Everything You Need to Know About Google Customer Reviews

This is exactly what the Google Customer Reviews section aims to do. By allowing buyers and visitors to leave reviews and ratings of any business that is listed on Google as a seller, it helps other customers decide whether or not they should use that particular service. It is also extremely beneficial to the business owners, too, since people tend to focus more on reviews than advertisements when making purchasing decisions.

Why Should You Care About Google Customer Reviews?

Reviews have become the bread and butter of marketing on the Internet. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise. People are much more inclined to be enticed by overwhelmingly positive reviews than even the most clever of advertisements. For most customers, an interesting ad will motivate them to check out your business and get familiar with your products and services, even research your past activities. While it’s great for SEO and improving your traffic, it may not reflect so much in the sales numbers. This is because the majority of people nowadays flock to reviews in order to learn whether or not something is actually worth their money.

Google Customer Reviews are the absolute king when it comes to reviewing the services of businesses who work in the e-commerce industry. As a free service, all you need to do to get it up and running on your website is to have a Google Merchant account and opt-in to receive feedback from customers after they’ve made a purchase. It’s a hassle-free way to get in touch with customers and inquire about their experience with your store in a non-invasive manner.

They Help Build Legitimacy

If you feel like your company could do with some more social proof, then you should set up Google Customer Reviews as your first course of action. Getting organic reviews from satisfied (or dissatisfied) customers is a sure-fire way to get people on the Internet to trust you more. Including these reviews on your home page or another frequently-visited part of your website can greatly help improve your conversion rates.

Another thing you could do to further build your legitimacy and trust amongst customers with Google Customer Reviews is to add a certified Google badge to your website. This will let visitors know that you’re a legitimate merchant who uses Google services to not only improve your seller ratings but also increase your transparency and communication with your clients.

They are Beneficial to Your Local SEO

Boosting your local SEO efforts is something that you should never cease to work on if you want your business to succeed. The searches and clicks from your business’s vicinity often prove to be the most valuable ones, so it’s important to use any tool you can get your hands on to improve that aspect of your company’s activity online.

Local SEO is crucial, particularly in the e-commerce industry. Google Search strives to show the most relevant results to users, and Google Customer Reviews are an important part of that process. Once you’re registered as a Google Merchant and your business’s address info is updated, your site will be factored in the local searches for the keywords you rank for. Google takes the customer reviews and analyzes them, positioning the companies with the best reviews on top of the search engine results page (SERP).

You Can Use Them to Improve Your Products and Brand

While it may be tempting to consider Google Customer Reviews solely as a tool to increase your online legitimacy, improve your traffic and lure customers in with the stellar opinions of other netizens, their primary purpose is to convey legitimate opinions and claims about your products and services. If you really want to help your business achieve new heights, you should use your Google Customer Reviews badge as proof that you actually listen to clients and take their feedback into account when trying to improve their shopping experience.

Although it’s been overused to the point of becoming a cliche, the claim that adhering to your clients’ feedback and turning them into active participants of your business growth process is the best way to increase profit in the long-run has never been more valid. Each positive Google Customer Review can be used as a valuable marketing tool, but you shouldn’t discard the ones that contain constructive criticism. Sometimes, it may be difficult to step out of your role as a business owner and notice the room for improvement — Google Customer Reviews are a tool that allows you to do just that!

The Google Customer Reviews Process

Now that you know how you can benefit from implementing Google Customer Reviews on your e-commerce website, you should learn a little more about how the entire process works from the customer’s point of view.

You’ll be glad to know that thanks to the way it was designed, Google Customer Reviews are safe from known “review bombing” tactics. They are mostly used by furious fans of entertainment franchises, such as movies and video games, but they’re not uncommon amongst businesses who implement these strategies to harm competition. Review bombing relies on getting mass numbers of people to post negative reviews and low ratings of competitor’s products and services to harm their reputation.

Google does away with review bombing by only sending the Google Customer Reviews opt-in e-mail to your customers after they’ve made a purchase, on the day their package is supposed to arrive at their door. That way, if someone would want to review bomb your establishment, they’d have to do so by significantly increasing your revenue, i.e. ordering your stuff to gain access to the product reviews.
The entire reviewing process is fairly simple and is much more convenient than Google’s previous review-collection service, Trusted Stores. Everything is done in three quick steps.

Invitation Email

First of all, the customer will get an email from Google with an invitation to take a Google Customer Reviews survey, within days of them receiving the package with your product. That way, it eliminates the room for skewed results or people clicking through the survey just to get it over with. Only the customers who are legitimately interested in sharing their opinions with you will proceed to the survey, making it one of the best review aggregation systems out there.

Short Survey

For the next step of their customer reviews, Google sends out a brief survey to customers who’ve agreed to take part in the process. The questionnaire only consists of a star rating and some space for users to share their thoughts, experiences, and more detailed opinions about your products or services. That way, all that you’re going to receive are reviews that are accurate and to the point.

Aggregation and Data Review

Google Customer Reviews is a free service available to any registered Google Merchant. Since it’s free, Google will retain the data collected from your customers and use the reviews to compile your average seller rating. It will pop up on Google Shopping, organic search, as well as your own website, should you wish to post it up there.

This is why it’s so important that you continuously encourage buyers to use that review system so that it benefits you as much as possible. Simply pasting the review badge up on your home page will not be enough to make a lasting impact on your profits, if it’s based on around 10 or fewer reviews. Even if your rating is a perfect five-star, such a score doesn’t really make potential customers more attracted to your business. The more positive reviews you accumulate, the more legitimate your e-commerce business will become. You can incentivize customers to participate by explaining how Google Customer Reviews work on your website, and how they help improve their own online shopping experience by submitting the surveys.

What’s the Best Way to Use Google Customer Reviews?

You already know that implementing Google Customer Reviews on your website can help you out in many ways when it comes to popularizing your business and bringing in more customers who are drawn to your site by the positive reviews. But what are some of the best ways to spread the word about the stellar reviews your products are getting?

Social Media Campaigns

People spend most of their screen time on social media, and that’s a fact. Unless they are searching for something very specific, most individuals nowadays flock to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok for most of their online entertainment and communication needs. This makes social media one of the best spheres to promote your business and a starting point for every successful digital marketing campaign.

Running a campaign of sponsored posts containing some of your favourite Google Customer Reviews can result in a significant increase in sales and drive more traffic to your website. When planning the posts, you should pay special attention to the comments left by the reviewers. Avoid over-the-top statements and exaggerated clarifications of your products, as they don’t tend to sound too sincere and may seem disingenuous to some users. Instead, opt for reviews that refer to particular use-cases of your products or contain detailed descriptions of what people can expect when ordering your products.

Post Them Directly On Your Website

Displaying Google Customer Reviews directly on your site is a sign that you’re confident in your products and are not afraid of your customer’s opinions. The key is to locate them in a visible area, either in the product pages themselves or as a separate section altogether. You should also pay attention to not being too selective when choosing the reviews to present to people. You don’t have to share all of the negative comments you’ve received, but a review with some legitimate criticisms alongside your answer outlining how you’re planning to address them can help you out just as much as a positive one, if not more!

Don’t Forget About Business Listings

Integrate your Google Customer Reviews with any and all of the sites that list your business! Whether it’s Yelp, Foursquare, or another popular aggregator, don’t be afraid to get your customers’ comments out there. It will help undecided people become more confident about your brand, pushing them to decide on a purchase.

Be Responsive

One of the key things to remember when implementing Google Customer Reviews is that, while it may seem like it, they’re not all about your Google seller ratings and online reputation. These reviews are also an important, convenient way for you to get in direct touch with your buyers, many of whom have some very legitimate things to say about your business. Whether they’re positive or negative is a secondary issue. Paying customers deserve to be heard, and even if they criticize your products, prompt responses are a sign of a business owner that cares about maintaining good relations with their clients.

The Bottom Line

Google Customer Reviews are a huge step up from the overcomplicated and unintuitive Trusted Stores, and can greatly contribute to building a more positive relationship with your customers, all the while bringing in more traffic to your site and increasing your conversion rate. However, without the right strategy on how to use them, these reviews can become quite useless. This is why it’s crucial for you to understand how this system works, how it plays into your local SEO and digital marketing strategies, and what is the best course of action for your business when it comes to implementing it.

Hopefully, this article helped you understand Google Customer Reviews, and provided you with some ideas on how you can collect feedback from customers and benefit from it, too!

AUTHOR

Maciej Grzymkowski – Junior content writer at SUSO. Passionate about travel, Asian cuisine, and the written word. When he’s not working on top-quality content for our clients, he uses his writing to pursue his other interests, with dozens of published articles in the gaming and politics niches.