Presenter: Christina Augsburger, Yelp, Local Business Partner
A Bright Local study found that 91% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, with average star rating the most important factor that consumers look at when judging a local business on review sites. Businesses don't have to have a perfect five-star rating to have a five-star state of mind. In fact, it's a mentality that any business can adopt regardless of your current rating today. It's all about setting goals for customer service excellence, developing a strategy for dealing with customer feedback, and getting reviews organically. Gain insights from Yelp's Local Business Partner on how to raise the bar for your online reputation.
3. 5 S T A R S T A T E O F M I N D /
W H A T I S I T H O W T O
A C H I E V E I T
W H Y I T M A T T E R S
4. 5 S T A R S T A T E O F M I N D /
W H A T I S I T H O W T O
A C H I E V E I T
W H Y I T M A T T E R S
5. ANY BUSINESS CAN HAVE
A
5 STAR STATE OF MIND
A 5 star state of mind means embracing feedback to create customer
advocacy, improve your business, and differentiate from your
competition.
6. UNEXPECTED PRODUCTIONS IMPROV
86 reviews
STORYVILLE COFFEE COMPANY 947 reviews
277 reviews
BROADWAY LOCKSMITH
WHITE LOTUS SALON
INDUSTRY SALON SEATTLE
48 reviews
83 reviews
BOB OATES SEWER & ROOTER 167 reviews
ACES TOWN CAR SERVICE 220 reviews
7. 5 S T A R S T A T E O F M I N D /
W H A T I S I T H O W T O
A C H I E V E I T
W H Y I T M A T T E R S
11. 91%OF CONSUMERS
Read online reviews
for local businesses.
84%
OF CONSUMERS
Trust online reviews
as much as personal
recommendations.
74%
OF CONSUMERS
Say positive reviews
make them trust a local
business more.
12. Consumers rank Yelp the #1 review site
for finding local businesses.
M O S T
U S E F U L
M O S T
I N F L U E N T I A L
M O S T
T R U S T E D
13. 60%
Over the age of 35
82%
Have a college degree
71%
Earn 60K+ annually
Yelp User
Demographics
14. On Yelp,
consumer
search leads
to spend.
92%OF YELP USERS
Make a purchase after
visiting Yelp.
A.
85%OF YELP USERS
Share the businesses they
find on Yelp with friends.
OF YELP USERS
Purchase within one day.
79% purchase within one
week.
42%
15. 5 S T A R S T A T E O F M I N D /
W H A T I S I T H O W T O
A C H I E V E I T
W H Y I T M A T T E R S
16. 5 S T A R S T A T E O F M I N D /
W H A T I S I T H O W T O
A C H I E V E I T
W H Y I T M A T T E R S
18. JOIN THE
CONVERSATION
53% of consumers expect to receive a review response. 53% of the time a response
is received.
19. C U S T O M E R A D V O C A C Y /
ANSWERED
IGNORED
16%
37%
20.
21. 01/
S O M E T H I NG
T O A D D
02/
N O T H I N G T O
A D D
D I R E C T M E S S A G EP U B L I C C O M M E N T
P O S I T I V E /
22. 02/
I N A C C U R A T E
01/
L E G I T I M A T E
03/
R A N T
D I R E C T M E S S A G EP U B L I C C O M M E N TP U B L I C C O M M E N T
C R I T I C A L /
23. T H E “F E A R S” M E T H O D /
Find all mentions
Empathy (display it)
Answer publicly
Reply only twice
Switch channels
Answer every complaint, in every channel, every time.
25. GET MORE
REVIEWS
Businesses that respond to reviews
see a 5% increase in review count.
IMPROVE YOUR
RATING
Businesses that respond to reviews
experience a 10% upgrade in average
star rating.
26. T A K E T H E H I G H R O A D T A K E C O M F O R TT A K E A M I N U T ET A K E A M I N U T E
33. KEY TAKEAWAYS
Consumers use and trust online reviews when making purchase discussions
Embrace online feedback and join the conversation
Great reviews start with great customer experiences
Amplify the positivity
Don’t ask for reviews, do get review organically
34. C L A I M Y O U R B U S I N E S S /
Get noticed. Grow faster.
35. B U S I N E S S O W N E R S A P P /
Yelp for Business Owners in the palm of your hand.
C O M P L E T E
P R O F I L E
T R A C K
E N G A G E M E N T
R E S P O N D T O
R E V I E W S
M A N A G E
R E P U T A T I O N
Everything I talk about today is a free tool that you have access to through your Yelp for Business Users account. I'll have the presentation available on Slideside. I'll share the link at the end of the presentation. [CLICK FOR MY EMAIL ARROW]
My email address is up on the screen here for you to jot down if you have any questions, but today I’ll save plenty of time for Q&A at the end of my presentation as well. If you have a question about your business page specifically I’d be happy to connect 1:1.
No matter what your current rating is, you can operate with this mindset.
Any business can have have a 5 star state of mind. Large companies like Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Zappos have seemingly infinite resources to have defined their brands by their customer service experiences. But we see local businesses who have this mindset.[NEXT SLIDE]
These are some local businesses I've had the pleasure of meeting and seeing first hand how they manage their business. You can see they have do high ratings on Yelp, but they truly embrace and embody the 5 star state of mind.
These are all very different businesses, but excellent customer service is the thread that ties them together
We're going to unpack the tactics and best practices these great local businesses are already employing to achieve a great online reputation.
It starts with putting yourself in your customer’s shoes
You need to think about what their journey is like, how they’re discovering your business & what’s ultimately prompting them to make a purchase decision
Think about before we had review sites like Yelp–how did we discover a local business when we had a need–whether it’s where we’re going for dinner or who we hire for a home emergency?
We used the phone book, commercials, radio ads, and the most influential of these being, word of mouth. Now because of technology, we have access to word of mouth reviews for almost anything we have a need for, at any time
Let’s step back from being business leaders and marketers and get into our consumer mindset. How often do you pay attention to online reviews? With a show of hands, who here has used reviews to make any sort of decision?
Reviews are everywhere and consumers trust them.
According to a Bright Local study 91% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. Additionally 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (this is the most impactful finding–which is in line with our own experiences prior to technology) and 74% of those consumers say positive reviews makes them trust a local business more.
When it comes to review content for local businesses, consumers rank Yelp the #1 review site to do their searching. Yelp is listed as the 20th more visited multiplatform web properties in the US, alongside companies like eBay and Twitter.
So we know reviews are an important part of our buying decisions, we can see it in the data
Let's take a look at Yelp user demographics, and I bet you’ll be surprised to find that they go in line with the types of consumers you’d like to have spend money at your business.
60% of Yelp users are over the age of 35. 82% of them have a college degree or higher and 71% earn 60K+ annually with nearly half of our users reporting an annual household income of $100K or more.
People who are using Yelp are converting, and they're converting at a high rate.
So we talked about how people use reviews to make purchase decisions; of all the review sites out there Yelp is the #1 review site for local business searches; we know that Yelp users are relatively affluent, educated adults with disposable income; and we know that Yelp users are making intentional buying decisions.
We saw the impact reviews have in the customer journey.
Going back to what having a 5 star state of mind means, how do you effectively harness the power of customer feedback and use it to grow and differentiate your business?
The first step in achieving a 5 star state of mind if joining the conversation.
You need to know if your customers are happy, and if they aren’t you need to know why and how you can change it.
Are they ecstatic about you or are they just holding on until someone better comes along?
Everything online is amplified. Your interaction with customers is amplified. If you choose to not interact, that silence is amplified too.
Every point of contact is an opportunity to engage with your market.
According to a study done by Edison Research and author Jay Baer of the book Hug Your Haters
Businesses experience a 16% boost in customer advocacy from answered complaints on reviews sites.
Meanwhile, ignored complaints on review sites experience a -37% decline in customer advocacy.
Ignoring customer feedback is easy–but it’s not having that 5 star state of mind.
Chef John Howie took responding a step further by addressing both positive and negative reviews on his YouTube channel.
Let's dive deeper into best practices for actually responding to reviews.
Responding to positive reviews is a no-brainer–satisfied customers are the best way to market your business, because they are the ones who become your word-of-mouth army.
Positive: Is there something you can add to the positive review for your future customers? Maybe something they highlighted in their review that you want to amplify, or provide a recommendation or information on an upcoming event.
If not, sending a quick note through a direct message is a great way to create a personal connection with your customer. Continue to build trust and a relationship with your happy customers. It takes about 5 – 10x the amount of work to bring in a new customer as it does to retain a current customer.
There are three different types of critical reviews.
Legitimate where the reviewer raises a concern worth addressing. This is when things don’t go according to plan, and it’s worth acknowledging the feedback.
Inaccurate, this is where the reviewer misunderstands or misrepresents your business in their review.
Rant. Unhelpful, unproductive, usually from reviewers who are just negative and miserable.
First lets remember that when you’re responding to a review with a public comment you’re responding for every potential customer who is looking at your Yelp page to see. This is a good thing.
Public comments provide you the opportunity to set the record straight or apologize to a customer and illustrate your customer service practices as a business. You don’t want to get into a back and forth dialogue with the consumer through a public comment. Keep it simple. Thank the reviewer for taking the time to leave you feedback, address their concern and reinforce your business practices.
Lastly, take the conversation offline. You can conclude your public comment with a mention of sending them a direct message and looking forward to hearing back from them directly to see how you can improve their experience next time.
Here’s a specific method for approaching negative reviews
F – At the basic level, you can use a combination of Google alerts and simple social media listening platforms, like mention.net and Hootsuite
E– Think about how you would want to be spoken to in the same situation.
A – By replying publically you show your temperament, your values, and your belief that all customers deserve to be heard
R– Violating this rule can drag you down into a vortex of negativity and hostility, and it’s also a waste of your time
S- Take advantage of direct messaging, give your phone number or email, and address the situation further privately. Consider that your responses might not always be private, so extend the 5 star state of mind there as well.
One of the comments I hear is “people only write reviews about your business when they’re unhappy”
That’s not the case–about 80% of reviews on Yelp are 3 stars or higher. There are more 5 star reviews than 1, 2 & 3 star reviews combined. But, what this goes back to, is that there is some psychology at play–you as a business are going to look at your reviews differently than the average consumer is
Keep in mind, if you do have a few negative reviews, it’s completely normal. We can’t please 100% of people 100% of the time.
But if you are consistently responding to those people using the FEARS method, you are going to be able to turn some of those situations around
At Yelp, we see engaging with customers helps 2 things:
gain more reviews over time organically, as it helps increase overall traffic to page and thus, more relevant in search results over time
Increase overall star rating (Yelp users are 33% more likely to upgrade their reviews & rating when a business owner responds with a personalized message within 1 day)
If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.
Kate Spade at Pacific Place – two years ago made a purchase, the next year came back around the same time. Manager remembered me and my husband and offered me the same discount I got when I visited last year. It’s not the discount that will bring me back this year, but her. She is in the business of building relationships.
Find ways to celebrate you and your team’s wins.
Positive reviews are great free marketing material
Yelp would no longer exist without great content–we value high quality reviews over quantity
But we’ve learned that if you’re taking an organic approach to getting reviews you’re going to have more success
When some businesses ask for reviews and others don’t, it becomes difficult for users to compare reviews across businesses.
We want the customer experiences people have to inspire reviews
Don’t offer freebies, discounts, or payment in exchange for reviews
Don’t ask anyone to write reviews of your business, including friends, family and customers
Sobroso Mexican Grill in Garden Grove, CA 4.5 stars, 1900+ reviews
The best practice is to let customers know you participate in review sites, and that you care about their feedback, however and wherever they choose to provide it. That might require a verbal mention from a team member, signage, an update to your email signature and website, or some other interaction that encourages engagement.
A complaint online is an opportunity to demonstrate amazing customer service in a public setting that can’t be done on TV or any other channel. If a customer is having a issue that you know can be fixed, it’s an opportunity. Managing customer experience completely, consistently and successfully is not the primary marketing challenge.