By writing quality consumer reviews, you have the opportunity to contribute to the success of locally owned businesses, not just by influencing others' buying decisions but also by providing critical feedback to business owners. Your input will enable businesses to provide better services or products, which will in turn help them stay open and thrive.
The reviews that you write also help local businesses gain online credibility with other consumers as well as search engines.
But that doesn’t mean all reviews are good reviews—and we’re not talking about glowing versus scathing reviews. While often good intentioned, many reviews are simply not helpful.
If you want to write reviews that truly help businesses in your community, then consider what makes a quality review from the perspectives of the business owner, the search engine and the customer. Because really, no matter if you’re an independent proprietor, an Internet robot, or a living, breathing consumer, you all want the same thing: relevant, accurate, usable information.
What Kinds of Reviews Are Helpful to Business Owners?
Winemaker and Hip Chicks do Wine owner Laurie Lewis says “factual unbiased information” is most helpful in customer reviews.
A review is valuable to her if it answers questions like: “Were you greeted in a timely fashion? Did you get the information you were looking for? Was our staff helpful, informative and pleasant?”
An important point about these questions is that they are all things that Lewis can control, not subjective opinions.
“Writing a review saying, ‘I didn't like this wine,’ is not helpful to the business owner or consumers looking for information,” she explains.
Lewis stresses the importance of being specific with your feedback: “Things like, ‘this packaging was hard to open’ or ‘the food was cold.’ Those things are helpful because a business can improve on them.”
Business owners want to know if their products or services meet a consistent level of quality, especially when they are not present. Being absent from their businesses means they can definitely miss out on certain customer experiences, so it’s important for Jenna Forzley of Atomic Pizza to get customer reviews that allow her “to hear if our quality of food and service are consistent.”
Lewis also recognizes that there are often things business owners don’t want to hear—like my server “spent more time on his or her cell phone than assisting me,” “the bathroom was dirty,” etc.—but those “are all things that show where some attention needs to be focused.”
Whether you’re leaving a positive or negative review, it’s important to remember to be constructive, offering factual, rational information or examples to support your accolades or criticism.
What Does a Search Engine Look for in a Review?
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While it’s not necessary for you, as the consumer, to consider elements like SEO when writing a review, every review is user-generated content that can help a local business’ online presence. And, it can help even more if certain things are included.
“The search engines are able to read sentiment in reviews much better than before,” explains Formic Media Vice President John McPhee. “They look for words that imply a great or poor experience. They also look for other words (housekeeping, service, valet, etc.) that help pinpoint where the good or bad experience took place. They also look at the star rating the user provides as well.”
But overall, McPhee believes “the main purpose of a review is to actually provide insight or feedback that can help other consumers.”
What Makes a Good Consumer Review?
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While you can probably think of plenty of places to provide feedback and review local businesses (including The Localist), you may not have considered when to write a review.
“Customers should leave reviews when they have an unusually good or bad experience, as it helps inform other potential customers when they are making a decision,” explains Formic Media founder and President Kent Lewis. “An average experience isn’t worth talking about, and isn’t particularly helpful.”
“Try to provide value,” McPhee simply adds.
Whether you’re describing the products a business carries or the price range of menu items or services, keep in mind the kinds of specific things you’d like to know about a business before making a trip.
“I always pay attention to mentions of the customer service; especially if someone's mentioned by name, it's a big boon,” Rachel Dominguez-Benner says. “For products, it's helpful if there's a comparison to the other similar products that I might also be looking at so I can get a feel for the points of difference. For services, the flow of the process is helpful—what to expect logistically, how it compares to previously experienced similar services.”
Here are a few additional dos and don’ts to consider when crafting your reviews:
- Don’t be afraid to state the obvious.
- Stay on topic.
- Keep it succinct—try to stick to the overall experience and provide information that will be helpful to the next person that reads it.
- Don’t get too personal and don’t get overly nitpicky, especially if you’re a hard person to please anyway.
- Try to reveal what’s interesting or unique about a business.
- Again, be specific.
- Don’t just mention that it’s affordable—offer examples of what makes it economical.
- Was the overall service good or bad? What was the ambiance like? If the restaurant says it’s kid-friendly, is it really?
What do you think makes a review good? Start the dialogue below and then simply follow your own advice (and the above!) by reviewing a local business you’ve recently frequented on Neighborhood Notes’ The Localist, Portland's locally owned business directory.
Great article. Another thing that makes a for a great review is a review that answers the concerns others have about a business in this industry. For example, Did the automatic car wash damage your car? Or, was the hot curry really hot?
1 likeGreat point, Bob. Thanks for chiming in!