When starting out, local businesses often start by only responding to negative customer reviews. After all, responding takes a lot of time, so it makes sense to prioritize less-than-satisfied customers.
Doing so has a hidden downside, and leads us to the #1 reason why you need to be responding to positive reviews as well as negative reviews.
When a prospect navigates to your Google reviews page, your reviews are automatically sorted by “most relevant”. The sorting approach can be changed by the user, but it is safe to assume most of your prospects will dive right into the content.
Google determines which reviews to show first by combining recency, rating, commentary, and business response.
As a result, if you only respond to negative reviews your prospects may see your unhappy customers first. Head over to your Google Business Profile to see if this is happening to your business.
The solution is simple - respond to every review. For a little related guidance, please have a look at our collection of positive review response examples.
Of course, responding to every review without spending a large portion of your day doing so is another story.
Thankfully, as a Marketing Manager, you have options. Managed services and automated software solutions can help take on a large amount of the work.
Read more about the Pros and Cons of Review Response Automation Software.
If you are interested in learning the techniques we recommend for responding to positive reviews, check out our Review Response Examples Guide. Download 👇