The urgency to manage your reviews just became a lot more critical for your business!

If it hasn’t happened yet, you are sure to start seeing 3 different review site averages being displayed on your Google My Business listing, along with your Google Reviews. Apparently if you “can’t beat em, charge em for integration”? Our research shows that Facebook reviews, for example, are growing exponentially and potentially may be the #1 review repository over time. Also, there seems to be a new review ‘site’ or ‘platform’ popping up several times per year. So consumers are certainly not living by Google Reviews alone. Especially in the services space, where Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, Porch.com, GuildQuality along with so many others are gaining momentum thanks to massive advertising budgets. Although the future of reviews and how they are scraped and integrated among the bigger players remains to be seen, one thing for certain is that small and regional business have a growing problem on their hands. Monitoring and managing all of those reviews across all of those platforms is now far beyond a manual operation. Then there is the issue of responding, addressing fake and fraudulent reviews, and coming to terms with the voice of the customers and what they like and don’t like regarding their experience. Review ratings are essentially the ‘Business Credit Score’ these days, and an injured reputation is going to be very costly over time. Especially in competitive spaces such as service businesses, restaurant and hospitality and retail.

Review and reputation management has now boiled to the top of the priorities list for business owners, as they watch their own customers determine their fate.