Your online reputation is often one of the first impressions potential customers have of your business. For local businesses and national brands alike, having a stellar online review management strategy is key to attracting new customers, building trust, and growing your business.
With more and more consumers relying on reviews to make purchasing decisions, proactive review management has never been more important. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll provide everything you need to know to develop an effective review management strategy.
Jump right to:
- What is Online Review Management?
- How to Effectively Manage Online Reviews
- What to Look for in Review Management Software
- The Smartest Way to Manage Reviews
- How to Manage Online Reviews on Textedly
<h2 id="What">What is Online Review Management (and Why it Matters More Than Ever)</h2>
Online review management is the process of actively monitoring, collecting, responding to, and implementing customer reviews across digital platforms, such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other industry-specific sites. This process helps businesses maintain a strong and attractive online presence and builds customer trust.
Proactive online review management can boost customer loyalty and help your business uncover operational insights, but most importantly, it’s likely the first place a potential buyer will look before deciding whether or not to purchase from you. In fact, reviews influence 93% of consumer purchasing decisions and conversion rates increase a whopping 270% when retailers display five or more product reviews.
Plus, online reviews influence brand visibility by impacting SEO rankings and credibility scores. The more reviews your business has, the more legitimate it seems to search platforms and consumers.
What Happens if You Don’t Manage Your Online Reviews?
Neglecting your online reputation can lead to serious setbacks. Let’s look at a few negative impacts of failing to manage your online reviews.
- Reputational damage. A few unanswered negative reviews can overshadow hundreds of satisfied customers. Silence can be misread as indifference and indicate poor customer service.
- Missed opportunities. Positive reviews can become powerful marketing tools when effectively leveraged. Regularly managing online reviews enables you to spotlight positive customer experiences for further promotion.
- Fewer overall reviews. If you don’t implement a feedback request strategy, customers likely won’t go out of their way to share their positive experiences.
- Lack of valuable customer insight. Without analyzing customer feedback, your business is missing important insights that can be leveraged to improve your overall service experience or products.
- Poor SEO performance. Google and other search engines use online reviews as a key local SEO ranking factor. Without review signals, your business is less likely to appear in map-based search results.
- Decreased brand visibility. Platforms like Yelp and Facebook often prioritize businesses with frequent, high-quality reviews. Less exposure means fewer potential customers discovering your business.
- Lost conversions. Potential customers compare reviews when choosing between businesses with similar services or products. If your reviews are outdated, sparse, or filled with unresolved issues, customers will likely choose a competitor that looks more trustworthy.
<h2 id="Manage">How to Effectively Manage Online Reviews</h2>
Managing your online reviews doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right strategies and tools, you can streamline and maximize your online reputation, drive growth, and increase your brand visibility.
Focus on the Right Review Platforms
Not every review site matters equally for every business. Identify which platforms your customers actually see and trust. For most businesses, this includes Google, Yelp, and Facebook. But depending on your industry, sites like TripAdvisor, Healthgrades, Zillow, or Trustpilot may be equally as important.
Wondering how to identify key review platforms for your business? Check where your competitors are getting the most reviews and focus your efforts there first. It’s better to be strong on a few key platforms than spread thin across too many.
Automate Review Requests After Interactions
The best time to ask for a review is immediately after a positive customer interaction — such as a completed purchase, appointment, or resolved support ticket. Automation ensures you never miss the right moment to ask for feedback.
Automatic review requests enable you to:
- Send requests immediately after customer milestones
- Increase volume of feedback without extra manual effort
- Standardize timing and messaging across your teams
Platforms like Textedly enable you to trigger SMS review requests automatically after specifically defined customer actions take place, enabling you to capture reviews without manual follow up.
Personalize Your Review Requests
Customers are more likely to respond to review requests that feel personal and relevant. Instead of sending a generic message, tailor your feedback request to a specific customer experience. For example, you should always try to:
- Use the customer’s name
- Mention the product or service they received
- Reference a team member that helped them
- Thank them for their time
Personalized messages show that you value the customer’s experience and increase the likelihood that they’ll take action and complete the review.
Actively Monitor Reviews
The faster your team sees a new review, the faster they can respond — especially if the review is negative. Monitoring reviews in real time allows you to resolve complaints before they escalate, thank customers quickly, and spot any patterns that may require action.
Using a review management tool with a centralized dashboard will enable you to track new reviews across multiple platforms as they come in.
Respond to Reviews Promptly and Professionally
Responding to reviews shows customers and prospective buyers that your business is engaged, thoughtful, and committed to service.
For positive reviews, thank the customer by name and try to reference something specific about their experience. If the review is negative, make sure to apologize, address the issue directly, and offer to take the conversation offline.
Remember, your replies are public. They don’t just influence the reviewer, but any other potential customers reading your reviews as well.
Track Review Sentiment for Trends
Reviews contain valuable insights into how customers feel about your business, service, and products. Sentiment analysis can help you identify recurring issues or highlight what customers love.
Many review management tools can analyze sentiment across multiple review platforms, enabling you to detect emerging service or product issues early on.
Train Your Team on Review Processes
Developing a consistent review management process can ensure a consistent customer experience across all platforms. Your team plays a crucial role in requesting and responding to reviews. Ensure your team is trained on:
- When and how to ask for reviews
- What to say (or not to say) when requesting feedback
- How to respond professionally to negative reviews
- How to escalate serious issues internally
Integrate Review Management Into Existing Tools
The more in-sync your existing tools are with review management platforms, the easier it is to manage reviews at scale. Look for management tools that integrate with your current CRM, help desk, point-of-sale, or scheduling systems.
Proper integration can allow you to automatically trigger review requests after transactions, pull customer info, and personalize requests.
Use an SMS Review Management Tool
SMS is one of the most effective channels for collecting reviews. It’s fast, direct, and almost guaranteed to be seen. Unlike emails that get ignored, filtered, or buried in an overflowing inbox, text messages have a 98% open rate. Plus, they’re easy to automate and personalize at scale.
SMS providers like Textedly make it simple to send review requests, automate messages based on customer activity, and respond to customer reviews directly from your SMS dashboard.
<h2 id="Look">What to Look for in Review Management Software</h2>
Choosing the right review management tool can make or break your review strategy. But choosing one platform can sometimes seem overwhelming. Let’s look at the key features an effective review management software should offer.
1. Easy automation. Save time by triggering review requests based on customer actions, such as purchases, appointment completions, or milestones.
2. Centralized dashboard. Being able to view and manage reviews across all platforms from one dashboard means less reviews fall through the cracks.
3. Integrations. An ideal review management tool will integrate seamlessly with your existing CRM, scheduling software, or help desk, either via native integrations or APIs.
4. SMS/multi-channel communication. Choosing a review management platform that offers SMS enables your business to reach customers on their preferred channel, where they’re more likely to engage.
5. Privacy and compliance. Ensure your review requests are compliant with texting and data protection regulations, like TCPA and GDPR.
<h2 id="Smartest">The Smartest Way to Manage Reviews: SMS Automation</h2>
Most text messages are opened within three minutes, making them ideal for timely review requests after key interactions. Combining speed, visibility, and convenience, SMS reaches customers while experiences are still fresh.
Plus, with the ability to share clickable links directly to preferred review sites, customers can leave feedback in seconds, improving response rates and customer satisfaction.
How Textedly Helps Generate Reviews Automatically
Textedly takes the guesswork out of the review management process. Within the Textedly platform, users can:
- Use review request templates that are fully customizable and ready to send to customers with one click.
- Send clickable links to customers via text to take your clients directly to top review sites.
- Trigger automatic review requests based on CRM events or customer actions.
- Integrate seamlessly with existing software tools to sync customer data.
- Manage reviews from a central dashboard, including requesting, reading, and responding to reviews.
<h2 id="Textedly">How to Manage Online Reviews on Textedly</h2>
Leveraging Textedly’s features to streamline the review collection and response process is easy. Before sending out review requests, connect your business’ review platforms to Textedly with the following steps.
Connect Your Google Business Page
- Navigate to the Reviews page on the left-hand side of your Textedly dashboard.
- Click Settings, then select Add Review Site under the review site icon.
- Log into your Google account when prompted to connect Textedly to your Google Reviews.
- Ensure you have claimed and verified your business profile and have owner or manager access to the Google Business Profile page.
Request Reviews via SMS
Once your review sites are connected, you can now begin sending out review requests! Simply:
- Click the Request Review button in the top right corner of the Reviews page.
- Select the subscriber you want to request a review from and choose the number you’d like the message to send from.
- Send the request.
Respond to Reviews Directly
With Textedly, you can respond to reviews directly from within the platform by following these simple steps:
- Locate the review you wish to respond to on the Reviews page.
- Click the green Post Reply button next to the review.
- Write your response and send the message.
Take Control of Your Online Reputation With Textedly
Your online reputation can make or break your business. That’s why Textedly’s review management software helps businesses that need a smarter, faster way to handle customer reviews. With powerful SMS automation, centralized review tracking, and user-friendly tools, you can streamline your entire review management strategy in just a few clicks.
From sending personalized review requests to directly responding to feedback, Textedly gives you the control and features you need to boost visibility and build customer trust.
Start turning customer reviews into better business opportunities. Get started with Textedly’s free trial today.
