November 28, 2023

The Modern Solution to Review Management: From Manual Effort to Genius Automation

Allison Mueller

The Modern Solution to Review Management: From Manual Effort to Genius Automation

Managing customer reviews is critical in the fast-paced world of modern business and can make or break a brand's reputation. However, this process can be challenging. It demands time, precision, and a deep understanding of consumer expectations.

A black and green rectangular call out highlighting that a negative review costs a business an average of $3000

Reviews heavily influence customer purchase decisions, so maintaining a positive online presence is critical to a brand's success. However, managing reviews isn't simple when you have over ten networks per location and hundreds or thousands of consumers posting reviews for those locations daily. As the digital age continues to evolve, so do customer expectations and the tools at our disposal. In this article, we will explore the evolution of review management from old-school tactics to more cutting-edge AI-driven solutions that help strike the balance between quality and efficiency.

The Battle Between Quality and Efficiency In Review Management

Marketers face a significant challenge when it comes to responding to reviews. They want to engage with customers and address their concerns, but the sheer volume of reviews can be overwhelming.

A callout with a man sitting at a desk looking at his laptop on the right with copy highlighting that 90% of customers are influenced by owner responses to reviews

Let's explore three different approaches multi-location marketers use when responding to reviews today.

Manual Responses
Auto Respond
AI Review Responses

1. Manual Responses: The Labor-Intensive Approach

Some marketers opt for the manual approach, crafting individual responses to each review. However, this method is labor-intensive and unsustainable, and the results are inconsistent. It's like riding a bicycle. It requires you to do the steering and the pedaling while paying attention to where you're going. Today, over 50% of reviews go unresponded, highlighting multi-location businesses' significant challenges when managing their reviews manually.

2. Auto respond: An Incomplete Solution

Auto respond, a feature many review management providers promote, has long been positioned as a time-saving efficiency booster. The idea behind it is enticing: pre-written response templates that can be automatically sent to customers who leave reviews. It's like upgrading from a bicycle to an electric scooter – there's progress in speed, but the core challenges remain unaddressed. However, despite their promises, auto-respond has its fair share of drawbacks.

Lack of Context: One of the fundamental issues with auto-response is its inability to provide context-aware responses. Relying on a library of pre-written templates makes it impossible to address the unique content of each reviewer's feedback. It's like having a conversation with a robot rather than a human.

Generic Responses: Auto response often offers the same response to multiple reviews for the same location, regardless of the star rating. This uniformity lacks authenticity and leaves customers feeling as if the business is not genuinely engaging with its customers.

Limited Variation: While auto-response can handle some low-value reviews, it requires users to create templates, which takes time and can limit the number of response templates. With this lack of variation, customers start receiving nearly identical responses, and when that happens, it's painfully evident.

This one-size-fits-all approach leaves customers feeling unheard and dissatisfied.

3. AI Review Responses: The Revolutionary Solution

AI emerges as the ultimate solution in this ongoing battle between quality and efficiency. With AI becoming more accessible and usable for everyday tasks, marketers can effortlessly manage and respond to all reviews – taking review management to a new level. By entrusting this task to AI, marketers can generate review responses at a remarkable scale, all while requiring minimal human intervention – yet, crucially, without compromising the authenticity that customers demand. It's like taking your electric scooter and getting into a Tesla – all the hard work is done for you.

Genius Reviews: The Ultimate Review Management Solution

SOCi Genius Reviews enables highly intelligent and automated workflows for managing reviews, helping marketers engage with customers meaningfully by leveraging AI to generate personalized and localized review responses at scale. Genius Reviews uses AI to proactively craft on-brand, contextual review responses for every review without a single click – reducing human effort to human oversight.

"Genius Reviews from SOCi has become a part of my daily routine! Genius Reviews has the ability to align with Kumon-specific lingo and provide a range of review responses. I am really enjoying my experience with Genius Reviews " — Antonella Caltagirone, Customer Care Specialist at Kumon Corporate

The Genius Advantage:

Contextual Responses: Genius understands the unique content of each review and tailors responses accordingly. It's like conversing with a knowledgeable expert who listens and responds appropriately.

Brand Consistency: Genius maintains brand consistency in responses, preserving the company's identity and voice in every interaction.

Time Efficiency: Genius Reviews has been proven to improve speed of review responses by 64% and improve response rates by 19%. With Genius taking care of review management, marketers can redirect their time and effort to more strategic tasks.

The Evolution of Review Management: From Manual to AI-Driven Solutions

In review management, the evolution from manual responses to auto responses and finally to Genius represents a leap forward in efficiency and quality. Though a step in the right direction, auto-respond leaves much to be desired. On the other hand, AI Review Response (like Genius Reviews) offers a comprehensive solution, bridging the gap between the two by proactively generating authentic, on-brand responses for every review. So, if you're a marketer grappling with the challenge of review management, consider Genius as your trusted companion on this journey. It's not just an upgrade; it's a revolution. With Genius, you can easily navigate the complex terrain of customer reviews, ensuring your brand's reputation remains intact while you sit back and enjoy the ride. To learn more, request a demo today!