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The FTC Takes on Fake Reviews, Kinda
FTC Mission Statement: Protecting consumers and competition by preventing anticompetitive, deceptive, and unfair business practices through law enforcement, advocacy, and education without unduly [...]
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New Feature: Reply to Facebook Recommendations via GatherUp
You can now reply to Facebook Recommendations via GatherUp. This is the newest addition to GatherUp's reply features that enables you to efficiently manage replies to online reviews from a single [...]
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Does Review Gating Impact Star-Ratings?
In April 2018, we performed a grand experiment. Google had publicly declared that "gating" was formally banned. So, we switched every customer in our system that was still gating to a fully Google [...]
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Case Study: Allstate Partners With GatherUp To Drive Reviews
Allstate’s commitment to making a difference in customers’ lives, giving back to local communities, and helping people has helped make them one of the largest and most trusted insurance [...]
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What is Yelp’s Actual Impact in the Real World?
Yelp seems to focus into view at every turn in the review space. Yet, in looking at website analytics over the years, I've rarely seen Yelp contribute more than a few percent to actual [...]
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September 2019 Webinar Recap
We covered a lot this month (from the Northwoods), including Google's announcement regarding review rich snippets and a deep dive into review replies that includes an upcoming feature release. [...]
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Display Replies to Google Reviews on Your Business Website
There is a multitude of reasons replying to reviews benefits your business and now we've amplified the impact of replies to Google reviews by automatically displaying them in the Review Widget. [...]
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Google and Review Snippets
Co-authored by Mike Blumenthal and Aaron Weiche Last week Google announced they will now be ignoring schema related to 1st-party reviews. This change is frustrating for marketers but as we'll get [...]
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When is a Review More Than a Review?
As you work to earn new reviews, don't overlook the value of aggregate review content This headline may seem like a riddle but it's not meant to be. A review is more than a review... when [...]
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The Best Review Incentive is… No Incentive
A good friend showed me an eco-hotel that was offering a very creative review incentive and asked if I thought this violated TripAdvisors no incentive terms of service: "When you leave a review on [...]
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Tell Your Brand Story Across Search With Google My Business
The other day I was asked to contribute to a blog post by answering the following question: What is the most common thing you see missed or not utilized by business owners on Google My Business? [...]
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GatherUp Makes The Inc. 5000 List Of Fastest Growing Private Companies
It's official. We've been selected to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America! GatherUp ranked among the upper half of the list at #2240 in our debut year, [...]
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July 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
We're doing big things! Check-in on a new feature launch AND the public BETA launch of Insights Report in this month's webinar. If you missed it... watch it, check out the agenda, and grab the slides [...]
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Insights Report Launches to Analyze Reviews with IBM Watson
GatherUp is excited to announce the release of our new Insights Report into public BETA. Powered by IBM Watson, the Insights Report uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze reviews automatically, [...]
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Feature Update: Manage All Reviews in Customer Activity
3rd-party reviews have been added to Customer Activity Manage all of your reviews from a single screen with the addition of 3rd-party reviews to Customer Activity. Now, all ratings, reviews, [...]
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Grab a Tissue and Let’s Recap MozCon 2019
https://vimeo.com/349705313 Last week, I attended MozCon 2019. As an event partner (and first-time attendee), it was exciting to arrive at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle... [...]
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Google Launching Place Topics Adding More Value to Reviews
Last month Google rolled out Google Q&A Auto-Suggest Answer, using reviews to help consumers answer their questions. This month, in a still partial rollout, Google has launched Place Topics as a [...]
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June 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
Feature updates, industry news, case studies, and a sneak peek were shared during the June 2019 Customer Webinar. Watch the webinar, check out the agenda, or grab the slides if you missed it. [...]
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Google Expands Business Profile Answers For Mobile Results
It appears that Google has expanded and enhanced the display of "Business Profile Answers" on mobile search results. And in doing so, now wraps even mundane details like the answer to a phone number [...]
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TextBack Case Study: Driving Big Reviews For A Small Restaurant
The TextBack call to action sits on every table top and at the front counter. I am a sucker for a good diner with an all day breakfast and a great lunch. Any place that hand presses their [...]
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GatherUp Announces The MozCon 2019 Ticket Winner
We are beyond excited to announce our MozCon 2019 ticket winner from our MozCon review contest. Winning a ticket worth almost $2,000 and 3 full days of SEO and digital marketing greatness at this [...]
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Google Fully Rolls Out Q & A Auto-Suggest Answers
In April, Google rolled out a cool Business Profile (aka Knowledge Panel) feature that auto-suggested answers to new Google Q & A questions. Over the past week they have rolled out the feature to [...]
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How To Use A Customer Feedback Survey For Your Grand Opening
Opening your doors for the first time is not only "open for business", but it should be "open for feedback". The quicker you learn what your new customers like, love or want to see improved, the [...]
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May 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
The May GatherUp customer webinar was full of general feature reminders and tips. We looked at recent changes to the navigation, requests, request modes, testing, feedback settings, reports and [...]
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The FTC Takes Action On Companies Barring Consumers From Writing Negative Reviews
Including language in your contracts or agreements that bar your customer from writing a negative online review is not only bad form, it's against the law. Last week, the Federal Trade [...]
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Case Study: US Storage Centers Is Using Reviews To Edge Out Competitors
US Storage Centers CMO Jason Lopez understands the marketing power of customer reviews. With over 120 locations nationwide, they are far from the smallest, but they compete with massive [...]
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April 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
Widgets, widgets everywhere! April's webinar put the NEW widget designs on full display. Vertical, Horizontal and Full Page are now available for the Review Widget and Tag Review Widget and come with [...]
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Google Upgrades Q & A to Auto-Suggest Answers To Your Questions
Google appears to be rolling out an upgrade to Google Questions & Answers (Q & A) that uses previous answers to questions and Google Local Business (GMB) reviews to suggest answers to new [...]
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Feature Update: NEW Review Widget Designs Display Reviews On Your Website In Style
Reviews are valuable content. And using review content on your website to promote your business or service is smart marketing that will help you win your next customer. The Review Widget [...]
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GatherUp To Sponsor MozCon 2019 – Win A Ticket To Be There!
MozCon is the most exhilarating and creative display of SEO, mobile, conversion optimization, local search, and more known to mankind. GatherUp is excited to announce we are a sponsor for 2019. [...]
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10 Strategies to Get More Reviews and Compete in SERPs
Your ability to generate reviews can hinder or harness success. Today, a sticker in the window isn't going to get the job done. Consider these statistics: Consumers require an average 40 online [...]
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4 Big Mistakes With Review & Feedback Requests
Customer feedback and online reviews are incredibly important, and with that importance many businesses can become short sighted on the best ways to acquire and manage them. I want to share [...]
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March 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
With updates, demos, and discussion on the latest features and upcoming plans for GatherUp, there was plenty to cover during the March Customer Webinar. https://vimeo.com/327033291 March 2019 [...]
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The Power Of A Customer Experience Hub
Just about every business we talk to is interested in doing more with less. GatherUp was never designed to do only one thing. We set out to architect a core of features that work together to optimally [...]
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Announcing TextBack: User-Activated Reviews Via Text
With busy lifestyles, bold headlines, and near-constant connectivity, the competition to engage consumers is fierce. But, by putting the customer in control with our latest feature TextBack, you [...]
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How Google Uses Reviews To Understand A Business
It's been known for some time that Google looks at reviews for long tail information and that reviews with that information would lead to Google showing local listings for those terms. In addition to [...]
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The Economics of Customer Complaint Resolutions
What is the optimal path to recover from a complaint? When things go wrong and your business ends up with a complaint and possibly a bad online review from that customer, the standard advice has [...]
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Yes! Why and How-To Reply to Reviews
Good. Glowing. Negative. Unfair. Online reviews take on all shapes and sizes. But, regardless of their tone, the answer to your question is... Yes! Replying to reviews benefits your business in a big [...]
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Using Emojis In The Subject Line Of Your Review Request Email 👏
Emojis might be here to stay and the early impact they have in the inbox is significant 🚀 (see what we did there?). Brands using emojis in their email subject lines had a 56% higher unique [...]
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January 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
Our first webinar of 2019 was packed with feature releases and new features heading into BETA. Headlining the webinar was our release of our new Google My Business integration that allows you to [...]
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New Feature: Reply To Google Reviews From GatherUp
Reviews dominate consumer influence. A recent study showed 80% of 18-34 year old consumers have written online reviews. But, did you know that 89% of consumers read local businesses’ responses [...]
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Case Study: How Zoës Kitchen Increased Google Reviews By 287%
"A brand is just a collection of guest experiences." - Zoës Kitchen This statement, made by our client Zoës Kitchen, is completely spot on. GatherUp started working with Zoës Kitchen, a 260 [...]
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What Reviews In 2018 Taught Us To Maximize In 2019
2018 had both constant and change in the world of online reviews. While we often focus on the day to day changes in tactics for reputation management, it's important to zoom out to take inventory of [...]
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New Feature: The Agency Dashboard – Improving Client Management
As a digital marketing agency, clients come to you looking for what they think they need. As a great agency, you offer services and solutions you know they need. GatherUp is your partner, helping [...]
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When You Don’t Need to Ask for Reviews – You Are Just That Good
I recently returned from a vacation to Vietnam and Cambodia. It was amazing as we motorbiked around Ho Chi Minh city and then bicycled across the Mekong Delta to Cambodia and on to Siem Riep. We ended [...]
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November 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
The November 2018 Customer Webinar opened with the release of two new features, Customer Activity and Auto-Tagging. We shared an overview of the uses and benefits and a live demo for each new feature. [...]
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New Feature: Customer Activity Creates Efficient Workflows And Powers Actionable Insights
Data. Data. Data. But not my favorite character from The Goonies, Data. I’m talking about business data, big data, customer experience data. The type of data that everyone is talking about, some of [...]
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New Feature: Benefit From Tags And Save Time With Auto-Tagging (Pro Plan and up)
What’s this you say? You’ve automated tagging feedback? Yes, we have! If you’re a user who currently utilizes tags, we can feel you high-fiving us. Skip down to Automate Tags With Auto-Tagging [...]
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Online Reviews Study: Restaurants & Reviews
Today's consumer has endless access to online reviews, ratings, and comments on businesses when they are deciding where to spend their time and money. Research shows that 91 percent of people [...]
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October 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Attendees were welcomed our October 2018 webinar, our first as our new brand GatherUp, with a full agenda including a review of the past months with updates, Facebook's change from Reviews to [...]
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New Feature: Facebook Recommendations Monitoring & Reporting
Today, we launched review monitoring for Facebook Recommendations and added them to our reporting suite. With the recent change from Facebook Reviews to Recommendations we got to work to make sure you [...]
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3 Ways To Request Customer Feedback And Online Reviews By Email
Customer experience, feedback and online reviews are massively important to any type of business today. The best companies are proactive in engaging their customers and send them emails to request [...]
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Why I Love 1st-Party Reviews & Just Might Marry Them
When my children were in elementary school and I would say that I loved something like asparagus, they would respond with, what for them was clever, school yard repartee: "Why don’t you marry it?!?" [...]
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The Whacky World of Reviews: A 5 Star Spam Review “Attack”?
Online reviews and the world that swirls around them can often descend into the surreal. Two weeks ago the son of the business owner and his friends drove by the house of a negative reviewer and [...]
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GetFiveStars Is Now GatherUp
GetFiveStars is proud to announce that we are now GatherUp. When we started in 2013 our goal was simple. We wanted to help businesses request customer feedback and online reviews. Today, we have grown [...]
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August 2018 Customer Webinar
August's webinar wasn't short on discussion as we spent well over an hour on our planned content and attendee questions. We walked through the Conversion Pop-up now that it's released in the [...]
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A Big Change To Facebook Reviews, 5-Star Reviews Are Now Recommendations
Last week we saw a big change to Facebook reviews as they moved to a new "recommendation" format and away from the standard 5-star rating. Here is the pop-up currently displayed on Facebook business [...]
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New Feature: Conversion Pop-up
We're very excited to announce our latest feature addition, designed to convert more of your website visitors into customers. Our Conversion Pop-up is an eye-catching rotation of your best and most [...]
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Improve Your Review Requests With Personalization
One of the many benefits of software is it's ability to automate tasks saving you valuable time and effort. The downfall to software and marketing automation is it can feel overly robotic and lack [...]
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Big Surveys Are A Big Mistake
Your customer's time is valuable, incredibly valuable. Many companies seem to forget this when it comes to capturing customer feedback using post experience surveys. When marketing to potential [...]
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July 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Our latest addition to our reporting suite, the Success Report was the main topic of our July 2018 Webinar. Attendees also had a detailed sneak peek at our Conversion Pop-up, a feature that is [...]
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New Feature: Success Report
Today we roll out an addition to our reporting suite with our new Success Report. The focus of this report is to bring together all of your review data into one report for your entire account. So [...]
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6 Reasons Your Digital Agency Should White-label Our Review Management Solution
If you are working at or running a digital marketing agency then you are constantly looking to add services or products that help achieve the goals of your clients. Additionally you want these to [...]
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June 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
In this month's webinar we showed the beta of our new Success Report - this report gives you the best view of your ratings and reviews success all in one place. We also answered questions about [...]
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Reviews & Lawsuits – You Can Win for Losing and You Can Lose for Winning
Several weeks ago two businesses were in the news having started lawsuits in regards to reviews. In one case, the suit makes all kinds of sense, even though they might lose. In the other, it makes [...]
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The Importance of Reviews And Feedback For A New Business
For the first time, you open the doors to your first customers. After all of the dreaming, planning, preparation and hundreds of other tasks big and small, your small business is now open for [...]
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When Asking for Reviews Is Just Too Much And Not Enough
It's a brave new world of online reviews. As a business owner you get that. You won't just wait for reviews to happen, but are going to implement processes that insure that your business will get its [...]
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May 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Our May 2018 webinar reviews some big changes to a few areas that released the week prior into the platform. Our slides and recording of the webinar is embedded below so you can review the content [...]
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Our New Interface And Navigation Redesign
Our team is very excited to release our redesigned navigation menu today. The short version is that all of the sections, pages and names have stayed the same but the design and menu locations have [...]
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Combine WiseStamp With GetFiveStars For Great Looking Emails & Feedback
I love finding great tools that work incredibly well with our own customer feedback and reviews offering. The combo I'm outlining today will not only make your daily emails look better, it will add [...]
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Google to Notify Reviewers of Owner Responses
Google announced on the Google My Business Forum today that when owners respond to reviews, the reviewers will now receive notification of that response. From the post: We’re launching [...]
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Bolster Your Google Mobile Search Results
How your business appears in Google's mobile search results might make or break your next customer contacting you. While our service offers many components like Net Promoter Score, customer [...]
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April 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Thanks to all of you who attended our April webinar! These webinars are a highlight for us - it's our chance to connect with you all directly, show what we're working on, and get your feedback, ideas [...]
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The Next Chapter: Aaron Weiche As CEO
I’m excited to announce some big changes for our company. As of March 15th, 2018, Aaron Weiche has been promoted to the role of Chief Executive Officer, and I have moved into a new role as Chairman [...]
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Google Write a Review Link Generator – Free Chrome Extension
Sometimes it’s the little things in life that slow us down. As an agency or digital marketer, one of those tasks that falls under the category of incredibly tedious is to find the Google Write a [...]
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March 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Thanks to all of you who attended our March webinar! These webinars are a highlight for us - it's our chance to connect with you all directly, show what we're working on, and get your feedback, ideas [...]
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5 Reasons Customer Feedback Is Amazing
Getting inside the consumer's head has always been the goal of marketing. More than a few strategies and technologies exist to make this happen, many focused on customer feedback. Finding out [...]
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February 2018 Customer Webinar Recap
Our February webinar on the 27th focused on the release of our newly upgraded Review Widget. The biggest item of note is that you can now display 3rd-party reviews from Google, Facebook and [...]
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New Feature: Review Widget
We are excited to announce a big refresh and improvement to an existing feature in our platform. Displaying customer ratings and 1st-party reviews (testimonials) on your website is a big marketing [...]
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Webinar: The Ins & Out of Reviews & Reputation in 2018
With the start of the new year, our team members Aaron Weiche and Mile Blumenthal took part in a webinar looking at reviews and online reputation in 2018. The hour long session was hosted by Local [...]
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Customer Love
On this day of Valentines, we just wanted to take a minute to emphasize a few things. Number 1, we love our customers We are lucky, humbled and inspired to work with you and for you each day. It's [...]
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A “Reviews Only” Diet Makes Your Business Unhealthy
Reviews at 3rd-party sites like Google, Facebook and Trip Advisor are no doubt valuable to your business. Surveys have shown as many as 97% of consumers seek local reviews. Today's consumer often [...]
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5-Step Plan For Success With Google Q & A
This is the 3rd article in a 3-part series on Google Q&A. We started with an introduction to Q&A, then gave you a complete guide and now we will explore how to plan and execute winning with [...]
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The Big Guide To Google Questions And Answers (Q & A)
Update: Download our new eBook - GOOGLE QUESTIONS & ANSWERS - What you don't know can hurt you Our first post introduced you to Google Questions & Answers (Q&A), in our second article of [...]
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Google Q & A – Get To Know Google’s Latest Local Feature
This is the first post in a three part series on Google Q & A. Part 2 is a Big Guide To Google Q&A and the 3rd part is on how to manage it. Google has been on a mission to make Google search [...]
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2017 in Review – GetFiveStars Product Update
As we get ready for the new year, here's a quick look back at how GetFiveStars evolved in 2017. Ranging from SMS Feedback Requests, to a new Reporting engine, to new Feedback Modes, we were busy [...]
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Indiana Attorney General Sues Hotel for Deceptive Review Practices
In what goes down as one of the dumbest review policies and practices ever, a hotel in Indiana solicited reviews from consumers and would then charge them $350 if the guest left a bad review. No [...]
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November 2017 Customer Webinar – Feedback Modes Launch, Twitter Monitoring, and More…
Woohoo! We've launched our new Feedback Modes, with new email and landing page designs and I think you are going to like what you see. After refining the feedback and review flows, and redesigning [...]
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Huge Update: New Email Request Modes & Designs
Our team is extremely excited to announce the launch of our new feedback and review request modes that have been over 6 months in the making. There is a lot to cover with this update, but I promise [...]
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Feature Enhancement: Customer List Upload
With our platform having so many features, we often revisit specific ones to make sure it's the best it can be. We've now greatly upgraded our Customer List Upload function to make adding customers [...]
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New Feature: Twitter Monitoring
We are excited to announce we have added Twitter monitoring for our Pro, Pro Plus and Executive Plan customers. Basic Plan customers can take advantage of this new feature by upgrading to our Pro [...]
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The 2 Biggest Optimizations To Grow Your Online Reviews
Just about anything related to digital marketing can be optimized, it's a big part of why we love it. Over the decades of online interaction between businesses and consumers, marketers have looked [...]
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Customer Webinar October 2017 – New Feedback Flows, New Email and Landing Page Designs, and More…
In this month's webinar, we showed a whole bunch of new capabilities that we've added over the past month, and also unveiled the new Feedback Modes beta, which includes new email and landing page [...]
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A Google Combo That Works For Your Reputation
Google Posts is a very cool product that allows a business to tell their story directly in Google's search results. Google's Small Thanks product, allowing you to create a printed poster or graphic [...]
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GetFiveStars Release Notes for October 2017
Now that we're heading into fall, let's take a look at some of the capabilities we've been adding to GetFiveStars to help you build even better relationships with your customers. Thank you for all [...]
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Automate GatherUp With Zapier
We are very excited to share that GatherUp has an official Zapier app to help you automate your reputation management work with ease. Zapier is the fastest and easiest way to integrate GatherUp with [...]
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Review Monitoring Sites & Options Expanded
We are excited to announce we have added many new sites to our options for review monitoring. You have always been able to monitor for new reviews on the core review sites like Google, Facebook, [...]
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New Testimonial Widget, Rich Snippets + Speed = Real World Benefits
We're excited to announce that we updated our Testimonial Widget and Badges to a new javascript based format. The new code is both faster and is now compatible with many more hosting and CMS [...]
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Give Your Business the Edge By Scheduling a GetFiveStars Customer Success Demo
The goal of the Customer Success department at GetFiveStars is to ensure the success of your business. Two of the most powerful tools we offer are our pre-sales demo and concierge meeting. [...]
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The Consumer Review Fairness Act – You Can’t Use Agreements To Silence Your Customers
The internet has made customer reviews ubiquitous, and smart businesses not only recognize the importance of these reviews, they actively manage them. According to one HBS study, the researcher [...]
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