We do not intend to change the mind of anyone who is responsible for marketing or who may own a business; than those reviews [with the star ratings] shown in search engine results how important it is to first collect customer feedback as a key component in daily business operations.
For the sake of discussion, how about taking the point of view of a potential bed and breakfast client, staying in town for a couple of nights, and looking to determine where will be a good place to stay within a city or location in particular?
The situation could be that a group of friends during a visit to a city for a concert are looking for a nice and clean place to stay. [say] located somewhere in the King Cross region of London, UK. As is usual in the world of advanced mobile technology in which we live today, a quick search on the Internet using the Google search engine in this case will provide the browser with a list of hotels and bed and breakfast establishments in the region that will be suitable for them to stay for the required couple of nights.
From the search results, it is clear to everyone to see the user ratings of the relevant hotels and other accommodations that are now displayed prominently within the SERPs. [search engine results] and in addition to that also on the attached area map that is now displayed.
Any potential customer can now follow the link defined by the bed and breakfast establishment’s pin and then the search engine can sometimes see the details as well as summaries of the latest customer reviews. These reviews appear alongside other relevant company information as it relates to the organization; this may include business hours, full physical address, phone number, and email address.
Of course, we have used bed & breakfasts and hotels for this example, but this applies equally to restaurants, car dealerships, cosmetic surgeons, dentists, veterinarians, and other businesses that may now go out of business due to a really negative review.
As we can see, the use of business customer reviews within search engine marketing can often be all that is needed to put one in a position to make a decision about where to stay for a few nights.
In our opinion, companies should incorporate the collection of customer feedback and reviews as a matter of day-to-day operations. This will a) provide the company with valuable market research and b) allow it to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors as searches continue to be dominated by feedback from real customers about their experience with the company in question.