Just one of the many presentations I made a franchise client's recent annual meeting in Dallas. 1/22-24, 2011

1. Online review sitesfriend or foe?

2. What are customer review sites? Customer review sites are local directories that allow users to add and express their opinions about the various businesses in the directory.

3. You’ve heard of them, but… •Yelp! •Insider Pages •Google Maps •Bing Local •City Search •Yahoo Local •Local.com •Merchant Circle

4. A great deal of the grumbling about these sites revolves around two things 1) businesses don’t like to read that they have bad service 2) people who want to game the system or cause some harm to a business have used these tools to do so. Again, no matter, because these tools are here to stay and making their way into the mainstream of search. Google aggregates reviews from many sites and puts them in search results on Google Maps and Yelp reviews show up on page one for many Google local related searches – so, all this to say, let’s see what we can do to use these sites for good!

5. List, claim, and build Create accounts Make sure you’re listed Claim and control your listing Complete your profile fully Think of it as a brochure

6. Use it to make your business better If you find bad reviews, look at the review and see if there’s something you can add to further explain what went wrong and if the review is clearly off base. Step back and ask yourself if this bad review might be a gift in disguise and dig into the core of your business to see if there really is something that needs fixing. Respond accordingly. If you find good reviews, respond as well with a thank you. A reference to the actual customer experience goes a long way.

7. Monitor profiles Track brand mentions and managing your online reputation. Grab the great reviews and add them to your loc.al marketing efforts. Utilize a local business listing management service.

8. Get proactive The best defense is a good offense – one way to combat any potential negative is to overwhelm it with positive reviews. Sites like Google Maps seem to be giving higher rankings to local listings with more reviews. So, now’s the time start going after reviews from happy customers in a proactive way. Educate customers on how to post reviews. Shower lots of appreciation on those that take the time to write a review.