If you’ve integrated your Square POS with Widewail and have started generating reviews with Invite, you’re on the way to building a winning Trust Marketing strategy. Next, you will need to respond to your reviews to shape your brand’s reputation, build trust with customers and prospects, and rank higher on search results. According to the latest Local Consumer Review Survey,  89% of consumers are 'highly' or 'fairly' likely to spend money on a business that responds to all of its online reviews. 

Before we get into how to respond to reviews–  if you still need to get more reviews, feel free to jump to our bonus tips for review generation tacked at the bottom of this article.

Why Respond to Reviews? 

The main objective of responding to reviews is to establish an open line of communication with your customers and build trust. However, there are multiple other benefits to actively managing your reputation through review response. They include: 

1. Improved search ranking

While there are multiple factors that contribute to your ranking, responding to reviews has a significant impact. To learn more about how reviews can positively affect local SEO, check out our guide here. 

2. Increased engagement and trust. 

A business with consistent review activity is considered more healthy and active by Google - and the same goes for your customers. If your customers see that you’re frequently monitoring and responding to your reviews, they’ll be less apt to leave negative feedback. Further, the more you respond, the more humanized and trustworthy your business becomes to prospective customers researching your business online. 

3. A better understanding of customer pain points 

When you address a problem head-on, you have a better chance of solving it. Responding to customer reviews gives you the opportunity to identify problems your customers have early. It also gives you a platform for providing a solution. This not only helps to gain back the trust of upset customers but demonstrates to prospects that you offer prompt and effective customer service. 

4. Control over your business’ narrative. 

Online reputation management can be tough, as online interactions can often feel one-sided. Responding to reviews bridges this gap. It gives your business a voice and allows you to better manage the public-facing content surrounding it.

5. Increased sales

When prospects see that you respond to reviews, it proves to them that you are committed to optimizing the customer experience. This builds trust and credibility for your business, which in turn sways purchase decisions. The more attentive you are to your customers and the more effort you put into addressing their feedback, the more sales you will make. 

Because online reviews are directly linked to establishing trust and generating social proof for your business, managing them is an integral part of growing your Square-powered business, promoting your brand, and connecting with your consumer base.

The Widewail approach to responding to reviews effectively:

For Positive Reviews:

First up, we have 4 and 5-star reviews. Positive feedback is a valuable resource for your business. That’s why it’s crucial to respond to every positive review.

Responding allows you to thank and appreciate your customers - which strengthens your relationship and encourages repeat sales. Further, since Google favors reviews that have been interacted with, responding boosts the likelihood of prospects seeing positive content on your GBP. 

Best practices for responding to positive reviews include: 

• Thank the reviewer - a simple “thank you” goes a long way in making your happy customers feel appreciated. 
• Use keywords you want to rank for - mention your business’s name, location, products, and services in your responses. 
• Address the reviewer by name - this is a personal touch that establishes a sense of familiarity and trust. 
• Mention products - include relevant product names in your responses to engage customers and boost your brand. 

For Negative Reviews:

Next, we have 1, 2, and 3-star reviews. While nobody likes receiving negative feedback, it’s a part of running a business. No matter how frustrating it is to receive negative feedback, responding is the key to your reputation management strategy. 

Responding gives you control over your business’ narrative and the chance to offer your side of the story. It proves that you value the customer experience while allowing you to take the conversation offline, where you can better work towards a solution. 

Best practices for responding to negative reviews include: 

• Stay professional - avoid being sensitive, dramatic, or emotional in your responses, and don’t offer any personal opinions. 
• Don’t speculate - if a customer doesn’t offer specific reasons for why they left a review, kindly ask them to reach out offline to discuss their concerns. 
• Be proactive - take action immediately and offer a productive next step for solving the reviewer’s problem. 
• Apologize for the reviewer’s frustration only - while it’s okay to recognize that the reviewer is upset, you should save the bulk of the apology for your offline conversation. 

For a more thorough walkthrough on how to respond to different reviews and what this kind of engagement can do for your business, check out our Review Response Guide which features 56 real-world examples written by the Widewail team. 

For the Square user already using Invite, launching a review response managed service like Engage is a natural next step in the online reputation management process. It’s a reliable and effective solution that will maximize your time as a business manager and increase your online visibility, all while putting your customers first. 

What is Widewail Engage? 

Engage is a people-powered review response tool that makes it easy for your business to respond to reviews quickly and effectively. It allows you to stay on top of customer feedback across multiple review sites and platforms, so you can ensure your customers feel heard and appreciated. 

How does Engage work? 

At Widewail, we trust real people, not bots, to respond to reviews. Our in-house team of response experts monitors incoming reviews and responds to them on behalf of your business in real time. You always have full visibility over response activity and Widewail will directly notify you when you need to join the conversation. 

Engage guarantees timely and professional online review management. It also makes it easier for you to track customer sentiment and identify trends, allowing you to spend your valuable time on what matters most - the satisfaction of your customers. 

All Engage responses are custom tailored to give Google (and your customers) access to the most important information about your business. Our team expertly optimizes each response for SEO, including brand keywords that increase visibility and promote your products more effectively. 

How Widewail Responds to Positive Reviews: 

4 and 5-star reviews (as long as they don’t contain negative feedback) are replied to immediately by our team on behalf of your business. 

Responding to positive reviews shows your customers that you appreciate their business and value them taking the time to share. 

How Widewail Responds to Negative Reviews:

1, 2, and 3-star reviews are replied to, with your help, to ensure that the response is properly informed about the customer’s negative experience. An upset customer deserves to hear directly from your business. Therefore, when a negative review is posted, the Widewail team alerts the appropriate people on your team via email/text with a suggested response plan. From there, your team can make any necessary edits to the response before it goes live. 

Responding to negative reviews demonstrates a willingness to listen to your customers and make improvements based on their experiences. It also helps to build trust among current and future customers while promoting a customer-first reputation for your brand. 

Much like with Invite and Invite Video, Engage operates using a centralized response platform, which is designed to monitor each digital interaction associated with your business. This means you can track your ratings and interactions over a specific time - giving you insight into any operational issues. It also means: 

1. No reviews go unanswered - All of your reviews are managed from the same place and are typically responded to within the first 24 hrs of being posted. 

2. You have as much control over responding as you want - Our process is flexible, meaning if you want to be more involved in review response, you can be! Maybe you just want to answer 5 reviews a week and have the Widewail team handle the rest, or maybe you want to handle responses to negative reviews. Whatever makes the most sense for your business, we are here to help.

Bonus: How to Ramp Up Review Volume

Here are a few tips to jumpstart your review generation strategy and help you make the most out of what Invite has to offer:

1. Automate the review process

Automation is important to any successful review generation strategy. It ensures you reach every customer that interacts with your business. It also results in a larger review pool overall, which will drive more customers to your business. With Invite, our set-it-and-forget-it software eliminates the need for you to manually send review requests, saving you time and energy while growing your review content. 

2. Personalize your invites

Invite makes it easy to create an authentic and relatable review experience for your customers. Input the customer’s name and salesperson directly into each text message you send for a more personalized effect. Choose which sites you specifically want your business to be reviewed on. Invite is totally customizable and flexible depending on your business’s individual needs. 

3. Set up a review Campaign

Determine your marketing goals and tailor your review generation strategy to reflect them with the help of Campaigns. Custom-built audiencesCampaigns make the review request process more targeted, increasing the chances of you reaching customers that are willing to participate. Specific prompts get them to talk about the topics you want your prospects to learn about. Further, you can also use Campaigns to incentivize customers to leave video testimonials with rewards, discounts, or special offers.