Online review management: unlocking brand growth in 2024

An online review management strategy enables your business to harness the power of review channels, to effectively track, address‌ and use customer feedback. Monitoring reviews and knowing how to respond should be an important part of your overall marketing strategy.

This guide will walk you through why managing online reviews is essential for reputation management, along with the fundamentals of implementing a review management strategy for your brand.

What is online review management?

Online review management is the act of monitoring, responding to‌ and building customer reviews on digital platforms. It’s a key part of shaping a business’s online reputation and is integral to comprehensive reputation management strategies.

What are the benefits of effective online review management?

Reviews have become even more accessible with the proliferation of mobile apps and the addition of readily visible ratings in search results. It’s easier than ever for customers to search for your brand on the go and make a quick decision about where they want to take their business.

The abundance of online reviews isn’t just positive for consumers — they provide several benefits for your business, beyond being a valuable source of feedback:

1. Building trust and credibility: online reviews are one of the most powerful forms of word-of-mouth advertising. According to Bright Local, 98% of consumers read online reviews, and 46% of consumers believe that reviews are an important part of the decision-making process. When you respond to reviews—whether they are positive or negative—it shows that you are a legitimate business and care about your customers.
2. Insights for strategic decisions: reviews offer key customer satisfaction data and highlight areas for improvement. They create a vital feedback loop, providing product development and marketing teams with the information needed to align with customer needs and expectations.
3. Increased customer retention: by addressing customer complaints and acknowledging positive feedback, businesses can foster a sense of loyalty and appreciation among their customers. This engagement shows you value customer input and are committed to improving their experience.
   Consider reposting positive social media reviews as user-generated content, which can influence buying decisions. According to The Sprout Social Index™, customer testimonials/real customer demos are ranked as the second type of content consumers like to see from brands they follow on social media.
4. Competitive advantage: customer feedback can be a gold mine for understanding your brand’s strengths and weaknesses and those of your competitors. By listening to what customers say, you can capitalize on opportunities to stand out. For example, if complaints about poor customer service are rife in your competitors’ reviews, this is your chance to shine.

How to develop an online review management strategy?

Consistent online review management will eventually lead to a larger, loyal customer base, a positive brand reputation and higher conversion rates. But to enjoy those benefits, a solid online review management strategy is necessary. Although there may be elements of your strategy that are unique to your business there are some things all brands should consider when building an online review management strategy:

• Identify key platforms: find out which review sites carry the most weight in your field. In travel, it’s all about TripAdvisor; in local business, you can’t ignore Yelp. And Google My Business is a must in most sectors since it’s so closely tied to local search results.
• Develop a response strategy: establish an organized approach to engaging with reviews. Ensure you are promptly replying to reviews, both positive and negative, in a way that is personalized and shows your brand’s dedication to customer service.
• Integrate review management: embed review management into your broader marketing and customer service strategy, to ensure your business is harnessing the insights from customer feedback to inform decisions and improve the customer experience.

How to manage online reviews strategically?

You have a variety of options to choose from when it comes to online review management.

One approach is to handle reviews directly on the platforms themselves. This method is most suited to smaller businesses that don’t receive many reviews.

For brands operating in industries with a high volume of reviews across various platforms (like travel, tourism‌ or hospitality), review management software is a more comprehensive solution. These tools offer a centralized, streamlined approach to this element of reputation management.

In Sprout, you’ll see your Facebook, Google My Business, TripAdvisor and other online reviews all in one platform, enabling you to easily manage replies. You can also filter these incoming reviews and assign cases just like the rest of your social media workflow in Sprout.

We’re going to connect our review management platforms [Facebook and Google my Business] to Sprout Social:

Setting up online review management with Sprout Social

Step 1: Start a free trial of Sprout Social and set up an account using your business email. You don’t even need a credit card.

Step 2: To connect a Facebook Page and Google My Business Location, Navigate to “Account & Settings > Connect a Profile”.

Step 3: Click Facebook, Google My Business. If you click Facebook, click Connect Page.
Follow the prompts in the connection wizard. You get sent to the corresponding network’s site to authorize the profile.

Note: You can also connect TripAdvisor, Yelp, Glassdoor and Google Play to your profile. If you’re connecting a Facebook Company Page, ensure you are an admin of that Page. If Facebook Reviews are disabled natively, you must enable them. Once enabled, the Reviews tab in Sprout automatically updates to reflect Facebook Reviews from the time you select.

Managing reviews with Sprout Social

Step 4: To read, reply to or manage reviews, click the Reviews tab.

Reviews are featured in a single stream and are sorted Newest to Oldest by default. You can easily filter through reviews by date range, Profiles, Ratings, Tags, or Sentiment. Or, you can locate specific reviews by utilizing keywords or phrases.

The number of unmarked reviews is displayed on the top bar for your quick reference.

Click the overflow menu on a review to uncover additional actions you can take, like emailing the review.

Note: You must have the Manage Message Status Reviews feature permission in order to take action on your review messages.

Step 5: Replying to reviews

To reply directly to a Facebook Page or Google My Business Review, click

If a review doesn’t require any further action, you can mark the review complete by clicking

Step 6: Creating Cases

You can also assign reviews as Cases to members of your team for immediate attention and response.

Step 7: Saving custom views

Managing many Facebook Profiles and Google My Business Location profiles can lead to disorganization. With Views, you can group reviews by profile, rating and/or tags.

To create a custom view:

1. Click Create New under Reviews.
2. Select your view criteria from the Filter Menu.
3. Click Save.

You can delete or edit a View by clicking the three dots at the top of the screen after you select a view.

Step 8: Managing review notifications:

You receive popup notifications in the app, as well as email notifications each time you receive an incoming review message.

You can manage these notifications by navigating to Account and Settings > Notifications under Global Features. From here, you can toggle on/off the types of notifications you want to receive about review messages.

By following these simple steps, you and your brand will soon get the benefits of an easier way to manage reviews and better customer relationships. This will make it easier to respond directly to reviews and interact with your customers.

How to respond to online reviews

Here are three best practices you should follow when responding to online reviews:

1. Respond to positive and negative reviews

View responding to reviews, regardless of sentiment, as an opportunity to build trust with your audience.
Responding well to negative feedback can open the door to connection—79% of people would be “likely” or “highly likely” to leave a positive online review if the business had turned an initially negative experience into a positive one, according to Bright Local’s survey.
Regardless of feedback sentiment, each one deserves a response because you can win back customers even after a negative social post or review. A survey released by Ipsos MORI in partnership with TripAdvisor revealed that when a property owner leaves personalized review responses, over 77% of travelers said they’re more likely to book as a result. The research also found that 67% of travelers agree they find it helpful when they can view context to negative reviews and apologies to guests from management.

2. Keep responses professional and sincere

Keep responses professional when crafting a public apology by maintaining an understanding, remorseful tone. When writing a response, personalize it with the reviewer’s name, acknowledge what was written and add remarks if steps will be taken to resolve the issue. Sign off with your name and position if that’s not readily apparent.

A negative review of the Stinking Rose on Google. The restaurant responds to the review by thanking the customer for the feedback, apologizing for the bad experience, and noting they will address their feedback in the future. In this example, the Stinking Rose restaurant responded to both positive and negative reviews. Notice that in the negative review response, the restaurant mentioned the actions that would be taken.

The restaurant responds by thanking the customer for the positive review and wishes to see them again in the future.

3. Respond to reviews quickly

But customers don’t just expect a response, they want quick responses as well. A ReviewTrackers report revealed 53% of customers expect businesses to respond to negative reviews within a week. The report noted that one benefit to quick response is receiving higher overall ratings, as the top 10% of brands across all sampled industries responded faster and more consistently.

This is why you need to have a review response plan in place as part of your overall strategy. If you’re proactive, you’ll be able to respond faster, plus you’ll save time spent on responding to reviews. In crafting a response, keep in mind that while a response may be directed to a customer, your future customers will be reading it also. They’ll take note of your efforts to respond and the changes you implement in your business practices.

As you can see, managing reviews has a lot in common with what you may already have in place as a social customer care strategy. Being receptive to your audience’s feedback and willing to respond in an authentic, personalized and constructive way can help you connect with your customers, whether you’re dealing with online reviews or comments on social platforms.

What to look for in online review management software

Customers have plenty of options when it comes to sharing reviews, so it’s essential to have a tool that centralizes your brand’s reviews in one place. The most important features of an online review management platform will depend on the needs of your brand, but here’s some of our favorite features:

Artificial intelligence and automation

A good online review management software will prompt customers via email to provide reviews on the platforms of your choice. Some software can even pre-screen customers by sentiment before offering them the option to leave a review. If they click, “I had a bad experience,” a feedback form is sent to them to help investigate further.

AI can also save your agents time and effort with auto-generated replies that enhance an agent’s quality of response. For example, Sprout’s Enhance by AI Assist feature enables agents to make their drafted replies friendlier, shorter, more professional and more.

Reporting and analysis

This one is a no-brainer—you’ll need reporting and social media analytics tools to identify trends and develop data stories so you can optimize your online review management strategy.

Centralized, collaborative workspace
When you have reviews from multiple channels and locations, it takes a team to adequately address them. Plus the insights from reviews can inform teams across your organization. A centralized workspace that’s designed for collaboration, like Sprout, will enable your team to work cross-functionally from one source of truth.

Security and privacy

Since reviews involve a wide range of data, companies need online review management software with adequate security and privacy protections and features. For example, the ability to designate access by role and responsibility aids in avoiding a data breach.

Integration with other CRMs

Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps manage and store information about your company’s prospects and current customers, which means it goes hand-in-hand with your online review management platform.
Merging your online review management system with your existing CRM will improve your customer care. Sprout has several integrations with Zendesk, HubSpot, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. These integrations provide essential business intelligence to improve efficiency and gain an holistic view of customers to inform how to create lasting relationships with your target audience.

Multilingual capability

If you’re an international company with customers and employees across the globe, selecting an online review management software that is multilingual is an inclusive best practice.
Sprout supports multiple languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese) for publishing and inbound messages.

Sprout also integrates with Google Translate so users can translate inbound messages within the Smart Inbox. Messages from any language will be brought into the application and you can translate them into your preferred language(s).

A multilingual online review management software will also help you build a global presence and monitor your reputation across cultures because language isn’t a barrier to providing support.

Building a proactive online review management system

You’ve seen by now that review management is about more than just responding to reviews. It is a strategic component of modern business operations that directly impacts customer perceptions and business outcomes. By adopting a strategic approach to review management, you can enhance your online presence, build stronger customer relationships and drive business results.

Start a Sprout trial today to refine your review management strategy and see how turning customer feedback into business intelligence can enhance your brand.