REVIEWS MAKE A TANGIBLE DIFFERENCE TO ONLINE VISIBILITY AND SALES PERFORMANCE FOR FRANCHISORS LOOKING TO GROW.
Your target audience is savvier than ever; they know if they want to find the best franchises, they have to do some due diligence. That’s why nearly all U.S. online adults – 84% – turn to reviews when researching potential purchase decisions.1 What implications does that fact have for franchisors trying to attract interest? Businesses sometimes look askance at review sites, unhappy about negative comments that may appear and resentful of the loss of control over their reputation and web presence.
Fortunately, franchises are not powerless when it comes to review sites. In fact, owners and leaders may be surprised at just how much value they can squeeze out of these sites. “Business leaders can’t afford to ignore reviews because they broadcast consumer perception and impact customer purchases,” says Erna Alfred Liousas, a Forrester analyst. “Reviews deserve acknowledgment and a response, as appropriate.”2
For franchises, reviews pack a one-two punch of potential benefit. First, they enhance the franchise’s discoverability. “For many businesses, these review sites should be treated as mini Google search engines in their own right,” writes Search Engine Journal.3 The review sites then feed traffic directly to the franchise. According to BrightLocal, the single most common action taken after reading a positive review is to visit that company’s site.
But how can franchisors make the most of online reviews and third-party review sites? This paper will present the seven things you need to know to answer that question.
In This Paper...
1: Pick your sites wisely
2: Visibility is the most important success factor
3: Ignoring reviews means surrendering control
4: Be proactive in collecting reviews
5: Also be proactive in responding to reviews
6: Reviews work particularly well for franchisees
7: You have more control over reviews than you think
The specific review sites you use make a difference.
If businesses had to manage every review on every review site, they’d have no time left for customers. Thankfully, that’s not at all necessary. Most franchises can limit
their scope to a manageable number of review sites. This list should start with the big ones, including Google, Facebook, Yelp, and possibly Amazon (depending on your area of business). Those are the third-party sites with the most traffic and the most knock-on benefits from being listed. These are the places where customers and franchisees alike do research, perform due diligence, and simply explore.
After that, you will want to target industry- and niche- specific review sites. In general, if your ideal customer is likely to go to that site, you’ll want to include it in the sites you actively manage. But even then, you may have an overabundance of sites to choose from. How do you identify the sites worth your time? See the chart below.
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Factors to consider when choosing review sites to manage |
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Will it help SEO? |
Will the site itself appear in Google searches? |
Will consumers use it? |
Does it offer competitive differentiation? |
|
First, you want to |
Second, Google favors |
Third, many people |
Finally, niche-specific |
|
concentrate on review |
review sites them- |
prefer using a niche- |
review sites in particular |
|
sites that add SEO |
selves in their search |
specific review sites |
offer the opportunity |
|
strength. Google |
listings. Review sites |
over generic review sites |
for franchises |
|
considers third-party |
that show up in Google |
(e.g., franchiserankings. |
to competitively |
|
reviews in its ranking |
search results offer |
com over Yelp.com) |
differentiate themselves. |
|
algorithm, which means |
additional chances |
because they know the |
If your most reviewed |
|
these sites affect where |
to be discovered. If |
sites and their reviewers |
competitor has |
|
your site shows up in |
your review listing is |
cater specifically to |
relatively few reviews, |
|
search results. Google |
prominent on multiple |
their interests, needs, |
you can easily overtake |
|
favors well known review |
review sites that appear |
and demographics. This |
them with only mild |
|
sites most strongly, but |
under Google searches, |
is why it’s critical to |
effort. Thus, the ROI is |
|
it also looks at review |
no matter which site |
consider review sites |
very high. |
|
sites that are specific |
the consumer chooses, |
outside of the big ones. |
|
|
to the product being |
they’ll still be able to |
||
|
discussed. |
find you. |
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“THE PURCHASE LIKELIHOOD FOR A PRODUCT WITH FIVE REVIEWS IS 270% GREATER THAN THE PURCHASE LIKELIHOOD OF A PRODUCT WITH NO REVIEWS.”
Northwestern University4
Visibility is the single most important factor.
Your franchise’s visibility on a review site is the single most important factor in optimizing your listing for generating interest from potential franchisees (and customers).
Visibility is even more important than the number or quality of reviews you get. You might think that avoiding negative reviews would be even more crucial, but that’s not true. In fact, a small number of negative reviews will actually help convince skeptical consumers that the reviews overall are legitimate. Studies show that the likelihood of purchase is at its highest with a review rating between 4.0 and 4.7 (out of 5), with diminishing returns past 4.7. Most people really do believe that a perfect score is “too good to be true.”5
Ultimately, if your franchise isn’t visible on the review site because it’s so far down the list readers never reach it, it’s as if you’re not on the site at all.
If you’re still in the process of building your portfolio of reviews, don’t worry. Most review sites let you sponsor or promote your listing so that your franchise will appear more prominently. And when it comes to reviews, success begets success. The more visible your business, the more business you’ll get, and the more reviews you’ll get too.
Ignoring reviews just means losing control over their impacts.
We won’t lie: managing reviews can be a pain. It’s not difficult work, but it does take some time, and it means you’ll occasionally have to face an unhappy franchisee, customer, or other business associate.
For those reasons, many franchises – as many as 75% – often opt simply to ignore their reviews.6 This doesn’t mean the reviews won’t affect you, however. It just means you surrender any power to control how they affect you.
Remember, many review sites allow users to add businesses themselves. Even when that isn’t strictly allowed, a disgruntled user may be upset enough to want to pretend to be your franchise just to leave a bad review. Some review sites proactively add businesses themselves. And once your franchise has been added to a directory or review site, it’s working for or against you.
From there, negative reviews have the potential to cap business performance without you ever being aware; and unless you drive more positive reviews through reputation management, you’ll face opportunity costs by losing a potentially source for lead generation, revenue, profit, and improved conversion rates.
The good news is that spending just a little time with these sites can generate tremendous gains: stronger reputation, more leads, and ample opportunity for competitive differentiation.
You must be proactive in collecting reviews.
Your overall portfolio of reviews will suffer if you leave their collection to chance. Research from Northwestern University found that businesses can improve the overall quality of their reviews by reaching out and requesting reviews from verified buyers (or, in this case, franchisees and other business partners and associates) after purchase.7 Being proactive pays.
Otherwise, your franchise is at the mercy of those who feel the most passionate about their review, and that’s often going to be a 1- or 2-star review from a disgruntled customer. This can give a distorted impression of the quality of your goods and services.
A proactive review collection process gives franchises an enormous amount of control over this. The vast majority of people (68%) are willing to leave reviews if asked, so
Northwestern University
“Retailers can make their reviews more representative of the total universe of buyers by encouraging verified buyers to post reviews through post-purchase email prompts.”
if the franchise focuses on soliciting reviews from those they know to be happy or satisfied, they can automatically improve their overall rating.8 Further, if you discover complaints during this review collection process, your franchise has a chance to correct it before the franchisee or business partner leaves a bad overall.
You must also be proactive in responding to reviews.
The Harvard Business Review studied whether responding to reviews makes a difference. The answer was a resounding yes.
Specifically, they looked at tens of thousands of TripAdvisor hotel reviews and, where available, each individual hotel’s responses. They found that hotels that responded to reviews had 12% more ratings and that, for a third of the hotels studied, responding to reviews was associated with a rating increase of half a star or more.9
Similar research further supports the importance and effectiveness of responding to reviews. For example, on average, people spend up to 49% more money at businesses that reply to reviews.10 Responding to reviews also creates opportunities to address customer complaints and can undo the damage of a negative review. “Most people are just looking to be heard and
Always Respond to Reviews
75% of businesses do not actively respond to their reviews.
That’s a gift to the remaining 25%, who thus have an easy way to stand out.
will are likely to change their opinion of your company if given the chance,” Ryan Erskine, senior brand strategist at BrandYourself said. “If you never reach out to make amends, you don’t give them that chance.”11
Reviews are particularly powerful for franchise marketing.
Franchises occupy a unique position in the marketplace, and reviews for franchisors have the potential to generate significant knock-on benefits.
The brand as a whole must be conscientious about how it is presented online because it’s impossible to predict who will stumble onto reviews: potential franchisees; prospective customers; and other future business partners, vendors, and associates. As a result, reviews procured from one group can have strong effects on other groups.
With a strong reputation management program in place, the benefits gained with one group – for example, attracting potential franchisees to join the franchise family – can repeat again with other groups. Reviews are primed to work in this situation. They can boost not just the brand as a whole but also individual stores; and they can influence a wide variety of audiences and stakeholders. In other words, positive reviews can create a halo effect that strengthens the rating and reputation of the whole brand and all locations with all stakeholders.
But perhaps the most important thing about review management is that the process is relatively low effort and low cost compared to the value it generates. While review management is a nonzero time commitment, the benefits – the increased volume of web traffic, the increased marketplace reputation for all franchise locations, and the increased sales – easily make it worthwhile.
You have more control over how reviews affect you than you know.
Many marketing and branding campaigns are a shot in the dark; their success or failure is vulnerable to third- party factors over which the franchise has no control. SEO is a good example. You can do all the right things, but depending on what’s happening with competitors, related businesses, and how Google is changing its ranking algorithm (which it does frequently), it may still not be enough.
Reviews, by contrast, give businesses an enormous amount of control and power.
You can strongly influence how many reviews you accumulate simply by asking for them; you can affect
your overall rating but focusing on happy customers. Even then, you’re not helpless in the face of negative reviews; often, those complaints can be turned around. Then, positive reviews can be leveraged to get even stronger benefits, turning them into formal testimonials, case studies, and social media fodder. And unlike SEO, franchises can control how visible they are through their efforts and by promoting their listing.
Few marketing activities give businesses the degree of power of reputation and branding that review management does. It’s well worth your time.
References
1 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/7-best-practices-for-managing-online-reviews-of-your-business/
2 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/7-best-practices-for-managing-online-reviews-of-your-business/
3 https://www.searchenginejournal.com/third-party-review-sites-seo/209190/
4 https://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/_pdf/Spiegel_Online%20Review_eBook_Jun2017_FINAL.pdf
5 https://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/_pdf/Spiegel_Online%20Review_eBook_Jun2017_FINAL.pdf
6 https://www.womply.com/impact-of-online-reviews-on-small-business-revenue/
7 https://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/_pdf/Spiegel_Online%20Review_eBook_Jun2017_FINAL.pdf
8 https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/?_ga=2.82002964.326156022.1556724069-933118289.1529345498
9 https://hbr.org/2018/02/study-replying-to-customer-reviews-results-in-better-ratings
10 https://www.womply.com/impact-of-online-reviews-on-small-business-revenue/
11 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/7-best-practices-for-managing-online-reviews-of-your-business/
