Google Reputation Management Services

Google Reputation Management Services

Are you struggling to keep on top of your Google reviews in between all of your other day-to-day demands? Do you have negative responses on Google and other review sites that are impacting your conversion rate and bottom line? Navigating your Google Business Profile reviews can be overwhelming—especially with your brand’s reputation on the line. This is where Digital Shift comes in.

By partnering with Digital Shift, you can boost your company’s online reputation and free up more time to spend on other important tasks. In addition to digital marketing services like local SEO and local link building, we specialize in Google reputation management to ensure that your online presence is optimized to work for you.

What is A Google Business Profile?

A Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) is essentially a business listing on Google. This listing helps businesses with a physical address gain visibility online through local search engine optimization and Google Maps. If you’ve ever Googled a local business, you know exactly what we’re talking about. That menu that comes up at the top or right side of your Google search engine with business listings and their corresponding star-ratings related to your search are top ranking local profiles. Ideally, you want your Business Profile to appear within the top three results, and you want your rating to have four or more stars.

So, how do Business Profiles get ratings? Once listed, customers can add information to the business profile through adding photos, asking and answering questions, and posting ratings and reviews. As a business owner, you have very little control over the content that consumers choose to post, with some exceptions. That means that when someone posts a scathing review of your business products or services, it will remain on your Business Profile for as long as the customer chooses to leave it up.

While you can’t ever ensure that you only receive positive reviews on your profile, you can mitigate the negative impact of bad reviews by engaging with your customers through replies.

Why Google Reviews Matter

Online reviews are so prevalent today that only about 10% of customers visit or make contact with a business without checking reviews for the company first. Consumers who are in a rush will simply glance at the star-rating for your profile. One of the ways in which you can improve your star-rating is by replying to reviews, which then gives your business an edge on the competition.

Additionally, when leaving reviews, about 1-in-5 customers expect to receive a response back from the business owner or manager. If you don’t take the time to respond, they’ll be disappointed and feel unheard. What’s keeping them loyal to your business then?

Despite concern about the accuracy of online reviews, nearly 80% of customers still trust the information they read in reviews. By neglecting to engage with customers through your reviews, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to improve your company’s reputation, increase your search engine result visibility, and boost local traffic.

Digital Shift’s Google review management service can take over the review reply process for you. By partnering with us to ensure your customers receive professional replies promptly, Google will recognize that your Business Profile has a high level of engagement and boost its ranking accordingly.

Benefits of Responding to Google Reviews

Some people will tell you that you only need to respond to the negative feedback. If this is all you have time for, then replying to negative responses should be your priority. The best digital marketing strategy involves replying to all reviews—good and bad. Although engaging with customers through review replies can be time-consuming, the resulting benefits are worth the investment. Don’t have the time? Digital Shift can take over this aspect of your marketing and engagement strategy for you with our Google Reputation Management services. This will help you reap the following rewards:

Improved Local SEO

In 2018, the quantity, diversity, and speed of reviews posted to a Google Business Profile accounted for about 15% local organic ranking. When you respond to reviews, Google sees this as evidence that a business values their customers and is therefore more trustworthy. These businesses are ranked higher on Google.

Improved Brand Reputation

Engagement with customers in general looks good. It shows that you care about your customers and are interested in what they have to say about their experience. No business is perfect, and sometimes one of your employees or the business as a whole will not meet a customer’s expectations. When this customer leaves a bad review, you can demonstrate your business’ values and commitment to delivering exceptional customer service by being empathetic, apologetic, and willing to take action to fix your mistakes.

Increased Customer Loyalty and Support

There are two types of negative customer responses: those that have a logical and well-reasoned complaint about the product or service the customer received, and those that are just plain vicious. It’s important to respond to both with the same level of professionalism. Other customers will recognize the difference in maturity between your response and the unhappy customer’s review, and sympathize with you instead.

Increased Revenue

Quick review replies are engagement signals for Google, and engagement increases visibility. When potential customers come across your business and read both positive reviews, professional responses to customer complaints, and a high star-rating, they’ll be more likely to engage further by visiting your website or making a purchase.

Responding to Google Reviews: Best Practices

To fully benefit from replying to online feedback, you can’t just reply to customers with whatever comes to mind. While all replies should be genuine and unique, they should also follow best practices for responding to negative reviews.

Review Reply Do’s

The underlying reason that people post feedback comes down to the fact that they just want to be heard. To demonstrate that you truly listened, your review reply should include the following:

• Acknowledge their complaint
• Apologize for the negative experience they had
• Be personable by using the customer’s name
• Keep it calm and professional
• Keep it brief
• Respond promptly

Review Reply Don’ts

• Don’t be defensive
• Don’t show emotions
• Don’t go back and forth in an argument

Digital Shift’s digital market experts are trained to respond to positive and negative reviews according to best practices. Our Google reputation management service will boost your local SEO, improve your business’ relationships with customers, and increase the number of click-throughs your listing gets.

How Digital Shift’s Google Reputation Management Service Works

When you sign up to receive Digital Shift’s Google review management service, you’ll receive a bespoke approach to customer review replies. Using our knowledge and research about your company, our team will write Business Profile replies so personal you’ll think you wrote them yourself.

All of our review replies contain four components:

1. The technician’s/employee’s name
2. The type of work performed/the product delivered
3. The location/neighborhood
4. A demonstration of empathy and reaffirmation of the great service/product provided

These components are tailored to your business to ensure that your voice, values, and brand shine through every response.

4- and 5-Star Reviews

Whether a happy customer submits a review with 4 or 5 stars, our team will treat them the same. All reviews receive a response thanking the customer for taking the time to leave their feedback and end with well wishes.

When the technician and service are discussed in the review, we will include these details in the response.

Prior to posting any reviews, we will send you a document with multiple reply templates to be approved by you. We’ll make any changes you see necessary to these templates before posting them online.

3-Star and Under Reviews

When reviews are submitted with three stars or fewer, we will reach out to you before replying to the customer. We will provide you with details on the reviewer and ask for additional information about the situation. Once we receive these details, we will craft a response accordingly. The reply will not be posted until it receives your approval.

Removing Reviews

Clients sometimes ask if they can just remove negative reviews from their profile. The short answer? No. If this were possible, businesses could take down a review anytime they didn’t agree with what a customer had to say. It would also eliminate the accountability benefits of negative reviews. If a business has a serious issue that they need to fix, they have no incentive to make any changes.

Only having positive reviews can also decrease customer trust. Even customers don’t expect your business to be perfect and meet everyone’s needs. If you only have positive reviews on Google, potential customers will be more likely to believe that those reviews are fake reviews and less likely to request your services.

That being said, reviews that violate Google’s terms of service can be reported and taken down. This includes content that is considered spam, illegal, offensive, and dangerous. It also includes any content wherein a conflict of interest exists—this is the most frequent reason we’ll need to contact Google to remove a review. If a current or past employee posts a review about your business, we’ll submit a report to Google on your behalf.

What Our Clients Are Saying About Our Google Reputation Management Service

Before trying out Digital Shift’s online reputation management services for themselves, clients are sometimes skeptical of our service. They worry that responses will sound robotic and impersonal, thereby compromising their relationship with their customers.

Rest assured, this is the opposite of what we aim to provide you with. All responses are written by our (human) team and modified to fit the context and content of the review. It’s in our best interest to provide you with review replies that don’t just meet your expectations, but exceed them. We’re convinced that after you try our Google review service, you’ll never go back.

One of our client’s, Mr. Electric of Cranberry Township, tried our Google review service with these same concerns. The owner’s worries were quickly put to rest after seeing the quality of our service, and we’re sure yours will be too!

Book A Free Consultation with Digital Shift Today

Since our founding in 2007, Digital Shift has worked with home service franchises and proved time and time again that a successful SEO strategy is one that uses a variety of tools and techniques tailored to each individual client. We offer free consultations with prospective clients because we want them to be sure that Digital Shift can offer them all the services they need to meet their unique goals. We don’t just deliver results—we form relationships with our clients. Here are some of the ways we do that.

• Direct contact with an account manager. Upon signing up with us, we match you with a single account manager. This way, you won’t have to learn a bunch of new names or re-explain your questions and concerns multiple times.
• Business practices based on values. Reputation is a fragile thing. We won’t risk your reputation to get your website to the top by breaking the rules. Doing so can result in Google labeling your business as untrustworthy, meaning you’ll have to start from square one. We’re in it for the long game with you.
• A proven track record. We don’t lock our clients into contracts, but many of them stay with us anyway. Some of our clients have been with us since day one, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Check out some of our case studies to see how we generated measurable results for our clients.
• Customer focused. We want to hear your feedback. Regularly collecting feedback from our clients allows us to get concrete data on the areas we’re doing well in and additional client needs that we can grow our expertise on. Getting your honest feedback is always in our best interest.

If you’re intrigued by our Google review management service and want to know more about our other service offerings, contact us today by phone at or fill out the contact form at the top of this page. We can’t wait to hear from you!