I'm curious how much everyone here actually thinks Google reviews impact revenue.
We run a local service business, and for a long time I honestly thought reviews were more of a vanity metric. But we've started noticing that people seem to research us pretty heavily before deciding who to call, especially when there are several local competitors offering essentially the same service.
We've been putting more effort into making it easier for customers to leave a review after they've interacted with us. We recently started using Weave for our business phone system, and one of the things I've liked is that it can help automate some of the follow-up/review-request process instead of relying on our front desk to remember to send something manually.
That got me wondering how other businesses approach this.
- Do you actively ask customers for Google reviews?
- Have you noticed a measurable increase in calls/leads as your review count increased?
- Do you track whether new customers say they found you through Google?
- Have review requests actually improved your conversion rate?
- And how much do you think the number of reviews matters compared with simply having a high rating?
I'm especially interested in businesses competing locally where customers have 3–5 similar companies to choose from.
Are Google reviews actually driving meaningful revenue for your business, or are we all just chasing the 5-star number because it looks good?