Google Reviews have provided a space where people can share their experiences with a business. As a result, future customers are influenced by whether they should invest their time and money into a company. For people who don’t know you yet, reviews can be a critical tool for developing a level of trust and comfort before doing business with you. Good reviews can boost a company’s credibility to surpass competitors without spending a dime. Still, bad reviews can affect the business negatively by pushing potential clients and customers away. Many factors go into the benefits of google reviews, so let’s look at them in a little more detail.
Trust and First Impressions
As mentioned, positive Google reviews can impact your company’s credibility for future clients to trust you more. Reviews can tell a story of the quality of your services or how they felt while doing business with you. Online reviews hugely impact building trust and making positive first impressions to prospective clients. It is not uncommon for customers to research a company before investing in products or services. Around 88% of people read reviews to determine the quality of a business, especially local businesses. After reading a positive review, customers might continue to visit the web page, search for more reviews, or visit the actual location. Whether you have good or bad reviews, it shows your future clients and customers what kind of business you are and what you bring to the table.
Business Reputation
Your trust and first impressions with your clients also can determine how well reviews reflect your business’s online reputation. For example, suppose you aren’t providing good customer service. In that case, people will not hesitate to let you and potential clients know in the form of a negative review. If you get a poor review, try your best to get new, positive reviews to outweigh the negative and move on. Getting your clients to write reviews isn’t always the easiest thing. However, you can do this by sending your customers an email after a project or purchase, adding a link on your web page, or encouraging them to leave a review on Google through an ad. On that note, not having any reviews is only a little better than having negative ones. The number of google reviews makes a big difference. If you have 3 google reviews and your competition has 66, who do you think will get the first call? This provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to gain a competitive advantage over other companies.
Increasing Online Exposure
Google tracks all businesses’ reviews and star ratings so online users can find the best products or services when utilizing Google search. Google uses an algorithm to sort through companies ranking from best to worst. The higher-rated businesses will be boosted and placed at the top of a search so potential customers can see the best possible, top-rated companies in their area. Therefore, the higher your business ratings are, the more likely you will be placed at the top of a Google search.
Customer Feedback
All of your reviews (even the bad ones) are an opportunity to learn something as a company. First, it is good to pay attention to what people are saying about your business. When a negative review comes along, try to keep an open, positive outlook. It’s easy to immediately get upset or defensive when a bad review comes along. The best approach is to pay attention to what the customer is really communicating and try to view your business in their shoes. It just might take someone’s perspective from the outside that you might not see from an inside perspective. It allows companies to improve things they may be lacking, allowing growth. In addition, make sure you answer negative reviews politely, where you apologize and try your best to resolve the issue. By doing this, people will recognize your efforts in trying to solve the problem.
Now is the time to take advantage of Google’s tool for local businesses in a world that utilizes online tools so heavily. The bottom line is that if you are not currently using Google reviews, you may miss out on opportunities your competitors will receive instead of you. In addition, you’ll find out quickly how cost-effective Google reviews can be to drive potential customers and clients to your business in your local area.