How Consumer Reviews Are Affecting Local Businesses

Forget the paper map, the local phone directory or coupon book found at the highway rest area. Consumers have smartphones now and they can find anything they want by simply typing a few keywords.

By using platforms such as Yelp or Google Maps, not only can consumers locate local businesses, but they can also read about previous consumers’ experiences and contribute their own.

This week is National Small Business Week. What does review management mean for local businesses? Should businesses pay attention to what is said about them online? Is any publicity good publicity?

Google Maps

Google Maps provides a great platform for consumers. They have the ability to rank businesses out of 5 stars, add pictures and personal comments.

Good rankings on Google Maps are crucial as they are automatically linked to search results on Google. Therefore, as soon as a business is googled, not only is the address and phone number made available but also consumer reviews and user picture contributions.

Now that brands can engage in two way conversation with brands, local businesses can directly interact with consumers and get instant feedback on their products and services. On their end, consumers can pass on their content to other users via social media or share their reviews with their friends.

Bearing this in mind, Google provides businesses with the possibility of replying to reviews. This way, businesses have a chance to acknowledge their successes and apologize for their mishaps.

Trip Advisor

Similar to the solutions Google Maps provides but without the navigation component, Trip Advisor is a platform on which consumers can share their experiences. For each city, establishments can be ranked and commented on. On Trip Advisor, businesses are able to claim their business page and have a provided platform to respond to user reviews. The main downside of Trip Advisor is that reviews can stay for a very long time. Therefore, there could have been a wide array of managerial changes about a local business between 2006 and 2016, but very negative reviews from a long time ago can drag down the average ranking of your business. Therefore, being listed on TripAdvisor is an incentive for businesses to prevent negative reviews because once those are posted, they are published for a very long time. The authenticity of Trip Advisor reviews is verified but it is said that businesses can easily incentivize customers to post positive reviews with a reward of some sort like a draw or a gift card.

 

Yelp

Yelp is similar to Google Maps and Trip Advisor, also featuring a street view component where you can see local businesses listed with their reviews. The main difference is that fewer reviews get approved and published, as their authenticity verification system is harder to crack. Therefore, businesses would not be able to incentivize customers to post positive reviews for an incentive. This further incentivizes them to take good care of their clientele to avoid negative word-of-mouth.

Society has changed. The Internet has given every consumer the opportunity to voice their opinion and share their experience about local businesses they visit. If local businesses acknowledge this new means of communication and caters to their clientele right, this could lean to more conversions and positive word-of-mouth. If they don’t, negative word-of-mouth can snowball and incur challenging repercussions.

Consumer Contributions to Social Media - Maps & Apps Affecting Local Business

Are consumer posts in social media, reviews - photos and additions to maps and other apps affecting local business?  Are they affecting your brand?

Additions to apps like Google Maps, Yelp and Trip Advisor are simplifying distribution of customer reviews.  They are building immediate access to consumer views of brands through easy distribution of consumer reviews including photos taken by consumers, feeding directly into local listings in mobile maps and online directories.
  

Consumer reviews are also leveling the playing field for the local business.  The fact that consumers can contribute to online maps and directories enables the local business to be accessed and addresses to be found by thousands of consumers, with no marketing cost to the local business.  Applications like Google Maps, Yelp and Trip  Advisor enable consumers to directly communicate with business owners, share experiences and resolve issues.  These applications are threaded with social media, providing the ability for consumers to share recommendations with friends and contacts through social media, granting direct access to reviews and photos.

Consumers are opting to participate and contribute to reviews and add photos because they enjoy seeing their contributions included in favorite places they have visited.  They enjoy seeing other consumer feedback and believe their contributions will assist other consumers as they make buying decisions.

Google launched a program to increase consumer contributions to Google Maps.   They encourage consumers to "Share Your World on Google Maps" Google notes, "Local Guides is a global community of explorers, sharing their discoveries on Google Maps."   The program encourages consumers from local areas to communicate via Local Guide Communities - share experiences and meet up with each other in new locations.  Google+ Collections are shared to show local experiences and contributions to the map are easily found by the contributor and Local Guide programs encourage consistent contributions.

As more consumers use mobile devices, mobile apps will drive increased engagement of consumer contributions and local businesses will benefit exponentially from these contributions.