Online reviews exert a huge amount of influence over the products and services that consumers choose to trust and, ultimately, purchase. For example, data shows that:
- 98% of consumers check local businesses’ ratings and reviews.
- 46% of consumers place as much trust in online reviews as they would in their own friends or family members.
- 38% of consumers expect a business to have a minimum rating of four stars online.
No business or industry is exempt from this trend. However, certain types of businesses are more impacted than others by the ratings and reviews they receive on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
Depending on what type of product or service your organization provides, your business may belong in this category — and if it does, you should act swiftly to start tracking and managing your reviews. Otherwise, you could be needlessly losing out on revenue, costing your business customers and opportunities for growth. Read on to learn which industries are most strongly impacted by online reviews, plus tips on how to leverage the reviews you receive to your benefit.
What Types of Businesses Are Most Impacted by Online Ratings and Reviews in 2023?
With such a high percentage of consumers checking online reviews, it’s impossible for any business to avoid being affected by its star rating. In some industries, however, the impacts can be exceptionally powerful. According to brand new data from BrightLocal, which just released the 2023 edition of its annual Local Consumer Review Survey, here’s how many consumers rated reviews as “very important” by industry:
- Service Businesses and Tradespeople — 55%
- Healthcare Services — 53%
- Automotive Services — 52%
- Care Services — 52%
- Financial and Legal Services — 48%
- Pet Services — 40%
- Food and Beverage — 34%
- Real Estate Businesses — 33%
- Beauty and Wellness Services — 32%
- Travel and Transportation Services — 29%
- Entertainment — 18%
- Retail — 16%
These numbers highlight major differences in consumer attitudes toward ratings and reviews depending on the industry involved. For instance, more than half of the survey’s participants (53%) said that reviews of healthcare services were “very important,” compared to just 18% — less than one fifth of the respondents — who shared the same views about entertainment-related businesses.
In particular, the survey calls attention to “the year-on-year increase in the importance of reviews of finance and legal businesses,” which its authors attribute to recent “squeezes in consumer spending power… and increasing reliance on credit services, leading to more seeking financial and legal services.” Whatever factors may be responsible for this trend, it serves as a signal to law firms, financial consultants, and other legal and financial services to consider making review management a greater priority in 2023.
We’ll share more insights from the new survey — and how they impact your brand — later this month on our blog. For now, let’s go over some of the steps that your business can take to boost and improve its review management strategy (and with it, your bottom line).
How to Monitor and Respond to Online Reviews More Efficiently
If you recognized your industry on the list above, you’re probably wondering what the next steps are. As a business in the healthcare sector, automotive industry, or any other industries that are highly impacted by reviews, what can you do to regain control and use reviews to your brand’s advantage?
Shout About Us supplies your brand, agency, or franchise with the solution by providing you with your own dedicated review responder, who is trained to provide brand-aligned, custom replies to every review you receive in 24 hours or less. Negative or sensitive reviews can be escalated to your team for revision and/or approval, giving you the freedom to take an involved or hands-off approach as fits your needs. Our review reply service is designed to enhance your customers’ experience and help your brand reduce costly customer churn, saving your team valuable time on responding in the process.
Explore the features our Response Scribe service includes, or discover the other review management solutions we offer for franchises, agencies, and brands. You can also follow these tips for replying to ratings and reviews of your business:
- How to Respond to a 1-Star Rating or Review of Your Business
- How to Respond to a 5-Star Rating or Review of Your Business
- 4 Online Review Management Mistakes Your Agency Needs to Stop Making
The bottom line is that responding to reviews shows that your business cares about its customers and the feedback it receives. It can also help you:
- Rank higher in local searches
- Build trust among consumers
- Encourage more repeat business
- Prevent unhappy customers from leaving
- Stand out from your competitors
With our review reply service supporting your team, you can reap all of these benefits for your business — even if you don’t have time to write a single response.
Let Our 24-Hour Response Scribes Handle Replying to Your Ratings and Reviews
Make no mistake: proactive review management is important in every industry and benefits every type of business. However, it’s especially critical for businesses that are part of the home service, healthcare, automotive, legal, and financial industries, which, as we’ve seen throughout this article, are more susceptible to losing business over bad ratings and reviews.
Take steps today to start promoting and protecting your business. Shout About Us provides the full suite of online review management services to meet all of your organization’s needs. From effortless review removal and automated review generation, to our boutique review response service that ensures your customers receive personalized replies within 24 hours — from our robust review management platform, to our convenient business listing management service — we deliver bespoke solutions that scale with you as your brand grows.
See how it works and how you could benefit. Schedule a demo today, or contact our team to learn more.
Emily Homrok is a freelance copywriter with more than seven years of writing experience. She joined the Shout About Us team as a content strategist in 2020.
