Review acquisition is an ongoing top priority for nearly all local brands, and today we’re going to paint a portrait of the habits and preferences of the average local business review writer. This piece will support increasing your review volume, acquisition rate, and reviewer engagement metrics.
This is the third installment of a three-part series based upon the data-based findings of our groundbreaking survey of 1,200+ respondents, Beyond the Stars: How American Consumers Use Reviews to Choose Local Businesses. All numbers have been rounded up for practicality and comprehension.
- Part one: Bucking Bias: 10 Age-Based Local Business Review Habits
- Part two: The Leading Characteristics of Local Business Review Readers
Understanding your review writers
Bring this simple infographic to your next meeting with your team or a client to ensure that all stakeholders share an understanding of today’s US-based review writers.
Significant stats: what we know about today’s local business reviewers
Measuring motivation
While a healthy 42% of American consumers are self-motivated to the extent that they almost always write reviews after patronizing a business, the remaining 58% are less active and self-starting, and may require encouragement to review your brand. When it comes to why the public is motivated to spend time reviewing local businesses, a dominant 72% want to reward nearby establishments for providing great service, while 60% feel called on to warn their community of poor service.
Barriers to review flow
Nearly all local businesses should strive to achieve a moderate but steady rate of incoming reviews. It’s vital to know that 32% of consumers report that they don’t write more reviews because they haven’t been asked to. In fact, 42% state that more than a month has transpired since they were last asked to write a review by any local business. The #1 blocker for reviewers is that 51% say they forget to write intended reviews, highlighting the critical role a helpful reminder from your business plays in maximizing review acquisition rates. Meanwhile, 47% say that they tend to find themselves spending more of their screen time these days doing something other than reviewing local businesses, indicating that your brand may need to work harder to win their time and attention.
Reviewer preferences
On average, 92% of consumers are fine with being asked to review your business, and 83% are at least somewhat likely to respond to your requests. Preferences surrounding outreach methodology vary widely. A dominant 54% of reviewers prefer email-based requests, 47% want to be asked in-person at the time of service, 28% like to be asked via social media or a phone call, and 22% prefer SMS requests. As for request timing, 66% preference same-day requests, but based on your industry, you should experiment with the success rate of different cadences. 60% list Google as their favorite platform for review publication, but the field of alternative platforms remains fairly broad, and includes sites like Amazon (48%), Yelp (38%), Facebook (35%), TripAdvisor (28%), and Apple Maps (24%). Your brand’s goal should be the acquisition of influential review content across multiple platforms. Finally, publishing fake reviews should be avoided at all costs, as only 14% of consumers will engage with a brand that’s been stamped with a review fraud warning.
Engaging reviewers: an actionable checklist
Now that we’ve painted our portrait of the motivations, pain points, and preferences experienced by modern local business review writers, we can strategize to meet their needs. Increase engagement by investing in a reputation management strategy that enables you to check every box on this list.
- We are collecting email addresses and SMS numbers at the time of service
- We are asking all customers to review us at the time of service
- We are following up with requests via email, phone, social media, and text, based on testing the preferences of our own consumer base
- We are also placing review requests on print materials, such as receipts, store signage, and brochures
- We are making same-day review requests, but, based on our industry, we are willing to change our process if a different time frame yields a higher rate of acquisition for our unique customer base
- Knowing that online distractions are prevalent, we send follow-up reminders to review us if customers are unresponsive to our initial request
- While we are prioritizing earning Google-based reviews, we are asking patrons to review us across multiple platforms
- Our review requests contain instructions and links to our profiles to ensure that customers at every level of internet savvy find it easy to review us
- We are providing the type of excellent customer experiences that inspire the public to want to reward us with positive reviews
- We are acting quickly on in-person complaints and negative reviews to limit the instances in which reviewers feel it is necessary to warn their communities about a bad experience with our brand
- We are adhering strictly to all review platform guidelines to avoid being stamped with a public warning
Summing up
Taken in conjunction with our survey’s finding that 60% of people trust what customers say about your business over what your brand says about itself, the influence of reviewers should not be undervalued. Reviewers create the most persuasive messaging for your company and act as a volunteer marketing and sales force for your organization. Their tastes and preferences should be treated with absolute respect.
Today, we’ve covered the leading characteristics of review writers, and our data will firmly ground you in best practices for earning and enhancing engagement with this powerful community of publishers. For our complete data set, read the full report, Beyond the Stars: How American Consumers Use Reviews to Choose Local Businesses.
A next level of success can be achieved via a combination of investment in professional reputation management tools that yield further insight into how the public is interacting with your review profiles, plus internal testing to pin down the precise preferences of your unique consumer base in terms of request timing, platform usage, and other valuable details.
GatherUp’s survey has discovered that the most recent review content has the greatest influence on consumer purchasing decisions. Given this, a key benchmark of success is the achievement of a dependable rate of fresh, incoming customer sentiment. Review acquisition should be viewed as a long-distance cross-country ski trek, rather than a speedy downhill race. Reviews are an asset you build, one request at a time, and scaled across all locations of your business so that potential patrons are reassured that their peers are having great experiences with your brand this month, this week, and today.
GatherUp can set your digital agency up for success with the most trusted reputation management software on the market. Contact us to schedule a personal demo or start your free trial now!
