How Should you Respond to Google My Business Reviews

A recent study has found that 90% of the consumers believe that online reviews have had a tremendous impact on their buying decisions. With such an impressive statistic, it is clear that creating reviews is a must have for companies, especially when it comes to boosting their business growth and online expansion.

It is not a hidden fact that having positive Google My Business Reviews can have a tremendous impact on a business as it helps attract new leads. But, the point that is often missed is that responding to such reviews can make the impact even greater. Responding to reviews in a timely as well as the professional manner is also critical to the growth of your business. Your brand can influence a prospective customer to buy your products, boost your online reputation, and, therefore, increase credibility.

So, let's take a look at the below-mentioned points to understand the best way to respond to Google My Business Review. The pointers will also explain what should you say with regard to such responses.

In this blog post, we are going to guide you on how to respond to Google My Business reviews and provide guidelines on what you should be saying in these responses.

Best ways to respond to a review:

Step 1: Get access to your Google Business Page

The very first step in responding properly to a review is to go to this site: business.google.com and log into your account. From here onwards, click the three bars available on the top left corner of your dashboard and select ‘all locations’. After this step, you can find your location to which you want to respond to reviews on and thereon select, ‘manage location’.

Thereafter, once you reach your ‘Google My Business Page’, you can simply move on to the ‘review’ section and now click on the blue bar which is known as ‘manage reviews’.

Step 2: Check reviews and reply

Now that you have managed to access your business reviews, you can spot who has left you a review, when was the review written, what have they written and how many stars or ratings have they given your business.

You will now simply have to click, ‘view and reply’ tab to send a reply to a particular review. This action will take you to that particular review wherein you can leave a comment.

Step 3: Carefully curate your response to a review

Now that you have found a review that you would actually like to leave a reply, you can now begin crafting your response. While replying to these reviews, it is important to remember that you need to answer them as soon as possible. This is because Google tends to see prompt responses from the business owners. Such kind of a prompt response will also allow the commenter that you have taken the time out to appreciate their feedback and are actually listening to what they have to talk about your brand and services.

It is also important to understand that you cannot send a positive reply to everyone as you cannot please everyone. It is always a possibility that you will receive a negative feedback from any commenter. But responding to negative as well as positive reviews only go on to show that you will do everything that you can to make sure your customers are heard and serviced well. Thus, reviews can present a great opportunity to engage with your customers.

You need to aim for the following while writing reviews:

• A quick response

• A gratitude note (for both positive and negative; such as, thank you for leaving your valued opinion).

• Neutral tone

• Grammar

While leaving a response, you can also include your business related keywords to get the extra SEO benefit.

How to answer to Positive reviews

Your business will also get positive reviews. Thus, creating a quick and simple response to positive review can go a long way in creating a strong online image for you.

Example 1: Positive Review Response

Note here that the best reviews are those which go into detail about your review. The more detailed you are, it will help you create a clear picture of yourself to the readers.

How to best answer negative reviews

It is not avoidable that you will get negative reviews. But the manner in which you reply to such reviews can turn an unhappy customer into a happy one. Check out the example of how to respond to a negative review:

Example 1: Negative Review Response

 So, follow these steps to better engage with your customers.