75% of consumers are still typing as their go-to methodology for finding local businesses

Despite the availability of voice assistants, ¾ of consumers are typically typing a query into a search engine, maps app, or conversational AI-based platform when they need something locally. Just 10% consider voice search on phones or smart speakers their primary method for this activity, while only 8% mainly rely on personal recommendations or social media crowd sourcing. 

Your takeaway

It’s important to remember that voice search has significant barriers to convenience; there are many public settings in which people are not comfortable speaking their needs aloud into a device. Clearly, consumers find it more practical to chiefly rely on the activity of typing to find local resources. For most brands, seeking maximum control over typing-based discoverability will be more important than controlling how they are recommended by voice search products.

A concerning 67% of consumers are not rigorously checking AI sources before choosing a local business

Just 33% of respondents are always clicking through on the links and sources generated by AI products before deciding to transact with local brands. 26% say they frequently click through, but 23% only do so sometimes. 8% rarely vet sources, and 9% never do so.

Your takeaway

A lack of consumer skepticism and tech-savvy presents a new level of risk to local brands in the AI era. AI’s notorious habit of generating errors coupled with its capacity for scraping unverified information from any and all sources means that consumers may be wrongly discouraged from choosing your brand when encountering untrustworthy AI-based content. If consumers don’t understand that they should always follow through to linked sources to validate information about reputation, product availability, pricing, location, and other core details, AI can be a barrier instead of a bridge. 

You should take maximum control of your digital footprint to ensure that as much accurate information as possible exists about your business in AI training sources, but don’t overlook the faulty reality of AI and the risk it represents at different stages of consumer journeys.

Facebook dominates non-review-platform local business recommendations, but influences are diverse

Facebook may have a bit of rep in SEO circles as being a “fuddy duddy” platform, but 55% of consumers are still consulting it for recommendations outside of traditional review platforms. Instagram comes in second place, at 43%. TikTok and YouTube are neck-and-neck, each at about 34%. Reddit is a strong contender at 25% and Facebook’s dominance is strengthened by the fact that 20% count on the Facebook Groups they’ve joined. 13% will look at alternate social media platforms while 12% head to podcasts, blogs, and other online communities. Just 18% of today’s consumers stick solely to review platforms and search engines when seeking local business recommendations.

Your takeaway

YOY comparative data yield interesting trends here. Reddit has seen the greatest drop in popularity over the past year. In 2024, 40% of consumers said they were consulting it for local business recommendations, falling to just 25% in 2025. That’s a 15% drop, suggesting that Google’s heavy featuring of Reddit results in their SERPs gave lots of searchers a chance to experience the platform, but not necessarily to stick with it. Instagram is 9% less popular this year than last and TikTok has dropped 8%. YouTube usage in this instance has dropped about 5%. 

While the decreases are worth noting, don’t lose sight of the larger picture that modern consumers are consulting an incredible variety of sources for local business recommendations. Identify the platforms that are most popular in the communities you serve and build a strong presence there, including unsung heroes like popular podcasts and blogs. Don’t overlook Facebook in your local search marketing plan, even if it seems old-fashioned.

94% of consumers place some degree of trust in local business reviews
19% of people completely trust local business reviews, 31% mostly trust them, and 44% somewhat trust them. Just 5% rarely trust this content and only 1% never trust it. 

Your takeaway

Trust in review content is remarkably stable, YOY. Though there was a 9% point drop in the “somewhat trust” category between 2024 and 2025, percentages are virtually identical for those who completely and most trust review content during this window of time. Online users have so many options for discovering local business reputation information today, but the degree of trust they feel in environments like AI and social media may vary widely. It’s good to have confirmation that the majority of consumers are still feeling a decent degree of trust in review content, meaning it deserves priority focus in your content marketing strategy.

50% of consumers consider Google the most reliable local business review platform

With half of consumers counting most on Google for trustworthy reviews, no other platform even comes close to comparing. Amazon sits at 11%, while both Yelp and recommendations from Facebook business pages or groups sit at 9%. TripAdvisor is at 5%. Other platforms like Angi and the BBB are at 3%, and Trustpilot is at 1%. 

Your takeaway

The worrisome statistic in this set reveals that just 14% of consumers say they trust all review platforms to about the same degree, with no particular publisher standing out from the crowd. We might theorize that, if the general public were more aware of the degree to which review fraud pollutes most platforms, this percentage would be much higher. Google likely would not be running away with the trust dynamic if the problem of review spam was better known to consumers. 

Concern for your customers who may be placing too much trust in online reviews is a strong motivator to dedicate time to review-spam fighting to protect the public from fraud. Every time you succeed in getting review platforms to remove content that violates their guidelines, you are protecting real people from real harms.

45% of consumers give priority to most recent review content

When asked what they paid the most attention to the last time they looked at local business reviews, the dominant group of our respondents cited review recency. 24% prioritized seeing the lowest-rated reviews the business had received and 22% state that the overall average star rating mattered most. 10% sought out other specific review factors with a special relevance to them. 

Your takeaway

While it’s easy to become obsessed by the average star ratings on your Google Business Profiles, it shows consumers’ common sense when they want to see the most recent feedback customers have left. After all, the average star rating represents the performance of the business across the entire time it has had a listing. The quality of its customer service could widely differ from year to year, month to month, and even from week to week. 

This dynamic emphasizes the need to implement a professional review acquisition campaign which results in a steady flow of fresh, incoming review content. While perfecting offline customer experiences will be your best strategy for limiting the number of negative reviews encountered by people who look at this content first, it’s your ability to earn ongoing reviews that will have the greatest influence on the consumer public.

43% of consumers start their local business selection with reviews

More than 4/10 consumers begin reading reviews as soon as they start considering a local business for a transaction. For more than 3/10 consumers, reviews come into play mid-journey as they compare local brands to one another to narrow down their choice. A little over 1/10 consumers consult reviews throughout their local business selection process, but fewer than 1/10 save this content until the very end of their deliberations. Only a fraction of the public doesn’t read reviews at all.

Your takeaway

Reviews are most influential during the discovery and consideration phases of consumer journeys. They can be best understood as top-of-funnel and mid-funnel content. Undertake analysis of your top local competitors’ review profiles to discover the aspects of their operations that customers appreciate most. This can provide a playbook of ways to improve your own brand so that it compares favorably to peers. 

Half of consumers are negatively influenced when reviewer names look inauthentic

If a reviewer’s name is a generic username or anonymous, 50% of consumers lose trust in the validity of the review. The next most negative influence is a lack of review text and detail, which causes 46% to lose trust. 33% of customers do not trust reviews they suspect of having been generated by AI. 30% don’t trust review profiles that lack a photo. 23% mistrust reviews displayed on company websites. 22% feel less trust when a reviewer doesn’t have a “verified” badge or indication that they are a confirmed customer. 12% say they take all reviews with a grain of salt and aren’t influenced by any particular factor. 8% lose trust when a review profile isn’t designated as a top user, like a Google Local Guide.

Your takeaway

Unfortunately, brands have little influence over how consumers name themselves on their accounts, but as with the previous question, anything you can do to encourage highly detailed reviews is a strong safeguard against lost consumer trust. Taken in conjunction, our survey’s findings are somewhat controversial as to whether or not publishing reviews on companies’ own websites is a strong tactic. More of our respondents seem to mistrust this content than to trust it, which goes against common industry wisdom.

Nearly 3/10 of consumers are concerned that AI will make review spam worse

35% of respondents say they consider review spam to be a serious problem because they are personally encountering a lot of fake-looking reviews. 29% feel that AI will worsen the review spam dilemma in future. A very meager 20% are confident that review platforms are doing a good job filtering out AI-generated reviews and review fraud. Just 17% say that they haven't really thought about this topic because they assumed most reviews were real.

Your takeaway

Review platforms are losing consumer trust, putting their longevity at risk. Fake reviews and a suspicion that reviews stem from AI generation undermine the perceived value of these platforms, and unfortunately, your brand stands to lose its most influential content if major review brands don’t commit to tackling the problem of fraud. Build an authenticity moat around your business by supplementing traditional online reviews with handwritten customer testimonials and video reviews of real customers describing their experiences with your business.

Nearly 4/10 consumers don’t trust AI-generated local business recommendations without reading reviews themselves

39% of our respondents don’t trust the local business recommendations being generated by AI chatbots and voice assistants unless they are able to read individual customer reviews. 26% trust this form of AI content about the same as they trust a few good online reviews. 13% say they actually trust this content more than what they might glean from sifting through reviews themselves. 23% indicate that they are not sure because their level of trust depends on the situation, and that they might be inclined to verify AI content with their own research.

Your takeaway

While local SEOs will already be familiar with the complaint that AI-generated review summaries of the kind being featured in environments like ChatGPT or Google AI Mode don’t really add value, consumer sentiment at this point is truly a mixed bag. Doubtless, this survey question captures developing attitudes about AI, with the dominant group of consumers expressing a lack of trust, while a smaller group is willing to forego doing their own fact-checking if AI provides an experience that is perceived as more convenient. 

The technology is still so new that it is difficult to predict how consumer attitudes and behaviors will shift over time on the basis of whether AI-generated local business recommendations connect customers to trustworthy or fraudulent real-world transactions. The presence of review spam adds many layers of concern to the AI dynamic. At present, it appears that your reputational content is most likely to impact consumers who are looking for convenience in AI settings, rather than a high degree of authenticity. 

For 28% of consumers, AI review summaries provide valued convenience

The dominant 46% of customers find AI review summaries only somewhat helpful, and will follow through to read individual reviews rather than relying solely on the summary. 28% like these summaries because they save time. 20% do not find these summaries helpful at all, and prefer to read actual customer reviews. 6% are unsure, either because they have never seen an AI review summary before, or because they would need to see a summary to decide if it is useful to them. 

Your takeaway

Convenience has always been a dominant marketing pitch. Many customers are motivated by offerings sold on the basis of saving time or effort. Right now, a little over 2/10 online users believe that AI review summaries are preferable to having to wade through individual customer reviews themselves. The majority of consumers, however, are less convinced, perhaps because they value authenticity over convenience when deciding where to spend their money locally. 

We may be witnessing an emerging dynamic in which your brand will want to craft a percentage of your review requests to specifically ask consumers to write about the convenience you provide. If picked up by AI, this type of review content could have the most influence on potential customers who prioritize ease and efficiency. 

Only 5% of consumers never review local businesses

33% of consumers leave reviews at least sometimes, when they feel strongly about doing so or remember to do so. 23% say they do so frequently, but not always. 21% are highly active reviewers, writing a review nearly every time they patronize a new local business. 20% have left a few reviews in their lifetime, but don’t typically do so, while just 5% never review local businesses at all.

Your takeaway

When looking at these statistics, the group to pay most attention to is the dominant one, made up of more than 3/10 of your customers who might be prompted to leave more reviews if you remind them with a request. Life is busy, and it’s easy for customers to forget to take a few minutes to submit feedback unless you are actively inviting them to do so. There’s also the potential to increase conversions amongst the groups that either frequently or rarely write reviews. A well-written review request could motivate them to be more active. 

Great consumer experiences are the top review motivator

67% of reviewers say that wanting to reward a local business for providing a great experience is their #1 motivation for writing reviews. 57% are motivated to use reviews to warn others of a bad experience with a local business. 31% write reviews to help fellow consumers make better decisions. 24% spend time writing reviews because businesses ask them to do so. 21% treat reviews like a hobby they enjoy engaging in. A concerning 10% reveal that they write reviews in exchange for incentives including money, discounts, and other perks. 4% did not see their personal motivation reflected in our survey’s options.

Your takeaway

Customer experiences take center stage in whether your community uses reviews to reward your brand or to warn others away from it. There is no overstating the vital role of staff hiring and training practices. Your brand can also set goals of increasing your review volume simply by asking for reviews from customers who otherwise won’t leave them. It’s unsurprising that our study has revealed that at least 10% of consumers have been incentivized to engage in review fraud activities which, of course, should not be solicited by any brand wishing to avoid litigation and reputation damage. 

73% of consumers will respond at least sometimes to NPS-style requests

When directly asked by a business to leave private feedback via an NPS survey or similar form, 29% of consumers say they will usually respond and 44% say they will do so some of the time. 26% say they rarely respond to such requests.

Your takeaway

Review sentiment analysis is just one methodology for discovering local business performance as it relates to customer satisfaction. Strengthen your business intelligence by sending out simple surveys like NPS surveys that ask how likely a customer is to recommend a business to their circle. Other one-question surveys that are easy for respondents to take quickly can help your brand drill down to data on consumers’ evaluations of specific aspects of the business, such as products, services, features, and amenities. You are highly likely to receive a response from more than ¼ of your customers while an additional 40+% may respond, yielding valuable insight on improvements your business can make.  

Email holds strong as the preferred review request methodology, but SMS popularity is growing

When asked which review request methodologies they find most acceptable, 53% of customers prefer email. 49% prefer to be asked face-to-face at the time of service, and 33% prefer SMS/text requests. An additional 33% are fine with review requests on print materials such as receipts, flyers, and notes. 18% approve of review requests via social media messages on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. 13% find phone calls requesting reviews to be acceptable. 4% specified “other”, and just 9% say they do not like being asked for reviews at all.

Your takeaway

YOY, email remains the dominant preferred platform for review requests, down just 1 percentage point from last year. In-person requests have seen a 2 percentage point lift since 2024. The biggest gains in popularity are SMS-based review requests, which have seen a 10% lift, and print-based requests (like receipts), which saw an identical 10% lift. The biggest loser between 2024 and 2025 is social media requests, which dropped 10% in popularity as a review acquisition methodology. 

Because survey respondents were allowed to select all of the formats they find acceptable for review requests, a picture emerges of the diverse ways in which your brand can help customers feel comfortable leaving feedback. Don’t narrow your options down to only email or only SMS. Lots of customers like to be asked in person or via print assets. Run tests to see what combination of review acquisition methodologies is yielding the highest ROI for your business.

The #1 reason consumers don’t write more local business reviews is because they forget to

42% of customers say they don’t write more reviews because they simply forget to do so. 32% say they are too busy or distracted online to write more reviews. 29% say they don’t write more reviews either because they feel no incentive to do so, or because they don’t want their online profile tied to public review content. 14% say businesses not asking contributes to them writing fewer reviews than they otherwise might. 13% say they’ve already reviewed most of the local businesses they frequent. 8% feel discouraged from leaving reviews because the business either doesn’t respond to this type of content or the responses they see look AI-generated or generic. An additional 8% didn’t find a reason in our survey options that explained why they don’t write more reviews. 

Your takeaway

YOY analysis reveals that fewer customers are being impacted by common barriers to review writing in 2025 vs. 2024. Forgetting to write reviews dropped 9 percentage points, and being too busy or distracted online dropped 15 percentage points. The largest drop was an 18 percentage point decrease in customers saying not receiving a request from a business was a barrier to them writing a review. Either brands are getting better at sending requests or consumers are getting less dependent on requests.

The main takeaway, however, is that reminders to leave a review could have the most impact on consumers who will otherwise forget to leave feedback. If your first request receives no response, don’t be shy about sending a follow-up request as a helpful memo.

The overwhelming majority of consumers consider reviews responses to be part of good customer service

81% of consumers now deem owner responses to reviews to be essential to offering good customer service. Just 19% don’t see this as a necessary hallmark of high quality customer service.

Nearly ¾ of positive reviewers want to be thanked via an owner response

73% of customers who have written a positive review of your business say they value being thanked for their public praise via an owner response. 28% say they don’t value this kind of acknowledgement. 

More than 7/10 consumers expect an owner response to a negative review

72% of consumers who post a complaint or negative review are expecting to receive a response from the brand. 28% say they either don’t expect a response or would even prefer not to receive one when they publish a complaint.

58% of negative reviewers expect an owner response within 3 or less days

22% of our survey group expects to hear back from your brand within 24 hours of them publishing a negative review. 36% extend that window to within 2-3 days. For 23%, it’s acceptable to hear back within a week. Just 4% find a two-week timeframe to be acceptable, and only 2% specific a month. 14% say an owner response to their negative review is either unexpected or doesn’t matter.

Your takeaway

Speed matters in responding effectively to negative reviews with the goal of hopefully winning back the customer, possibly inspiring them to upgrade their review and rating of your brand if you solve their problem, and strongly signaling to the public that your business responds quickly when things go wrong for your patrons. If your business has not invested in reputation management software that swiftly alerts you to incoming reviews, and this is resulting in a lack of awareness when negative sentiment appears on your profiles, your reputation, average star rating, and customer retention rate are all at risk. Significant priority should be given to responding professionally, effectively, and efficiently to all negative reviews.

YOY, fewer customers are executing a response to negative reviews within 1 day. This figure is down 14% points from 2024, indicating that consumers have lowered their expectations of a lightning-fast response. But don’t take this as an invitation to slow down. You can stand out in your market by being quicker to respond than your competitors.

The most important element of an owner response to a negative review is an offer to make things right

66% of consumers say they experience increased trust in a brand when its responses to negative reviews offer to make things right. 64% are positively influenced by seeing the owner apologize for the customer’s bad experience. 44% feel more trust when the owner provides contact information or a direct line so the situation can be discussed privately. 38% are positively influenced when the owner explains what changes the business has made to prevent the issue from happening again. 34% favor the promptness of the response. Just 7% say owner responses don’t particularly impact their sense of whether a business is trustworthy.

Nearly 7/10 negative reviewers will give your brand a second chance if your response solves their complaint

69% of consumers who have written a negative review are willing to give the local business a second chance in the future if the owner’s response resolves their issue. 48% say they would update their negative review and rating to reflect a better subsequent experience. 32% say they would recommend the business to others because of how the company handled their complaint. 21% would feel more loyal to the company going forward. Just 6% say that their feelings and actions aren’t impacted in any way if a business resolves their complaint.  

Your takeaway

YOY, these statistics have held firm, revealing the significant power your brand has to defend your reputation and reduce customer churn, simply by responding well to negative reviews. With some customers, your responses can even increase referrals and loyalty. 

More than 6/10 negative reviewers have updated their reviews when an owner response resolved their complaint

61% of people who have written a negative review have then taken the time to update it as a result of a business addressing their issues. 39% have not engaged in this activity, even if their negative experience was then rectified.

More than half of customers won’t do business with you a second time if you ignore their negative reviews

When a negative review receives no owner response from your brand, 51% of consumers won’t return to you for a subsequent transaction. 50% will not recommend your business to their circle, and 47% will warn their friends and family about the poor experience they had with your company. 33% will choose one of your competitors the next time. Just 13% say a lack of responsiveness to negative reviews doesn’t influence them.

Your takeaway

One of your greatest powers for decreasing customer churn is negative review responsiveness. A customer is already in danger of being lost forever after a single poor experience, but as previous questions in this survey indicate, owner responses can dictate whether you lose customers or win them back for repeat transactions. Be sure your reputation management strategy centers fast and effective responses to online complaints.

7/10 consumers lose trust in brands that are using AI to respond to reviews

70% of our respondents say they trust a business less if they realize its review responses are AI-generated instead of written by a fellow human being. Just 24% say their trust is not at stake whether a response is human-written or AI-generated, so long as their complaint is resolved. 7% say they have no problem with AI responses and might even prefer them if they result in faster or more consistent replies to reviews. 

Your takeaway

The data is quite clear here – the overwhelming majority of consumers want to hear from a human being at your company when something has gone wrong with a transaction. While many brands are experimenting with whether AI can help them brainstorm review response templates, trust will be lost if customers detect or even suspect that they are being handled by a bot instead of helped by a human. Customers who have had a negative experience with your brand are on the verge of being lost forever. Think very carefully about giving away your power to win them back for the sake of perceived efficiency.