It's no surprise that local business reviews play a critical role in consumer decision-making, with 85% of consumers expressing trust in them and over 99% consulting reviews before choosing a business. While reviews significantly influence behavior, personal recommendations from friends and family remain the most trusted source; 45% of consumers rely on them over online feedback. To build trust effectively, businesses must balance fostering authentic reviews with encouraging word-of-mouth endorsements.

Key insights highlight the importance of review recency, as 67% of consumers prioritize recent content over star ratings, and Google emerges as the most trusted platform at 67%. As consumers increasingly turn to social media and dedicate more time to reading reviews, businesses need a proactive reputation management strategy. Authenticity is paramount, with 60% of consumers distrusting AI-generated responses. To stay competitive, local businesses must focus on genuine engagement, consistent service, and maintaining a steady flow of fresh, positive reviews.

85% of consumers feel a degree of trust in local business reviews

Just 15% of the consumer public either rarely or never trusts reviews when deciding whether to give a local business a first try. 21% completely trust them, 31% mostly trust them, and 33% somewhat trust them at this critical moment in the buyer’s journey. 

Your takeaway

With well over ¾ of your neighbors consulting your reviews to evaluate whether they should visit your business for the first time, this form of user generated content (UGC) may outweigh any other digital asset your brand possesses in terms of persuasiveness. Acquiring plenty of reviews that speak well of your company has become a table stakes local search marketing strategy.

Only 31% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations

This finding will come as a surprise to readers who have seen other surveys indicating that reviews and personal recommendations are trusted equally. 45% of people feel the most trust in the recommendations of their family and friends, 24% place primary trust in online local business reviews, and just 31% trust both types of sentiment equally.

Your takeaway

It’s vital to appreciate the offline life of customers, and local businesses have an advantage of mindset in understanding that their patrons have full and busy lives off the web in their hometowns and cities. Providing excellent customer service is the first step to earning voluntary word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations, but a variety of encouragements should be explored to inspire current customers to mention your brand to their circle of friends and family. Consider loyalty programs, referral programs, special reward offers, cross promotions, and community involvement that give neighbors cause to speak well of your brand to one another.

FindLaw, and ZocDoc are seen as the most trusted review platform by less than 20% of respondents. 5% of respondents state that they do not trust any particular platform over another.

Your takeaway

Google’s dominant role in local consumer journeys means that nearly all local businesses must prioritize reputation management on this platform. Learning to play by Google’s rules is essential to your local search marketing strategy, but it cannot be your only effort. As our survey shows, consumers trust reviews across a broad spectrum of platforms, and winning their business necessitates having a good reputation on multiple sites. Discover which platforms matter most to the community surrounding each location of your business and build up a strong footprint there.

59% of consumers spend more time reading reviews than they did 5 years ago

Over half of consumers are devoting more time to perusing review content in 2024 than they were in 2019. Just 21% are spending either the same amount of time or less time than they used to in reading this form of UGC. This is a significant upward trend surrounding the use and popularity of these local business assets. 

Your takeaway

Possible contributing factors might include:

• The COVID-19 pandemic prompting the public to depend more on the internet to evaluate nearby businesses during social distancing
• The remote work trend ensuring that more people are spending more time online in general
• The ongoing evolution of use of the internet in daily life leading more people to become aware of the existence of review platforms over time
• The high cost of remote shipping options causing consumers to seek local alternatives for fulfillment to save money
• Remote supply chain problems causing consumers to seek local alternatives for fulfillment, in general

While none of the above may accurately explain the growing popularity of review platforms as places where consumers are spending time, these are statistics you should share with brand leadership, team members, and clients to earn buy-in for increased resources for reputation management. 

Overall star ratings appear less important to consumers than review recency and sentiment

67% of consumers state that the last time they looked at local business reviews, they sorted them to see whichever reviews were most recent. 50% sorted to see lowest-scored reviews, and 43% sorted to see highest-scored reviews. Just 11% did not sort reviews, indicating that the majority of modern consumers make use of sorting options or customize the UGC they are most interested in seeing. 

The surprise statistic in this set is that just 23% selected looking at the overall star rating of the business the last time they consulted reviews.

Your takeaway

It could be that the apparent lack of interest in overall star ratings sensibly reflects the understanding that such data reflects the entire review history of a business, and is not useful to consumers whose priority is discovering how a business is performing right now. After all, a restaurant that served the best pizza in town 10 years ago may have undergone management changes, altered its recipes, or fallen down on customer service policies since it opened its doors. In this light, consulting most recent reviews is logical, and highlights the need for a reputation management strategy which ensures that your business is receiving an ongoing stream of fresh review content. However, answers to this particular question should be compared to the further findings of this report on the specific star ratings consumers require in order to do business with your brand. 

45% of consumers read reviews on the verge of making transactions

While 27% of people read reviews both well in advance of and right before making transactions, the main trend revealed by this question is that the dominant group of consumers reads reviews when they are on the verge of doing business. 28% report reading reviews days, weeks, or months prior to a transaction.

Your takeaway

Nearly all local businesses share the goal of wanting to assist consumers in the transition from online research to offline sales. Having a click-to-brick strategy is crucial to bringing nearby customers down that last mile to your door. As these statistics show, reviews play a huge role in decisions made right when a customer is ready to choose a business, emphasizing the need for a serious investment in reputation management. Meanwhile, a separate takeaway exists here for particular industries. If you are in the hospitality or travel sector, or vend high-dollar products that tend to require lots of consumer research prior to purchase, you need to know that potential patrons are considering your brand long before you ever meet them. Taken in conjunction with the high trust placed in WOM recommendations and reviews, both customer service and loyalty programs deserve resources and attention. 

68% of consumers are most influenced by most recent review content

36% of people feel that a review should only impact their decision-making if it was written within the last week, while 32% are willing to extend that window of influence to a month. 24% find review content from the past 6 months to be relevant to their deliberations. Just 8% find any time frame acceptable.

Your takeaway

These statistics hint at a consumer crisis of confidence in the stability of nearby businesses. When 68% of consumers appear to be concerned that a business may have undergone major changes within recent days, it suggests that the public has lost faith in dependable commercial norms. Given this, your business should seek not only to achieve a steady stream of fresh incoming review content, but should also fine-tune your narrative to showcase reliability and longevity wherever possible. Social media is a good fit for featuring customer stories about families who have patronized particular businesses for multiple generations, proving that some brands can still be counted on in times of disruption and change.  

55% of consumers believe review platforms are winning the spam battle

The trust the public places in the authenticity of reviews is underpinned by this finding that over half of respondents believe that entities like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor are doing a good job of catching and removing fake reviews. Interestingly, 8% are simply unaware that some of the reviews they see might be fraudulent. A less sanguine 37% say they frequently encounter suspicious reviews and believe the major review platforms need to do a better job of removing this content. 

Your takeaway

Given the power of reviews to generate sales for your business, local brands have a tremendous stake in whether or not the major platforms are seen as trustworthy by consumers. If all potential patrons mistrusted review content, it would cease to be an influential driver of transactions. Thus, it’s good news that 55% of respondents think the majors are winning the review spam battle, but the size of the less trusting group should not be overlooked. Taken in conjunction with the earlier statistics on how media like photos and videos of consumer experiences increase trust in reviews, efforts to acquire this type of content should be prioritized to provide a more credible experience for nearly 40% of your customer base. 

60% of reviewers publish their sentiment via Google

While Google takes first prize as the most-used review platform at 60%, they aren’t the only review game in town. Amazon comes second with 48% of consumers polled, while Yelp and Facebook are close competitors with 38% and 35% of reviewers, respectively. TripAdvisor sits at 28%, while Apple Maps is at 24% and Nextdoor at 11%. Local business websites that offer review forms are succeeding in bringing in reviews from 16% of those polled. 

The more traditional in-store feedback and suggestion box still brings in reviews from 15% of customers - not seen on this chart to preserve data clarity and conciseness. Many smaller online platforms round out the rest of the field, including the Better Business Bureau, Yellow Pages, Angi, Trustpilot, industry-specific platforms like Zillow, social media platforms like Reddit, private Discord servers, and local community blogs, hubs, and podcasts.

Your takeaway

The number of places in which consumers are sharing and encountering sentiment about your business is remarkable! The case is clear for establishing a broad local footprint via the conversations and more formal reviews that the customer experiences your brand provides are inspiring. Pay attention to the quiet rise of Apple Maps, and don’t overlook the segment of your audience that includes customers who do their own publishing. They may have their own blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, and the power to introduce your business to more people in your community. Whenever you are feeling fatigued from a hyper-focus on Google, spend some time fostering new connections on alternative platforms.

83% of customers are at least somewhat responsive to review requests

48% will typically leave a review and an additional 35% will sometimes leave a review when asked by a business. Just 14% are seldom responsive to review requests, and only 4% are completely unresponsive. 

Your takeaway

It’s a magnificent gift to your business that nearly half of your customers are generous enough to spend free time reviewing your business if you take the time to ask. Additional effort on your part may be required to motivate the other half to review you. Experiment with different formats, such as email, SMS, and in-person asks. Emphasize how much the business contributes to the community and how sincerely a review would be valued. Run tests to discover ideal time windows for sending requests. And, be sure you are responding with thanks to all positive reviews to demonstrate that your brand is grateful to customers who share sentiment.  

Only 8% of customers don't liked to be asked for reviews

Email is the top choice for review requests, with 54% preferring this methodology. 47% of customers like to be asked in person at the time of service for a review of their experience, while outreach through a phone call or on social media are both preferred equally at 28%. Texting comes in next, with 23% wanting the business to reach out to them via SMS while 22% like requests on invoices and receipts. 

14% of customers like requests to be included on print materials such as business cards or brochures, and 8% prefer asks via storefront signage.

Your takeaway

The overwhelming majority of your customers don’t mind being asked for reviews, but they do have preferences for the way in which requests are communicated. The task for your brand is to experiment with all of the above methodologies to discover top performers for the community surrounding each location of your business. This could vary from city to city and region to region. Getting the right combination of request formats running at each branch could significantly increase request conversions. 

Forgetfulness and online distraction top the charts as review volume roadblocks

51% of consumers mean to write more local business reviews, but simply forget to. 47% say they used to write more reviews but are now finding themselves spending their screen time doing other things. A noteworthy 32% don’t write more reviews because businesses aren’t asking them to. 26% have hit the wall of having already reviewed most of the nearby local businesses they regularly frequent.

Take note of the 14% who have become discouraged from writing reviews because businesses don’t bother to respond, as well as the 13% who have been turned off by suspected AI-generated responses. 12% have seen so much review spam, they don’t feel it’s worth it to write a genuine review that will be lost in a clutter of fake sentiment.

Your takeaway

A combined total of 37% of polled consumers aren’t writing more reviews than they currently do because of neglect of owner responses and suspicion of both AI responses and spam. Take this as a challenge to your brand to be as authentic as you can on your end to encourage a trusting environment for more skeptical consumers. Meanwhile, a major takeaway here is that review requests can be just the reminder more than half of your customers need as a memo to write a review when they otherwise forget to. Of equal interest is the fact that people’s online habits may be changing. Nearly half of our survey base attests to writing less reviews in the past because they are spending more of their time online engaging in other activities. Again, your review request could help buck this trend in a distracting digital world. As for customers who have already reviewed most of their favorite businesses in town, a sophisticated acquisition strategy could discover whether they would be willing to review you on more than one platform.  

82% of customers prefer choosing brands that actively respond to reviews

When choosing where to transact, only 18% of the consumer public is not influenced by the presence of active business owner responses to online reviews. The overwhelming majority are more likely to choose local brands that are making the investment in a responsiveness strategy.

Your takeaway

This is one of the largest statistics discovered by our survey, and could be just what you need to persuade bosses and clientele to invest more in full review management. Active owner responses signal that your brand is attentive and accessible, building confidence and supporting sales.

73% of reviewers appreciate thanks for positive feedback

Nearly ¾ of your customers will appreciate it if your business uses the owner response function to thank them when they have taken the time to leave a positive review. Your response lets them know that you have received their praise. 27% do not care whether a business responds to a positive review.

Your takeaway

All businesses would love to have the “problem” of being overwhelmed by positive reviews. In a sense, this achievement can come with a challenge: it takes creativity to think of different ways to say “thank you” to hundreds of reviews if you don’t want your owner response corpus to look generic or even robotic. One good tip is to share a tidbit of news about the business with some reviewers. For example, if a diner shared that they like the tacos at a restaurant, the owner might respond that they hope to see the patron again in a few weeks when their new seasonal tacos will be on the menu. A little extra effort could go a long way towards confirming that your business genuinely values customers and their incredibly influential praise.

66% of negative reviewers expect a response within 3 or less days

When a customer leaves a negative review, 36% expect a response within 1 day, and an additional 30% expect a response within 3 days. 20% have more modest expectations of hearing back within a week, but only 5% extend that time frame to 2 weeks. 3% are open to responses that occur within 1 month of the complaint, and 5% do not want any response at all.

Your takeaway

While our survey has taught us that the majority of both positive and negative reviewers expect your brand to respond, you may need to prioritize attending to complaints first if time for review management is limited. There is a very brief window in which a dissatisfied customer is open to receiving your response. Reputation management software can organize incoming reviews across multiple platforms and help you meet response deadlines more efficiently. 

73% of unhappy customers will give a business a second chance if an owner response solves their problem

If a brand responds well to a negative review, 73% of reviewers say they will give the company a second chance, and 54% will update their initial negative rating and review to reflect a better second experience. 40% of negative reviewers will recommend a business to friends and family because it demonstrated good customer service when a problem arose. 20% feel increased loyalty to the business because it was responsive when something went wrong.

Your takeaway

Each of these statistics is golden and belong at the center of your customer service strategy. Mistakes are inevitable in business, and fear of negative reviews is real but can be greatly ameliorated with the knowledge that customers are forgiving and can be won back with a caring response that solves problems. Answers to this question also reveal that more than half of reviewers see their feedback as a living document – not something set in stone – and are willing to update it when a bad first impression is corrected with a second positive one. You have so much power to prevent customer churn and it’s amazing to discover that increased consumer loyalty can actually be the outcome of a bad experience if your business prioritizes problem solving skills. 

64% of consumers are discouraged from writing reviews if they expect AI to respond

More than 6 in 10 customers are less likely to bother writing reviews for businesses if they expect AI will be used to write an owner response. About 21% say they are more likely to review a business in this scenario, and for 15%, their decision to write reviews is not affected by whether or not the response will be generated by AI.

Your takeaway

While AI can be a useful tool in some settings, be wary of any technology that offends your customers or distances your business from them. AI may leave customers feeling like they have been handled rather than served. Choose your tools wisely with the goal of providing better customer experiences instead of shortcuts.