91% of SMBs Think Online Customer Reviews Are Critical

Uberall, Inc., the location marketing solution, released new data on how small- and medium-sized businesses feel about online customer reviews across platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more. More than 300 SMB owners were surveyed about their relationship with customer reviews and the role they play in their overall business strategy.  

 

More than 90% of SMBs think online reviews are important

When asked how important SMB business owners thought online reviews were, 54% said “very important, while 28% believe said “moderately important.” In addition, 9% believe that online reviews are “slightly important” to their business and 9% don’t think they are important at all. 

63% of SMBs encourage customers to post reviews online

Asking customers to share an online review about their experience is a good way for smaller and mid-sized businesses to receive constructive feedback about someone’s experience. And today, more and more SMBs are asking for these reviews. Sixty-three percent ask customers to leave a review online -- whether it’s positive or negative -- while 37% do not.  

86% respond to reviews ... sometimes

Once a customer posts a review online, it’s up to the business whether they’re going to respond to it or not. And, it turns out, most of them do. According to Uberall’s study, 37% of SMBs always respond to online reviews, while 25% say they respond “frequently,” but not always. In addition, 26% say they “sometimes” respond and 14% never do. 

And of those who respond to customer reviews, 81% respond to both positive and negative reviews, while 6% only respond to negative reviews and 12% only respond to positive reviews.

 

Most SMBs respond to negative reviews to rectify a problem

When asked why an SMB would be likely to respond to a negative review, 32% said “to implement solutions to issues that are being clearly cited by customers as problematic.” Other responses were “to show other potential/future customers that we are attentive and care” (29%), “to discover quality control failures in your place of business” (20%), “to win back an unhappy customer” (20%) and “other” (1%).

83% respond to customer reviews within a few days 

 Uberall’s survey found that SMBs tend to respond relatively quickly to customer reviews. Forty-three percent respond “within a few days,” while 39% respond either as soon as they’re posted or within 24 hours. Other responses included “within a few weeks” (7%), “once a month” (5%) or “less than once a month” (6%). 

 For Uberall’s SMB Customer Review Report, visit: https://m.uberall.com/SMB_Customer_Review_Survey_NA.