incredibly unwieldy to manage.

Using Tools to Monitor Reviews

Specific software can help businesses collect reviews across locations all in one place, making review management more streamlined. Tools like BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager can collate all of your reviews on all your review platforms and for all your locations into a single dashboard.

These tools also offer you the ability to add templated replies, helping you maintain brand consistency when you have many people managing review responses.

Power Your Review Replies with Templates and AI!

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Remember, many other kinds of software and tools have different capabilities and functionalities, and some even use AI, so be sure to research and determine the best fit for your needs before you commit to anything.

Harnessing the Power of Efficient Review Management

Handling reviews on a large scale may seem overwhelming, but with the right tools and a carefully crafted strategy, you can create a review management system custom to your specific business needs. Implementing a new process requires time, so it’s crucial to approach review management with a patient mindset, knowing that success will unfold with the support of the right team and an occasional snack break.

You might be thinking: “Why respond? They’re happy customers!”

Think again…

Recent research from BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey shows that:

• 88% of consumers are “likely” to use a business that responds to all reviews, positive and negative.
• 59% of consumers expect to see a response to their review within two days of the review being left.

So… how can you respond to all reviews, leaving happy customers satisfied and addressing the concerns of less-than-happy ones, all within the time period they prefer, and still have time to crack on with the work that gets you these customers in the first place?

Simple. Become a superhero.

Our new Review Reply Templates feature in Monitor Reviews (with added AI!) will revolutionize how you respond to Google reviews and Facebook recommendations with BrightLocal and turn you into a Review Response Superhero. By setting your own response templates to common responses, you’ll leave every satisfied customer even more satisfied when you respond.

How does it work?

Create a Template

Review Reply Templates couldn’t be easier to get started with. Just create a template that fits your tone of voice and select which review ratings you want to apply it to. Agency customers can even link templates to clients, allowing them to manage all review responses in one place.

Select Your Template

Then, when you’re sipping your morning coffee and reviewing the plaudits and praise (and the rest), just select the template that works best for the review, adjust if needed, and hit ‘Use’.

What’s this about AI?

Want to make your responses even more tailored and less “templatey”? With the magic of our ‘Generate AI Response’ button, a response is created that speaks specifically to what the customer review mentions, and you barely have to lift a finger.

Didn’t love the first iteration? Easy, just click ‘Generate AI Response’ again. You can generate up to three responses per review.

Where do I start?

Reputation Manager users and ‘Grow’ plan customers can get started right away! Just head into BrightLocal and get ready to work some review response magic. Need a helping hand? Head over to our dedicated Help Center guide on this awesome new feature. 

The online reviews business is hugely competitive. Reputation, as they say, is everything. Even on the research front, we increasingly see more consumer review reports enter the market. 

The Local Consumer Review Survey delves into all of the crucial questions. How are today’s consumers searching for and interacting with business reviews? Which review elements are most important to consumers, and how do online reviews measure up against personal recommendations?

If you’ve been an avid follower of our consumer review research, you’ll recognize there are some questions we ask most years. This allows us to collect that juicy year-on-year trend data that shows how things may—or may not—be changing.

But we also want to keep things fresh. The review landscape continues evolving, so we always aim to dig into the latest developments and bring brand-new insights to support your reputation management endeavors, be you a big brand, small brand, marketing consultant, or business owner.

Here are just some of the key findings you can expect from the Local Consumer Review Survey 2024.

Key Themes and Findings

The chart above shows that the percentage of consumers ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ reading online reviews has held fast over the last three years (75% in 2024 against 76% in 2023). 

Meanwhile, just 3% of consumers say they ‘never’ read online reviews, reflecting how ingrained reviews are in most consumers’ business research.

Where are consumers reading online reviews?

The review landscape has expanded in recent years, with many brands and apps incorporating review functionalities to support purchase decisions.

In terms of ‘official’ review platforms, several long-standing sites are prominent in the USA (and beyond).

• Google remains the most-used website for reading online reviews, although the percentage of consumers using it for this has dropped from 87% in 2023 to 81% in 2024.
• Consumer use of Apple Maps and Trustpilot has increased by 3% since 2022, from 13% to 16% and 7% to 10%, respectively.

It won’t surprise many that Google remains at the top of the list for consumer review sites. The search giant is still, by far, the biggest review platform today.

What’s more interesting is where we see a downward trend for almost all listed websites and directories, except for Google, Apple Maps, and Trustpilot. 

Despite remaining in the top three most-used platforms, Facebook and Yelp have seen decreases in percentage points over the years—3% for Facebook since 2022 and 9% for Yelp. The gap between the two has also become much closer in 2024, with consumer use of Facebook for online reviews overtaking Yelp for the first since time 2020.

Back then, we noted that the dip in consumers using Yelp may have been caused by the impact covid-19 had on physical businesses like restaurants, hotels, and entertainment. It’s not entirely clear why the percentage of consumers using Yelp in 2024 is lower, however. 

The use of Tripadvisor and Better Business Bureau (BBB) has dropped significantly since 2022. Both platforms are typically known and used for industry-specific reviews: Tripadvisor for hospitality and entertainment business reviews and Better Business Bureau for professional trades and service-area businesses (SABs).

As the most widely-used review platform, it could be that Google continues to eat the market share of other review platforms as it becomes more helpful to users. For example, Google and its business profile management product, Google Business Profile (GBP), introduced notable features over the last year that enable businesses in particular niches to optimize their listings. Price comparisons, booking availability, and business amenities are now prominent features of hotel business profiles, and SABs can set service areas and make specific services prominent on their profiles. 

Finally, Apple Maps and Trustpilot are the two platforms that beat the downward trend and show increasing consumer use instead. In early 2023, Apple announced Apple Business Connect, a late-coming rival to GBP. As we reported at the time, businesses have been slow to claim their business profiles, and a quick poll found that only 12% of consumers used Apple Maps over Google Maps.

New features and an improved Apple Maps interface, including more appealing iconography to distinguish business types, could explain why we are seeing an increasing trend in consumers using this app.

Meanwhile, while Trustpilot is an open review platform, businesses often invite verified customers to review their customer service experiences. These reviews are clearly labeled as ‘Invited’ or ‘Verified’. The increase in consumers using Trustpilot to read reviews could be related to a desire to read verified—or perhaps, to them, more trustworthy—reviews.

How many sites do consumers check reviews on?

Despite noting a downward trend in the use of some review platforms, we wanted to see how many sources consumers used to read reviews on average.

• 77% of consumers use at least two review platforms in their business research.
• 41% of consumers use three or more review platforms.

Less than a quarter of consumers only use one review site before choosing a local business. This finding is particularly significant as it reinforces the need to ensure your brand is represented consistently across multiple review platforms.

When asking consumers for business reviews, providing them with several options is a good idea. As we know from the responses to the previous question, consumers have preferences and may have accounts with particular platforms. Giving them options and making the process as simple as possible can encourage them to leave reviews. 

Where else do consumers source business reviews?

When it comes to reviews and recommendations, we have to acknowledge the importance of alternative sources, including the growth of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok for “unstructured” consumer reviews (i.e. reviews that don’t follow a dedicated review structure or scoring system). 

2023 was a particularly interesting year for developments in these areas, with the introduction of Threads, the rebranding of Twitter to X, and the boom of generative AI. This is the first year we included ‘Threads’ and ‘ChatGPT/generative AI’ as responses.

• Local news as an alternative review source has increased by 8% since 2023.
• In 2024, consumers are using Instagram and TikTok for business reviews more, with an increase of 2% and 3%, respectively.

Apart from YouTube, all of the sources we listed in 2023 have seen increases. Most notable is local news—an interesting source, as it could cover both digital and more traditional forms of media, including print, radio, and TV. 

Local news and community initiatives are classic local marketing tactics that can support your brand’s visibility in local areas but can also be effective for link-building.

The increase in consumers using various social channels highlights the importance of maintaining your brand’s social presence. Being active and aware of these review alternatives will ensure you can find and respond to reviews and comments, engage with users, and maybe even win new audiences.

Finally, almost 10% of consumers said they’re using ChatGPT or similar generative AI tools as an alternative source of review information. Considering the technology only burst into the mainstream in early 2023, and research in March 2023 found that 73% of consumers had not used generative AI, this is significant.

How Consumers Interact with Review Platform Functionalities

We’ve noted some of the improvements that Google has made to business review platforms to support visibility and show more useful information to prospective customers. Now, we will look at some of the features that make finding the right review content easier.

For several years now, users have been able to use a search functionality within Google reviews to look for specific keywords and terms. More recently, it has improved filtering with ‘mentioned’ keywords, and now initially prioritizes the order of reviews shown on the default filter based on what it deems ‘most relevant.’

We provided consumers with an image of reference (below) and labeled eight prominent review features, asking consumers how useful they found each one when searching for business reviews on Google.

• 96% of consumers said that the ’search reviews’ function is useful to them in some way.
• ‘Sort by newest’ is deemed the most useful review function, with 47% of consumers finding it ‘highly useful.’
  

Clearly, all of the functions shown to consumers are useful in some way. The largest percentage of consumers who do not find a feature useful at all is 15% for a ‘highlighted’ review. From this, we can assume that consumers prefer to judge the relevance of the business’ reviews for themselves, rather than being guided by Google.

47% of consumers rated the ‘sort by newest’ function as ‘highly useful,’ which tells us that almost half of consumers consider review recency as important when deciding which business to use.

Although this question is specific to Google review functions, it’s important to note that most prominent review platforms use similar features to support the user experience. The ‘sort by’ functionality is a standard tool across most digital experiences, while keyword filters and search functionalities are present on platforms such as Yelp and Tripadvisor.

So, while we can only discuss the findings above concerning Google business reviews, it’s useful to consider how you can make review functionalities work for you on different platforms.

Functionalities like ‘sort by newest’ and ‘sort by highest rating’ incentivize businesses to actively put more effort into their review profiles, achieving a regular stream of reviews if they know that’s how people filter.

It also reinforces the importance of delivering excellent, memorable customer experiences. If there are things you want your brand to be known for, consider ways you could encourage customers to mention them in their reviews. Dog-friendly places or restaurant menus with particularly renowned items are just two examples users might be looking for.

The Most Important Review Factors

What are consumers looking for when they’re browsing business reviews? Are they looking for a high number of ‘good’ star ratings, or are there other factors that would reassure them before using a business?

• 69% of consumers would feel positive about using a business if its written reviews describe positive experiences (static against 2023, which was down from 75% in 2022).
• In 2024, 8% more consumers feel positive about a business if its reviews are written by named users than in 2023 (48% in 2024 vs. 40% in 2023).

Overall, there is a downward trend in review factors helping consumers feel positive about using a business. This could suggest that people are less willing to take things at face value.

There has been an increase in the percentage of consumers who said that reviews written by named users—as opposed to anonymous accounts—would make them feel positive about using a business. This points to a general sense of wariness around user-generated content and perhaps shows more digital ‘savviness.’

What star ratings do consumers expect to see?

• 71% of consumers would not consider using a business with an average rating below three stars, 16% lower than in 2023.
• 6% fewer consumers would use a business with a 3.5 star rating in 2024 than in 2023.

At a glance, there is an upward trend in consumers willing to use businesses with ‘low’ (lower than 3.0 stars) star ratings, and a downward trend where consumers expect ‘high’ (higher than 3.0 stars) star ratings as the minimum. 

However, if we examine this further, the majority of consumers still expect a business to have a star rating between 4.0 and 5.0. This figure has remained static since 2022.

The anomaly here is businesses with star ratings of 3.5, where we can see a percentage downshift of 6% since 2022. Could this suggest that consumers are now mistrustful of ratings that sit in the middle? 

If a business location has fewer reviews, its average star rating is likely to be skewed by an extremely low or high rating. An increasing willingness to give businesses with low ratings a chance suggests that consumers look beyond face value or are paying attention to review details to reach their conclusions.

There is no denying, however, that businesses should aim for a minimum average star rating of 4.0.

Does the number of reviews matter?

So, how many reviews does a business need to have for consumers to trust the average star rating?

• Most consumers expect a business to have between 20-99 reviews (59%), which has not changed since 2023.
• 12% of consumers said that the number of reviews does not impact the trust in their star rating, down 2% since 2023.

Interestingly, since 2023 there has been a very slight increase in consumers choosing the lower threshold of 0-19 reviews and a similarly slight decrease in consumers saying the number of reviews does not impact their perception.

This hints, once again, that consumers will look beyond ‘at-a-glance’ numbers and ratings to make their own minds up. They don’t necessarily believe in the implied worth of star ratings or how many reviews a business has without reading into the details to verify their impressions.

Almost two-thirds of consumers (59%) said that a business should have between 20-99 reviews in order for them to be able to trust the average star rating. So, while our findings suggest that consumers might be more willing to give businesses a chance, the majority expect between 20-99.

Review Recency

• 27% of consumers expect to see business reviews as fresh as two weeks, up from 25% in 2023, which was up from 22% in 2022.

Expectations of recent reviews is on the up, with 27% of consumers saying that reviews left within the past two weeks impact their decisions, compared to 22% in 2022. Reviews left within the past six months to a year are less likely to impact their choices.

In most cases, it makes sense that this is the expectation. If consumers read business reviews, they want an accurate representation of the most recent experiences with that brand. This will be especially important for businesses within the hospitality industry, including food and drink brands or hotels.

This finding highlights the importance of maintaining a regular stream of incoming customer reviews. A sporadic approach to review requests and followups won’t do, but a more robust reputation strategy or process can help.

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Responding to Consumer Reviews 

We’ve been discussing review responses for several years, and our findings consistently showed that consumers expect businesses to respond to their reviews. 2024 is no different.

• Consumers are 41% more likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews than a business that doesn’t respond to any.

The chart above clearly indicates that review responses matter to customers. 88% of consumers would use a business that responds to both positive and negative reviews, compared to just 47% that said they would consider using a business that doesn’t respond to any reviews.

Some consumers may see a business only responding to bad reviews as an attempt to save brand reputation without acknowledging the opinions of others. Similarly, consumers may see a business only responding to good reviews as just amplifying good feedback in order to gloss over the negative.

Either approach can appear inauthentic, and consumers today are clearly pretty savvy when detecting this.

As we know that review responses are an expectation in consumers’ minds, we wanted to find out if it was important when business owners respond to reviews. 

• 93% of consumers would expect a business to respond to their reviews.
• 34% of consumers expect a response to their reviews within two to three days of posting.

A mighty 93% of consumers expect businesses to respond to their reviews! So, if this has not been a part of your reputation management strategy so far, take this as a call to action.

Meanwhile, 87% of consumers said they expect review responses within two weeks, and only 4% feel it doesn’t matter when they receive one. This clearly shows how important timeliness is.

The Power of Generative AI in Reputation Management

Back to the subject of AI… in this year’s survey, we wanted to test something a little different.

We presented consumers with a business review sourced via Google. Then, we showed them two review responses and asked them to choose which response they would prefer to receive.

What the consumers didn’t know about these options is that one (Response 1) was the human response sourced from a genuine business owner on Google, and the other (Response 2) was a review response that we generated using ChatGPT.

58% of consumers unknowingly chose the AI-generated review response as their preferred response! Of course, there are many reasons why someone might prefer the content and sentiment of one written response over another.

When we considered the reasons behind their preferred response, it was interesting to note the sense of over-familiarity conveyed in response 1, compared to the more measured sentiment in response 2. Would you agree?

We can’t say what prompted this finding, but it highlights an interesting use case for marketers who may struggle with crafting unique review responses at scale.

Trust in Business Reviews

One of the most prominent themes that reports such as this surface is the importance of consumer trust in brands. While brands cannot actively control the content of the reviews published by other consumers online, we know there are many ways to manage the reputation process.

So, where do reviews sit in consumers’ minds compared to other types of recommendations?

Reviews vs. Recommendations from Other Sources

• 50% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.
• This is the first year that ‘I trust consumer reviews as much as recommendations from influencers with my local community’ was included as a response to this question.

The percentage of consumers who said they trust reviews as much as recommendations from family and friends has increased by 4% since 2023. It’s a significant finding, showing that half of consumers feel online reviews carry as much sway as personal recommendations.

For this year’s report, we wanted to distinguish between social media influencers and local influencers—essentially, macro vs. micro-influencers. We wanted to learn: is there a significant difference between well-known social media influencers endorsing a brand and influencers within the local community?

We found that the percentage of consumers who said they trust reviews as much as social media influencers has remained at 35% since 2023. 24% of consumers said they trust consumer reviews as much as local influencer recommendations. This could be lower than social media influencers as we tend to follow local personalities for specific recommendations, like restaurants and bars. If we were to examine the trust in macro and micro-influencers more closely, to look at businesses in different industries, the reasons might be much clearer.

We can see a 4% increase in consumers who said they trust consumer reviews as much as professionally written articles since 2023. This suggests that they verify online reviews against the opinions from other sources they deem trustworthy. This could also show a sense of wariness in terms of trusting influencer-endorsed content.

The Impact of Local Reviews on Big-brand Reputation

Another new question we had was how local branch reviews of big brands or franchises impact consumers’ choices, and whether this affects overall brand perception.

For example, if your nearest McDonald’s branch has a Google star rating of 2.0, would you still use that store? And how would that affect your overall perception of the McDonald’s brand?

• 89% of consumers said that the reviews of local branches would impact their decision to use the store in some way.
• 91% of consumers feel that local reviews of chains and franchises impact their overall perception of the brand in some way.

These findings are important because they show that marketers in big brands can’t afford to rest on their laurels in the hope that brand equity will win out. For more than a quarter of consumers, both of these things are true:

• The local consumer reviews of chains or franchises would impact their decision to use it ‘a great deal’.
• The local consumer reviews of chains or franchises would impact their overall perception of the brand ‘a great deal’.

The power of local reputation to impact brand perception should not be underestimated, particularly if we consider the previous findings on how consumers trust personal recommendations from friends and family or those of online influencers.

Fake Reviews and Suspicious Activity

Those in the reputation and local marketing game will know the perils of fake reviews. Even those who aren’t will likely have seen the reams of suspiciously gushing product reviews on e-commerce sites such as Amazon—generally known as the biggest culprit for fake reviews. 

As we’ve touched on in previous reports, and in our many resources on fake reviews, it’s a real industry problem. Most review and e-commerce sites take the issue seriously as a matter of policy, and Google in particular regularly takes strict action to prevent the practice.

What kind of trends are we seeing fake reviews this year?

Consumers are confident they’ve seen fake reviews across most platforms we asked about. Just 19% said they hadn’t seen any on the sites we provided, which remains static compared to 2023.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon remains the top culprit for fake reviews. However, it’s interesting to note that, aside from Tripadvisor, Apple Maps, and BBB, the percentage of consumers who are confident they’ve spotted reviews on the other review giants has decreased.

This could result from the efforts that platforms have put in to combat the issue in recent years, suggesting that there are genuinely fewer obviously fake reviews on these websites. According to Google, it removed over 170 million policy-violating reviews in 2023, 45% more than in 2022.

Despite a lower percentage of consumers saying they’ve used BBB to read reviews in 2024, there has been an increase in the percentage of consumers who are confident they have seen fake reviews there (9% in 2024 vs. 5% in 2022). The platform itself has recently spoken out on the issue of fake and incentivized reviews, suggesting the practice is becoming notably widespread on different platforms.

Can consumers tell if a review is fake?

A fake review could be left for various reasons. Some businesses pay fake review sellers for positive reviews of their businesses and negative reviews of their competitors, for example.

But fake reviews may also be written by disgruntled customers, employees, or even competitors! In some cases, people might write fake reviews to try to support friends or family, particularly if their business is struggling against negative feedback.

With all these reasons in mind, the content and sentiment of such reviews can vary wildly. There may be a barrage of star ratings with no written context or review content that feels too unbelievably positive or negative, for example. So, which of these would make consumers suspicious that a review is fake? 

This year, we introduced the response ‘the review feels like it was written by AI’. Surprisingly, this answer came out top! 40% of consumers said they’d suspect a review was fake if they felt like AI had written it.

It’s an interesting point because, as we know, there are plenty of legitimate use cases for generative AI in content writing. A consumer may feel unable to articulate what they want to say well enough and use generative AI tools for this. It’s also worth considering how, while standalone AI tools such as ChatGPT are available for anyone to use, generative AI is now being incorporated into other software and plugins. The Google Suite and Grammarly are just two everyday examples where generative AI can help predict and improve your writing, making suggestions based on tone and sentiment.

The fact that consumers are collating AI with ‘fakeness’ suggests that there is a misunderstanding in terms of what the technology really is and does. Coupled with AI headlines entering the mainstream press, it’s easy to see how people might reach these conclusions.

However, we also know from our review response test earlier in this survey that maybe consumers prefer the content generative AI can produce. Sure, they didn’t know that’s what they preferred, but it presents an interesting contrast in how consumers act vs. how consumers think.

The remaining results highlight some big contrasts between 2023 and 2024. In 2023, consumers seemed confident that reviews with just ratings and no words would make them suspicious that reviews were fake (47%). This has decreased by 19% in 2024. 

They also seem less certain that seeing business owners suggesting a review is fake would make them suspicious of fakeness (19% vs 30% in 2023). Further, they’re now less suspicious of reviews from users without profile photos (17% vs 27% in 2023).

As with the previous question on specific platforms, these responses could result from websites tackling fake review issues or consumers simply noticing fewer fake reviews while browsing. Alternatively, it could point to a greater sense of trust in online reviews.

How Consumers Write Reviews

So, we know how often consumers read reviews to support their business research and the elements they feel are most important to build trust. But how many consumers are leaving reviews themselves? Are they more likely to leave reviews for all experiences, positive or negative, or do they favor a particular type of review?

What types of reviews are consumers leaving?

While the numbers are roughly the same as last year, slightly more consumers have written reviews in the past year (73% vs 72% in 2023). The sentiment of these reviews has changed, though. 

The chart above highlights a positive shift in the percentage of consumers leaving positive reviews (38% in 2024 vs. 34% in 2022) and negative reviews (10% in 2024 vs. 7% in 2022). The percentage of consumers leaving both types of reviews has decreased from 33% in 2022 to 25% in 2024.

This trend suggests a further waning of the ‘gray area’ between extreme personalities and opinions, as we’ve seen in political discourse over the years (though it would be too far a leap to suggest they’re directly related).

Fewer people are being what you might call ‘balanced’ and leaving reviews for various experiences, and more are getting increasingly set in their ways. The good news is that, right now, there are more consumers only writing positive reviews than negative.

• The percentage of consumers that ‘always’ left a review when prompted has increased from 12% in 2023 to 19% in 2024.

69% of consumers can recall leaving a business review after being prompted by the brand within the last year, vs. 60% in 2023. Coupled with this, only 12% of consumers said they were prompted but did not write a review, compared to 19% in 2023. So, we can infer that more consumers positively respond to review requests in 2024, even if they don’t always write them.

What does this mean for your brand? Well, you may not always be successful, but it is absolutely worthwhile to ask customers for reviews. Nearly seven in every ten consumers will likely write a business review based on the above findings. So, if you aren’t currently asking, you are very likely missing out!

As for how to ask them, and even when, that’s up next.

Asking Consumers For Business Reviews

Knowing how and when to ask a customer to leave a brand review is tricky. Ask too soon, and they may not have had time to reflect on their experience; ask too late, and they may have forgotten about it entirely.

Plus, let’s face it, we all get a lot of review requests these days, don’t we? Multiple prompts in a short window can be irritating, and email inboxes are overflowing with review prompts, promotions, and spam.

So, how do consumers want to be asked for reviews?

Methods of Requesting Reviews from Customers

• The top three methods for asking for reviews are: email (32%), in-person (28%), and via social media (27%).
• There has been a 3% increase in consumers choosing ‘none of the above’ when asked about review prompt methods.

Despite email being a busy place, 32% of consumers still say they are more likely to respond to review requests this way. The top three answers from 2023 are the same in 2024 (email, in-person, and social media), although you’ll notice there is a downward trend across all three.

This finding, along with the 3% increase in consumers choosing ‘none of the above’ for review prompts, could point to a sense of review request fatigue. We’re all so used to being prompted to review transactions and experiences that it can run the risk of feeling meaningless.

Brands need to make their requests count by using the right formats, making it simple (as we discussed earlier with the choice of review platforms), making their request stand out from the others, and timing it right.

But when is “right”?

The Window of Opportunity for Review Prompts

We asked consumers when they think brands should contact them with a review prompt, and provided seven different industries where this could differ.

We’ve grouped hospitality, entertainment, and wellbeing together in one chart, as the industries share similarities in how their services focus on providing customers with experiences. Healthcare, professional trades/SABs, and real estate have been grouped in another.

• 24% of consumers expect to be asked to leave a review for food and drink brands on the same day as their experience.
• 48% of consumers said food and drink brands should ask for a review within two to three days of the experience.

‘Food and drink’ stands out as the industry where consumers expect the fastest turnaround for review prompts. Almost a quarter of consumers want these businesses to reach out on the very same day, although the majority would prefer between one and three days.

For accommodation, entertainment, and beauty and wellbeing, we see larger proportions of consumers who think businesses should ask any time within a week.

Our earlier discussion on review recency comes into play here. If you’re planning on visiting somewhere to eat, you’d expect to read about the most recent customer experiences with food and drink brands. It makes sense that consumers would expect these types of businesses to follow up quickly.

The same might be true for recent experiences in the accommodation, entertainment, or beauty industries. However, consumers might require a slightly longer window to reflect on their experiences with these business types—for example, how well a particular beauty or cosmetic treatment lasts.

• Healthcare review prompts should be sent within three days to a week (40%).
• 11% of consumers would not want to be prompted to leave a review for a real estate experience at all.

For healthcare, professional trades, and real estate, consumers would expect slightly longer windows before brands reach out to ask for a review, although within three days to a week is the sweet spot. 

40% of consumers said they would prefer healthcare brands to ask within three days to a week. Given the nature of some healthcare services and procedures, it feels accurate that consumers wouldn’t want to receive prompts too soon after an experience.

The key takeaway from these request findings is that brands need to be smart with their prompts, get the timing right, and avoid bombarding their customers at all costs. Remember, this is still a part of the transaction or experience, so annoying customers with endless review request emails could achieve an undesirable result.

Incentivizing Customers to Write Reviews

Now, while we’ve included incentives within the following section of the report, it is crucial to note that BrightLocal does not endorse the incentivization of reviews in any way.

We can appreciate that there is a lot of conflicting information out there and it’s easy to go down this route to attract more customers to write business reviews. What’s the harm of rewarding loyalty with a simple discount, right? Wrong, unfortunately.

For brands and businesses that aren’t in the know—of which there are many, so if this is you, don’t panic!—it’s important to note that most review platforms prohibit review incentivization. The penalties for incentivizing or buying reviews can vary, including the disabling or removal of your review profiles, or having your profile labeled as one that has unlawfully incentivized reviews.

Last year, we found that review incentivization is still sadly alive and well. Given the ongoing issues around the prevalence of fake reviews, we wanted to see if businesses were still going down the incentivization route in 2024. The results are… quite something.

Not only is the practice of review incentivization up across the board but the percentage increases in consumers recalling being offered these incentives is significant.

Increases in Review Incentivization: 2023 vs. 2024

It could be that such drastic increases in discounts or free gifts come from a lack of understanding of incentivization rules. As discussed, many businesses don’t know that these methods are prohibited on many platforms, and may have viewed discounts or free gifts as ‘harmless’ ways to reward loyalty.

The fact is that incentivization encourages consumers to leave reviews that they might not have organically, and influences the content of the review—typically in the brands’ favor. Even if they are from verified customers, the reviews cannot be deemed authentic and trustworthy, therefore discrediting the entire system.

Summary

While much of what was important to consumers in 2022 and 2023 holds today, some themes stand out in 2024.

Firstly, it’s more apparent than ever that consumers are checking multiple sources for business reviews and recommendations, including those outside of traditional review platforms. It’s a pressing reminder that reputation management should be viewed as a strategy instead of a task; not something that can be picked up when there’s time. Reputation encompasses both digital and offline channels. Realistically, it should be a shared responsibility and actively factored into areas like social media and community management, email marketing, content strategy, and more.

Next, brand marketers have to be more strategic with their review requests. Automation is a wonderful thing that can speed up tasks for us marketers. But without the human considerations of timeliness and providing customers with the choice of where and how they review, it remains ineffective—or worse, frustrating for consumers. 

Several findings hint at a sense of consumer apathy towards the expectation for them to provide reviews after almost every experience with a business. Brands must remain conscious and respectful of this when asking for customer favors. It’s a tricky balance, knowing that review recency is a particularly important review factor.

Ultimately, with all things customer experience, the utmost focus should always come down to exactly that: delivering exceptional, memorable experiences. Give consumers a reason to want to write your brand a review actively; make sure they have things to talk about that others will find useful; be present across your reputation platforms (that includes the alternative channels, like social media), and always keep in mind how local brand experiences contribute to overall brand perception.

Methodology

The Local Consumer Review Survey 2024 was conducted using a representative panel of 1,141 US consumers via SurveyMonkey. 

Publications and individuals are welcome to use the research findings, charts, and data, provided that BrightLocal is cited as the author and the page URL (https://brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey) is linked to.

Well, the time is upon us, and I imagine there’s a significant number of people that haven’t acted. Many people may even be wondering “what’s the big deal?”—but there are a lot of things to consider that may be attached to your Gmail account beyond emails.

And for brands, it could mean bad news for your Google Reviews.

So, consider this a good time to do a bit of account housekeeping! Check all of your logins and either update the email address if you’re not using Gmail, or log in to your Google account to ensure it’s active.

What does this mean for my business reviews?

Users who leave business reviews on Google must have an active account, so it could be the case that brands will see a drop in the total number of reviews their profile has if they are removed.

However, it hasn’t been confirmed if Google will remove the reviews or simply highlight the review poster as inactive/anonymous. According to Reputation America, reviews from deleted accounts do remain visible on business profiles but are no longer linked to personal information.

We asked Ben Fisher, Co-founder of Steady Demand and Google Business Profile Diamond Product Expert, about his experience with deleted Google accounts:

“In short, if the account is deleted and the GBP is live, the GBP will probably keep the reviews. The user name could change to ‘A Google User’, I have seen that before.”

– Ben Fisher, Steady Demand

It makes sense, given the importance of various review factors for building trust with businesses—and Google will want to maintain this integrity. As we know from the Local Consumer Review Survey, consumers are interested in more than just the top-level star rating for a business, looking at the experiences customers are describing.

What does this mean for Google Business Profiles?

To claim and manage your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing, you’ll need a Google account. If you’ve had various people associated with your GBP over the years, it’s a good idea to review the owners associated with the Profile and ensure the users with account access are up to date.

You can do this by heading to your GBP dashboard, clicking the three dots next to the profile strength indicator, and selecting ‘Business Profile settings’.

Although it has not been confirmed what would happen to a GBP if its sole user was deleted, we can assume the profile would revert to an unclaimed business listing.

A GBP will still remain visible if it is not managed, so it doesn’t seem likely that Google would remove it, but you may need to go through the claiming and verification process again.

Ben’s thoughts pretty much echo this:

“I would think that if that account is the only account associated with a GBP, then the chances of a soft suspension are highly likely.”

– Ben Fisher, Steady Demand

A soft suspension on a Google Business Profile generally means that the listing becomes unverified and you lose control of it. So, if this is the case, you’ll need to act fast to re-verify your GBP and ensure you’re in control of your business information.

How to Verify a Google Business Profile

Use this guide as a refresher if you need to verify your GBP.

Read more

What’s exempt and how do I know if my Google account is inactive?

Well, if you’re an Android or Google device user, there’s a good chance you won’t have to worry. If your system is logged into Google and connected to apps like Calendar, Chrome, Photos and Play Store, your use of any of these will count as activity. Likewise, if your YouTube account has videos posted to it, this is also safe.

According to Forbes, exemptions also include Google accounts that are connected to educational establishments and those that are business accounts.

What should I do?

If your personal Google account has been inactive for two years or more, but you have personal files, photos, and memories stored there that you don’t want to lose, you’ll want to consider logging in before it’s too late.

It’s not clear whether the mass deletion has commenced, but Google initiatives tend to take several weeks to fully roll out.

For GBP owners and managers, the chances of your GBP being associated with an inactive Google account seem quite unlikely, but take the time to review who has access to the account and update the details if necessary.

How to Access Google Business Profile Support and Get Help

Where to go for help and support for your Google Business Profile.

Read more

And as for reviews, there isn’t much you can do to prevent these changes. For now, we’ll just have to wait for the effects of the great Google account purge.

Remember, it’s always good to keep your eyes on forums like X (formerly Twitter), the Local Pack, and Local Search Forum to see if any big changes or updates have been spotted, and how people are responding to them.

Listen to Learn

• Why businesses often struggle to identify conversion events
• The importance of making a business easy to work with
• Why agencies should prioritize reporting on leads and conversions
• The role testing plays in optimizing conversion funnels
• What to look out for in Google Business Profile’s conversion points
• How authentic media and social proof can skyrocket conversions
• Aaron’s five quick tips for improving conversions

Watch the Video

Resources

• Follow Aaron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronweiche/
• Follow Aaron on X: https://twitter.com/AaronWeiche
• Check out the Leadferno blog: https://leadferno.com/blog
• The Leadferno podcast, Conversion Cast: https://leadferno.com/conversioncast

Business text messaging is here to stay, and businesses that adopt it now will have an early advantage over competitors late to the party. With that in mind, let’s explore the benefits and considerations of business texting.

What the Numbers Say

A recent survey showed an eye-popping 89% of consumers want to initiate and reply to two-way conversations with brands via messaging channels and apps. 76% of consumers currently receive text messages from at least one business they work with.

Leadferno’s survey of 2,000 consumers surfaced that SMS is the most popular communication channel — topping calls, emails, and other messaging channels.

The adoption numbers and trends show that it’s time to leverage text messaging to grow your local business and for your agency to recommend it to clients.

7 Ways Your Local Business Can Benefit From Text Messaging

The benefits of communicating with your prospects and customers using SMS are many, but let’s focus on the seven that can have the most impact on businesses. The great news is that it’s not just your customers that benefit, it’s your team and company too.

1. Real-time Communication

Text messaging allows businesses to communicate with their customers and team members in real-time, enabling quick response times and faster decision-making. Compared to email, SMS replies, on average, are 60 times faster. Just 90 seconds for texts and 90 minutes for emails.

Text messages also boast an open rate of 98% so leveraging this real-time communication channel is important. It’s always with customers on their phones, and in the app they use most.

2. Lead Capture With Web-to-text

You’re already spending time and money on driving traffic to your website with SEO, local SEO, social media, paid ads, and traditional marketing. You want to maximize conversions of that traffic to leads and a web-to-text widget can help you. 

A web-to-text widget allows your visitors to immediately start texting with your business. Connecting via SMS might be the lowest barrier to entry for prospects to ask questions and start a conversation.

Web-to-text offers advantages over live chat for many businesses because it’s familiar to your customer, personalized, fast, and easy to manage. They’re not stuck in a chat window on a web page where they started the conversation, and they aren’t waiting for an agent to help them. 

It’s an easy-to-manage asynchronous conversation where they get reply notifications, can think through responses, and engage on their schedule.

A web-to-text widget is always available to collect leads on desktop, tablet, and mobile websites. There’s no “Agent offline” message typical of chat widgets. Our survey found 57% of users left a website when clicking a live chat button that then stated the chat agent was offline or unavailable. That’s an incredibly leaky conversion funnel.

Texting is also easier to manage for your staff. As consumers’ reply expectations move from just minutes with live chat to same-day responses with texting. That leaves your team more time to delight your prospects and customers and use a channel both sides are already familiar and comfortable with.

Lastly, texting, unlike chat, allows you or the customer to restart the conversation at any time. Texting becomes an ongoing connection, live chat is just a session that has to revert to email once the moment has passed. 

3. Updates and Reminders

Reminders are where SMS proved its value early on for business communication. Appointment reminders from your dentist or an update on your appliance delivery have been very handy. Don’t limit your business use case to just reminders. You can grow to accommodate two-way communication and reminders.

Texting is a great way to keep customers updated on any process. An email might get lost and a phone call might be an inconvenience all the way around. Texts are a fantastic way to keep customers updated on any meeting, needed information, or other details.

Texting can increase the quantity and quality of your customer touchpoints and processes. Better yet, as you’re using them for reminders, with a two-way texting solution, your customers can start a conversation with you about the reminder you just sent.

4. Customer Experience

When you’re easy to work with you become a business that customers want to rave about, refer, and review. Being easy to work with is the new golden rule of business. Offering 2-way texting for your customers makes working with you easy and supports a solid customer experience. Just look at this review:

When users are willing to note the benefits of texting in a review, you can clearly see the impact. Great communication is a differentiator that can bolster your reputation and brand, especially as a small business. 

5. Connection

Humans crave connection, text messaging can help to improve connection with customers by providing a convenient, personalized, and instant form of communication that can help to build stronger relationships and increase customer satisfaction.

Building and maintaining a great connection with your customers is especially important during an economic downturn. As many businesses found out at the height of the pandemic, being connected to your customers is a lifeline. Connection can help rally the support of your customers and take their loyalty to new levels.

These strong connections to your business will lead to repeat purchases, referrals, social media mentions, positive reviews, and more.

6. Requesting Feedback and Reviews

Online reviews and customer feedback are incredibly important to local businesses. They build trust with prospects, improve Google rankings, influence decisions, and help businesses understand their customers better.

Following up with customers and asking for reviews with a text message is both easy and efficient for the business and the consumer.

When you have already been communicating by SMS with your customers, requesting a review over text is both personal and natural. They’ve already communicated in this channel with you, and you’ve likely delivered a great experience, leading to that 5-star Google review.

7. Improved Staff Efficiency

Businesses look to technology and software to help save time and increase productivity for their teams. It’s a double bonus when it saves your company AND your customer’s time.

With text messaging your customers win by communicating in their most familiar way, and the channel is easy to manage for your team. A true win-win scenario for both.

Sales teams can engage with more prospects, service reps can handle more customer needs, and technicians and installers can spend more time on their work than tied up on calls.

A study from Benchmark Portal showed that the average sales and services call time is 5 minutes and 58 seconds. In that time frame, a team member can engage with anywhere from 6 to 10 text conversations. All without a decline in service levels or customer satisfaction. 

The increase in productivity with texting compared to emails as well as phone calls is similar. On average text replies are 60x faster than emails averaging just 90 seconds for a text reply, compared to 90 minutes for email replies.

Text messaging as a channel and business through software like Leadferno offers features that scale communication and save time.

What Do I Need to Know to Start Texting With My Customers?

Permission and Opt-in For Texting

First of all, you need to get permission to text your customers.

If you are planning to send text blasts or do SMS marketing (more on that next), you absolutely need to get permission. These text campaigns are often sent in weekly or monthly intervals for special offers, sales, and updates. Because you are sending to many recipients at an interval you decide, you need consent.

If you are texting using 2-way text messaging where the prospect or customer has initiated the communication, consent is now implied, and you don’t have to do anything special in the US. Many web-to-text widgets that allow consumers to text you from your website have a disclaimer that sending the first message is consent. 

The standard of implied consent was upheld in a recent legal ruling involving Facebook where the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that companies engaging in text messaging from their website or platform when the customer initiates the communication don’t violate the TCPA in the United States. The TCPA protects consumers from auto-dialing and mass messaging when they have not given consent. 

Getting permission is still your best move in texting. Here are the most popular ways to get permission to text your customers:

• Web-to-text-widget with a disclaimer that sending the first message is the same as giving consent for SMS communication.
• Written consent on your intake forms or other customer paperwork.
• Checkbox for consent on a web or contact form.
• Consent via text by directly asking the customer to respond with approval to receive text messages from your business.

Once you have received consent you want to store it in case you would ever need to review it or prove that you obtained it.

If you are gaining consent for text marketing or blasts you will also need to provide an automatic way to unsubscribe, just as you do with email marketing. For SMS, this is most often letting the consumer know they can reply with STOP or QUIT to stop receiving your messages.

Lastly, keep in mind that regulations and laws vary by country. For example, Australia requires a double opt-in process for business texting, so do your research on consent before starting.

SMS Marketing Blasts 

SMS marketing or text blasts is a way of sending a message to many recipients at once. It’s similar to email marketing but sees a higher open rate and engagement when done right. SMS marketing is popular in retail and e-commerce to drive interest and purchases with offers and sales. 

One thing for sure is that your business needs to have permission from your customer to send them marketing texts as we outlined before, along with the ability for subscribers to opt-out. Your consent process and policies need to be airtight.

Is SMS marketing right for local businesses? That answer has a few layers to it, so let’s take a look at them. 

On the pro side, the ability to reach many customers at once is always appealing. A local business with the right content, offers, and timing can be successful with text blasts.

On the con side, there is a very real risk of our customer unsubscribing or worse marking your text as spam. Your direct connection is cut off. Many small businesses are challenged with actually delivering valuable content and offers. Just like email marketing, campaigns without value eventually are unsubscribed.

While the business feels it’s the message of “buy now and save 10%” that will generate new business, the consumer might feel annoyed and opt out of you being able to text them.

A local business should strongly consider these strategic items when deciding on whether to send text blasts or not:

• An SMS subscriber consent and compliance process
• The ability to deliver valuable content and offers
• Timing of blasts that meets customer expectations  – too frequent should be avoided

In the end, if you can’t succeed with the elements that SMS marketing requires, focusing on 1:1 text communication will be far more effective, without upsetting your customers.

Data Security

It can be hard for small businesses to plan for data security, but they are just as vulnerable to data breaches as larger companies. While it might not make the news, the impact of a breach can be just as devastating.

Instead of employees using their own SMS app on their phones and having conversations, contacts, and customer data outside of your control, a business texting app centralizes and secures your data.

In addition to the physical security of customer data, protecting valuable customer and prospect contact information centralized when a salesperson or team member joins or leaves the company is a must. 

Data security and centralization are a big benefit to using a business text messaging app when using text messaging for business. 

Industry Regulation and Verification

The text messaging industry continues to evolve quickly. One can only look at the abuse and spam of email and phone calls to see why the SMS industry is looking to work faster to prevent and manage spam and bad actors. 

In the last year, both local (10DLC) and toll-free numbers that wish to text now have to go through a verification process when activating the number for SMS use. Carriers like AT&T, T-mobile, Verizon, and others continue to tighten their delivery of messages from unauthorized numbers and are trending to zero tolerance. 

The number verification process should be part of any business texting solution you utilize. Depending on the number type and other factors this third-party verification process can take a few days or up to many weeks, but once completed it ensures delivery of your text messages to customers.

This space will continue to change and ultimately is for the good of the industry to preserve texting as the valuable business communication channel it is. 

This is Your Notification, Business Texting is Here

There is no doubt that consumers desire and some even expect text messaging to be a communication channel option with your business. How and where you deploy it can make a big impact in growing your business.

SMS can help you capture more leads, and improve communication, connection, and customer experience. These benefits can be had and even reduce effort and workload on your business and staff when planned and executed right. 

So all that’s left to do is check your text messages because business texting has arrived.

A customer satisfaction survey is the easiest way to gauge how your customers are feeling about your business. That could mean rating the customer support they have received, describing how they feel about your products and services, or sharing their experiences of your brand.  

If you already know how to ask for reviews and get reviews on a regular basis – perhaps as a result of using a review management software – you’re in a great position to begin sending out customer satisfaction surveys. Don’t worry if you are new to this type of feedback though as we’ll be sharing plenty of good customer survey examples and useful tips throughout this article.

What is a customer satisfaction survey?

To put it simply, a customer satisfaction survey is a questionnaire that you ask your customers (both past and present) to complete. Sometimes also known as a customer feedback form, the survey guides customers through a series of questions about their experiences with your business. These questions give your customers an opportunity to tell you more about their overall experience.

As well as sharing how they feel about your business, it’s also a chance for customers to express what they particularly appreciate, what they would like to see more or less of, and what causes frustration or disappointment.

How does a customer survey differ from a review?

It should be noted that a customer satisfaction survey is different from a consumer review. Although some review platforms may ask a consumer to rate a few specific aspects of your service (such as the cleanliness of the hotel room or overall value for money), a consumer review is a broader, freeform comment.

The consumer won’t be prompted to reply to carefully considered questions about a range of business aspects when writing an online review. They’ll simply leave a short comment, often with a star rating, which sums up their experience publicly for others to see.

By contrast, a customer satisfaction survey guides the consumer through a set of very specific questions. Often you’ll have a specific goal in mind with a customer survey, where you want to address a particular issue or get feedback around a service or product. 

Customer service survey question examples could include things like ‘how likely are you to shop with us again?’, ‘Did we resolve your complaint within an acceptable timeframe?’ and ‘What can we do better’?. These are questions that you wouldn’t expect to be addressed by a consumer asked to leave an online review. 

What’s more, this type of feedback is intended to be used internally, rather than shared publicly on review sites. Rather than helping other consumers decide whether or not to use your business, survey responses help drive decision-making and improvements within the business itself. 

Why Customer Surveys Are Useful For Local Businesses

There are no two ways about it: customer feedback is vital for local businesses. But, why?

If you’re already meeting your sales goals and have good client retention rates, you might think you have your niche cornered. You may think that as you’re already doing well, you don’t need customer survey questions to tell you what your customers are thinking.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Regularly gathering targeted feedback via satisfaction questionnaires gives you the data you need to make data-driven decision-making. The client input you receive through this process can guide your decisions so that they’re perfectly aligned with what your customers specifically want and need.

This feedback could be useful in product and service development – asking real customers what else you can do to support them, or what other features would be helpful to them means you’re better placed to deliver on that need. In doing so, you can set yourself apart from the competition and become the go-to in your local area.

Source: BrightLocal Academy Customer Survey

Being able to tap into authentic experiences across your business can also help pinpoint areas where change must be made. If feedback commonly cites frustration with slow customer service responses, for example, that’s an indicator that you need to revisit current processes or consider expanding the customer service team. While this may feel like criticism, in practice it gives you the opportunity to address pain points. In turn, that can help to reduce customer churn, increase retention, and deliver an even better experience to every customer. 

Tips for Creating Customer Satisfaction Surveys

When approached correctly, satisfaction surveys can bring you closer to your customers, enhance product and service delivery, and fuel company growth. 

You may be wondering what questions to ask in a customer survey so you can get started immediately. But before you do, read our following tips to get your strategy right before you hit that send button. 

Have a Clear Objective

The best customer survey examples all have one thing in common: they are focused on a specific objective. Therefore, a clear idea of what you want to discover will help you ask the right questions. This means that the insight you gather will be useful and help you achieve your objective.  

For example, if you would like to reduce customer churn, you could ask questions about what you could have done better. This will help you to pinpoint stumbling blocks for customers that you can address to boost retention rates. 

Don’t Gather Unnecessary Data

Gathering unnecessary personal data can inhibit respondents. For example, they may feel they don’t want to share specific details due to privacy concerns. You also risk recipients being reluctant to share genuine opinions if the survey isn’t anonymous. 

Certain questions may also overstep personal boundaries, such as asking about gender, salary, contact information, religious beliefs, etc. Audit your questionnaire and remove any request for identifying data or personal information that isn’t strictly necessary. 

Source: BrightLocal Academy Customer Survey

Write an Introduction 

Begin your questionnaire with a short introduction. Explaining the purpose of your survey upfront increases the likelihood of useful responses. If you do need to gather personal information, use the introduction to explain why you’re asking those questions and how you will handle that data. 

Ask Specific Questions

Questions that are too vague or too open-ended will likely generate non-specific answers. To ensure feedback is valuable and gives you the insight you can work with, ask precise, specific questions. 

‘What did you think of our service?’ might seem quite specific, but if we consider it a little further, it becomes clear that this question can be interpreted in several different ways. One person reading the question could understand that you’re asking for an overall opinion of their experience buying from you, including things such as shipping speed, quality of product, and value for money. Another may understand the question to be asking only about the customer service they received. 

A better option would be to ask, ‘How would you rate the quality of this specific product?’ or ‘Did our customer services team resolve your query?’. 

Ask Different Types of Questions

Having different types of questions will give you a much richer pool of feedback to learn from. The best customer survey examples use a mix of open-ended questions and those that can be answered with a yes/no response or a rating out of five.

The yes/no or star rating questions make it easy for you to see, based on an average of all responses, whether your customers are happy, what they enjoy, and what they don’t like. 

If you were to ask your customers, ‘Would you recommend our dry cleaning service to a friend?’ simply counting up the number of yes versus no responses will allow you to conclude that ‘9 in 10 customers would recommend our service to a friend’. 

Questions that allow the customer to provide more detailed responses give you deeper insight. For example, asking something like, ‘What did you most enjoy about our service?’ or, ‘is there anything we could do differently in the future?’ can prove useful. Here, you’re giving the recipient space to share their opinion. This is a good way to draw out suggestions and extra details that you may not have access to otherwise. 

Allow Respondents to Skip Irrelevant Questions 

Despite your best efforts, it could be that some questions aren’t relevant to every recipient. Allowing respondents to skip irrelevant questions can remove friction and reduce frustration. It also means you aren’t in danger of gathering inaccurate or untruthful responses simply because the recipient had to answer to move on to the next question.  

Be Consistent 

A consistent rating scale system will make it easier for your recipients to share their opinions correctly. Giving satisfaction scales to grade responses is common in customer survey questions. A commonly used satisfaction scale is: 

• Very satisfied
• Somewhat satisfied
• Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
• Somewhat dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied

If you adopt this scale for your survey, ensure that the scale follows the same order each time and is presented in the same way. Changing the order of satisfaction levels could lead to the recipient choosing an incorrect scale by mistake. 

Source: BrightLocal Academy Customer Survey

Don’t Make Your Questionnaire Too Long 

It’s important to strike the right balance when writing your questionnaire. Too many questions, and your recipients are less likely to complete it. But conversely, asking too few questions won’t generate much helpful insight. 

There’s no hard and fast rule when deciding how long your survey should be, but 60% of people say they won’t complete a questionnaire that requires more than 10 minutes of their time. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if a question is truly necessary. Don’t include it if it isn’t vital to achieving your primary objective. 

There’s one more thing to keep in mind. Research suggests that respondents spend less time per question when the survey is long. This indicates that longer questionnaires generate lower quality and less considered responses. 

Conclude With an Open-ended Question 

Having an open-ended question such as ‘is there anything else you’d like us to know?’ gives the respondent a space to share information not covered by your questions. 

Source: BrightLocal Academy Customer Survey

Choose an Appropriate Medium 

To maximize the number of valuable responses you receive, you’ll need to consider the medium you use for distribution. The option you choose should ensure maximum convenience for your recipients.

Email: Email is one of the most popular survey channels. You can embed questions within an email or use the email as an invitation. In that case, you’ll provide a link within the message body to the survey. 

Text: A text message-based survey could be appropriate if your customers routinely deal with your local business via SMS messaging. 

In-app: Does your local business have an app to manage bookings and reservations? You could embed your survey within the app, allowing users to give feedback after a certain period. 

Website: Another option is to host your survey on your website and invite your customers to share their opinions after they check out their cart. 

In-store: Tablets at the point of sale can provide a convenient way for customers to share their feedback with you immediately. 

Don’t feel that you must limit your survey distribution to one channel. Combining channels can boost participation rates. For example, an SMS prompt after an email invite has gone unanswered may improve survey response rates. 

Segment Your Recipients

Creating customer segments can improve satisfaction survey results. You may already have those customer segments set up because of other marketing activities you’ve carried out. Email lists, for example, are commonly segmented to allow more targeted messages to be sent to customers. 

Segmenting your lists means you can be very specific about the questions asked. Targeting questions to smaller pools of customers also enhances the quality of the data you receive back. 

Think About Your Survey Invitation Wording 

How you ask your recipients to complete your survey is almost as important as what you ask. That’s because the wording of your invitation will determine whether that customer then continues to complete your feedback form.  

Begin by personalizing your message so the email addresses the customer by name. Next, it’s important to outline how the survey will benefit the recipient. This could be as simple as stating that responses will be used to improve the products and services you deliver to them. 

If your survey is being sent to only a small segment of customers, highlighting that within your message creates a sense of importance. Note how the recipient has been selected and is one of a select few invited to share their opinions and experiences. 

Giving an estimate of the time required to complete the questionnaire is a trick often used in the most successful survey examples. Finally, remember the importance of a compelling subject line, so your invitation is read.  

Source: BrightLocal Academy Customer Survey Email

Consider Offering an Incentive

Unlike reviews, you can offer incentives to customers to encourage them to share feedback via your satisfaction survey. This could be an entrance into a prize draw or a discount code for money off their next purchase with you. 

14 Customer Survey Example Questions

When it comes to what questions to ask in a customer survey, there’s an almost unlimited number of options. The specific questions you include will depend on your objective and who the survey is going to. These customer survey example questions can be used to form the basis of your own satisfaction form.

1. On a scale of 1-5, how happy were you with [name of product/service]?

This question gives you a clear idea of satisfaction levels for a particular product or service. A low score indicates that something isn’t quite right and that further work needs to be done.

2. Which three features of [name of product/service] are most helpful to you?

This is a great question to ask before product development or updates take place as it allows you to hone in on what your customers consider most valuable.

3. Does our [name of product/service] represent you good value for money?

Budget is a significant consideration for many local consumers. Tracking whether your business continues to be considered a good value for money option can improve client retention rates and reduce churn.

4. If you had to choose an alternative local [name of product/service], who would it be and why?

This question can be a useful source of competitor intel. You’re asking your customers which of your local rivals they are also aware of and what’s most compelling about those alternative options. Information gleaned here can help you address gaps and maintain your competitive advantage.

5. Why did you choose our [name of product/service] rather than a competitor’s?

Similar to the previous question, this is helpful for competitor benchmarking. The responses should tell you what customers most appreciate about your offering and what differentiates you from rivals. These are your differentiators. Once you know what they are, you’re better placed to leverage them in customer communications. To widen the gap, you may also want to build on these differentiators in future product and service development.

6. Which other [name of products/services] did you consider before choosing ours?

While you will have an idea of your competitors, this may be different from what your customers consider being alternative options. Asking this question could reveal alternatives that you weren’t aware of, such as new entrants to the local market, that warrant further investigation.

7. If you could change one thing about our [name of product/service] what would it be?

This question can play a direct role in your product or service development. It highlights unresolved needs and opportunities to serve your customers better. The most common responses should be implemented as quickly as possible.

8. How can we improve your experiences with us?

This is an open-ended question that could throw up lots of interesting responses. These answers should give you an idea of what customers want and expect from you. With that knowledge, you can work on delivering those desired changes.

9. How likely are you to return to our [website/physical location]?

This is a good barometer of how you’re performing overall, as it speaks to customer intent.

10. Did you find it easy to locate what you were looking for [in-store/app/online]?

Offering a superior customer experience is critical to securing repeat business. Customers who find your website difficult to navigate, or find it hard to locate items in-store, are likely to want to avoid repeating that experience. The responses you generate here could highlight customer friction and help you make a plan to make the path to purchase more straightforward and streamlined.

11. Was our customer service team able to resolve your problem?

When it comes to customer service matters, you’ll want to know that your team is delivering. Asking if queries were resolved speaks to the effectiveness of your service.

12. Did we respond to your query promptly?

Today’s consumers expect increasingly fast responses from customer service teams– a study found that nearly half expect a response in fewer than four hours, while 12% expect a response in less than 15 minutes. This question helps you to judge how well you’re meeting those expectations and whether additional team members or a more streamlined process is required.

13. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

This question gives the respondent space to provide additional feedback they’d like to convey. This is a great question to include as it could reveal valuable information not covered by the questions you’ve asked.

14. We may contact you to discuss your responses. Is that ok?

Asking if you can reach out for a further conversation allows you to have a deeper conversation and discuss any interesting responses further. Or to clarify comments that you didn’t understand.

Consider Surveys for Direct, Actionable Feedback

While reviews are a compelling way for users to provide you with feedback, they don’t always offer actions you can use to improve your business. As we’ve highlighted, a properly planned customer survey can provide you with clear actions and insights that you can use.

Why not try adding customer surveys to your review management strategy? Get direct feedback on specific aspects of your business, to create visible change.

What’s new with Google Business Profile?

New Tests for Google Posts/Updates Overlay

Two new tests around Google Posts/updates have been spotted in the wild. In the first test, Google updates get overlaid over images for the business listing…

Noticing update or post from business. At mobile serp

Looks new to me .
cc @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/UWBW3PFDmF

— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) February 24, 2023

And in the second test spotted, users can click to see ‘More Posts’ when browsing the most recent updates:

Google has added view all posts "more posts" feature in GBP. Before it was not shown on GBP.

Cc @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/bw3ZwrJk8f

— keyur shah | SEO (@Keyurshah3535) February 24, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Shopping Results Displaying GBP Products

Google has started showing products added to Google Business Profile via the Products & Services feature in the Google Shopping section of Search. Great news if you’re selling products and you want more visibility of what you have in store!

First time seeing organic GBP Products that were manually added show up like this under the "Shopping" tab. I haven't paid too much attention to this section in the past but I had thought all the items under "shopping" were paid shopping feeds. Seen this before @rustybrick ? pic.twitter.com/JCVWMknMxJ

— Colan Nielsen (@ColanNielsen) February 28, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Prompt to Link to Better Business Bureau Appearing in GBP Verification

Google has started including a few new questions in its GBP verification process, and one might come as a surprise…

New: Google Business Profile asking for BBB link in assistive help flow, and even more questions.

— I guess GBP trusts BBB a lot! Which is strange in some cases. pic.twitter.com/U3sg9213Z6

— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) March 5, 2023

Yes, apparently Google trusts data from the Better Business Bureau enough that, for US-based business at least, it’s asking for a link to their company information on the popular directory.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

“Similar To” Personalization Appears in Google Business Profile

Google users performing local searches may find themselves being prompted by Google that a business in their search is “similar to” another business they’ve frequented in the past.

How long has this been a thing on GBP? I've been to Green Zebra when searching for acai bowls and now I'm searching in a different town & "similar to" shows up. I like it! #LocalSEO #IsThisNew @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/oz85IZWyuv

— Tricia Clements (@yourbizwatchdog) March 11, 2023

It’s an interesting step in the name of personalizing your search experience, but sometimes this stuff just errs too much on the creepy.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Fixed: “Your Business Is Not Visible to Customers”

Local SEOs had a panic in mid-March when a confirmed bug at Google’s end left them seeing this message when accessing or editing their Google Business Profiles. A fix came a day or two later, and it seems like it was a glitch and that these businesses were actually visible and editable during that time.

Way to keep us on our toes, Google!

Google Inserts Incorrect Prices Into GBP Services

We all know Google, rather frustratingly, likes to pull your business information from places you might not be able to control, but this is the first time we’ve seen it completely make up your service prices!

Hey @rustybrick – when looking into a client's services in their GBP, we noticed that some of the predefined services had a "free" label which we nor the client added. Is this new? pic.twitter.com/jV0uOd5VMr

— Sukhjit S Matharu (@SukhjitSMatharu) March 17, 2023

Here's another where pricing is arbitrarily added in – not from the client… certainly not correct! pic.twitter.com/z3gwL4XdW8

— Carrie Hill (@CarrieHill) March 17, 2023

If you haven’t checked in on your services in GBP lately, now might be a good time to do so!

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

New ‘About’ and ‘Reviews’ Tab on Desktop Mirroring Mobile Experience

Is Google starting to go mobile-first with GBP, and bringing the experiences closer together? This new feature, in which ‘Reviews’ and ‘About’ are tabbed rather than appearing vertically in a desktop GBP, certainly suggests so.

Seeing an "about" and "reviews" tab on Google Maps that looks similar to the mobile experience. Only seeing this while logged in and not on every listing. pic.twitter.com/FKeOkdnOg4

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) March 20, 2023

Manage Your Menus via the New Merchant Experience (NMX)

Restaurants can now use the NMX (in-SERP GBP management) to select a preferred source for their menus, or create a custom menu in GBP.

New select your preferred menu source for restaurants.

Custom Menu: Create your Own in GBP
3rd Party: Why would you ? pic.twitter.com/mkEIMR5v2g

— Tim Capper (@GuideTwit) March 1, 2023

We don’t know about you, but we’re still going to rely on the photo of the coffee-stained, laminated menu taken and uploaded by a visitor five years ago instead…

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Online-conversion Local Ads (OLAs) Allow for More Targeted GBP Advertising

Shown in Google Business Profiles in Search and Maps, these ads allow you to promote products or services relevant to specific locations (e.g. a competitor’s GBP listing, or your own, if you want to ensure no one else can make the land-grab on your own listing).

Source: GMBapi.com

What’s new with reviews?

Google Expands Documentation Around Personal Info and ‘Fake Engagement’

In an update to its ‘Prohibited and restricted content’ guidelines, Google has turned existing vagueness around what personal info can be used where into an absolute rule (with exceptions, of course).

It has also added guidelines around fake engagement, e.g. using an automated tool to post reviews.

Definitely worth reviewing if you’re considering engaging in automated fake reviews. Whether this applies to businesses using automated tools to respond to reviews at scale remains to be seen.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Restaurant Reviews Encouraged to Include Recommendations of Specific Dishes

When reviewing a restaurant, you might now be asked to recommend a specific dish while you’re rating elements like food, service, and atmosphere.

Google adds an option for recommended dishes on reviews @mblumenthal @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/RtwsCrUsb8

— ClaudiaT (@ClaudiaTomina) March 6, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Releases Reviews Mistakenly Removed as Spam as “New”

What the searcher doesn’t know, can’t hurt them, right? That’s true until Google hands the business reviews it mistakenly removed back to you, but labels them as “new”.

After Google’s initial admission that they would be reinstating these reviews, DAC found that over the following weeks, a significant number of them were being reinstated as “new” reviews on businesses’ GBPs.

If you like the look of lots of fresh, new reviews on your profile, then this is probably a good thing, but not so much if they are old reviews contain information and opinions that no longer reflect your business.

Google Details Progress Made in Tackling Fake Contributions in 2022

In its annual report on its progress towards finally making Google fakery-free (hey, we can dream!), Google released some key stats, including:

• 115m+ policy-violating reviews removed, including a 20% increase in the removal of fake reviews
• 200m photos and 7m videos were blocked or removed for being blurry, low quality, or violating content policies
• 20m attempts to create fake Business Profiles stopped

Google puts a lot of its success in these increases down to the evolution of its machine learning capabilities.

Surprise, Surprise: Review Spammers Are Using AI

File this under: no sh*t. Although OpenAI and Google disallow the use of their generative AI technology to produce spam, spammers aren’t exactly ones to follow the rules, so it should come as no surprise that AI is clearly being used to create fake business reviews at scale.

Perhaps Google could see which way the wind was blowing, hence the ‘Fake Engagement’ guidelines mentioned above?

Sources: Review Fraud via Search Engine Roundtable

What’s new in local search?

New Local Ranking Factors Survey Released

Whitespark have released their survey of local SEO expert opinions on what does and doesn’t impact local rankings, including questions around negative ranking factors, LSA ranking factors and suspension risk factors for the first time.

Darren Shaw goes into detail on what’s changed over at Near Media. It’s well worth a watch.

Google Explore Now Features Local Search Results

Google has added business profile overlays and scrollable business info to the Google Explore section of search (which Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz rightly describes as “that weird feature you get when you keep scrolling and scrolling through the search results”).

Google explore with business in different way , it's with overlay feature.

Notice first time.

Before covered as – Google Explore" Testing As The Dynamic SERP Feature via @rustybrick @glenngabe – https://t.co/pDTJHdwRy9

now with business profile with overlay pic.twitter.com/hNZ3vFSIM7

— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) March 1, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Tests Blend of Search and Local Snippets

Here’s a strange one: an odd mix of local business info and standard search snippet appearing in search results. It has some of the local features you’d want to see (map, directions, how to call, etc.) but very little actually useful info like business or product description.

Just noticed this new hybrid search result, normal web link plus GMB listing together…is it new @rustybrick? pic.twitter.com/U6cr0h1kKp

— Manish Chauhan (@ManishK_Chauhan) March 15, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Testing Reviews Icon Limited to One Star

You’d be forgiven for having a coronary if you spotted this one when searching for a client’s business!

I noticed on the local pack they are only showing one star next to the cumulative rating. This is the first time I've seen a condensed way they are displaying the number of stars. @rustybrick @glenngabe @DarrenShaw_ pic.twitter.com/nfb4w3W4Uc

— Jason Parks (@Jason_Parks1) March 19, 2023

No, those businesses don’t just have one-star average review ratings. That’s just Google trying to save a bit of space in the already cramped local pack by having the single star signify what the number next to it refers to, rather than showing the full amount of stars.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

What’s new with Local Services Ads?

Services Supported by LSAs See Massive Expansion

In early March, Google expanded the business types that can use Local Services Ads far beyond the usual remit of home services, law practitioners, and real estate agents.

The new list of supported businesses, which you can find here, includes education, people care, pet care, wellness, and healthcare—so Google is clearly still sticking to the sorts of businesses that involve handing over a lot of trust, often known as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) industries.

You Can Now Report (Some) Reviews on LSAs—Finally

In news that many have been looking forward to, Google has now added the function to ‘Report a review’ on Local Services Ads. This naturally doesn’t include verified reviews (a big part of Google’s offering here) but it at least helps to bring some parity between the usual GBP review experience and LSAs.

Yes!!! Finally we can flag/report Google LSA Reviews @keyserholiday @lenraleigh – time to build a dispute bot for this pic.twitter.com/99IrMjtTxz

— Curtis Boyd (@DataBoyd) March 14, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

It’s Now Much Easier to Add and Remove Verticals in Local Services Ads

The interface that allows you to edit, set up and optimize your Local Services Ads has been updated to make it easier to select those that apply best to your business.

JUST SPOTTED!!!! Google Updated The Local Services Ads Interface.

It is now easier to add/remove verticals directly in the LSA interface.

Not sure how I feel about it yet and still exploring.

Check it out!! #PPCchat pic.twitter.com/lRT5P8OWUI

— Anthony Higman (@AnthonyHigman) March 17, 2023

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

That’s especially true for fast food brands. Take Burger King and McDonald’s. Whether you’re traveling for leisure or work, and find yourself in unfamiliar territory, there’s just nothing like seeing those famous golden arches or orange burger buns and feeling that, in a way, you’re home.

Is that too dramatic (or perhaps just reflective of my feelings towards delicious, salty junk food)? It certainly got us thinking recently about the role of local business reviews for some of the world’s biggest brands. How do these global icons stack up from a local perspective, and could they learn a thing or two about review management?

We gathered the Google reviews for every Burger King and McDonald’s outlet in the USA (that’s over 20,000 locations!) to see how their average review ratings compare. Who will come out as the top-reviewed brand in the USA? Choose your player… this is the Big Brand Review Showdown!