To generate positive reviews, you need genuinely satisfied guests
First things first. To generate positive reviews, you need genuinely satisfied guests. To get satisfied guests, you should follow a guest-first approach to running your tour business. And then the reviews will flow.
Right up front, we want to strongly discourage you from purchasing fake reviews. It might seem like a shortcut to success, but it will harm your reputation when this deception comes to light. It’s not worth the risk.
Instead, play the long game of accumulating reviews consistently and persistently, and build a sustainable business in the process.
As a tour business owner, you’re likely always looking for ways to improve your online presence and attract more guests. One of the most important things you can do is encourage positive online reviews.
This article will take you through everything you need to know about online reviews, from how to generate them in the first place, to what to do with all of your positive reviews once you have them.
Let’s get started!
What are online reviews?
Online reviews are a form of user-generated content that guests can share on public websites such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. The majority of these sites present open-ended comments next to a rating from 1 to 5.
You can’t directly control what your guests say, but you can manage your online presence in a way that encourages positive feedback and by responding effectively to negative comments.
Online reviews are one of the first places potential guests will look to get an idea of what your business is like and what others think of your tours.
What’s the difference between a review and a rating?
A review is a detailed evaluation of a tour, product or service. A rating, on the other hand, is a score or judgment assigned to a tour by a guest. It’s typically just a number or star rating. Google, for example, allows reviewers to write both a review and provide a star rating, or simply provide a star rating without a review comment.
An example Google review that includes a 5-star rating, and a review comment below
How do online reviews work?
When consumers leave online reviews, they are typically rating your tour business on a scale of 1 to 5 stars (or green circles in the case of TripAdvisor reviews). They may also leave comments about their experience and photos too. These ratings, comments and photos are then visible to other potential guests who are considering that tour.
A TripAdvisor review that includes a 5-circle rating and review comment.
Importantly, a business can’t remove or hide reviews made about their business on review sites, such as TripAdvisor. If the review is in breach of the site’s terms of use, you can notify the site and ask that it be removed. Your only other option is to ask that the reviewer edit or remove their review.
Why online reviews are important for tour businesses
Have customer reviews ever influenced any purchase decision you’ve made? They’re pretty persuasive, aren’t they?
As a tour business owner, online customer reviews are important for three main reasons:
- They help potential guests learn about your business and what others think of your tours.
- They can impact your local search engine rankings, making it easier for prospective guests to find you online (which we’ll discuss later).
- They help to persuade prospective guests to book your tours.
BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2022 found that 77% of consumers ‘always’ or ‘regularly’ read reviews when browsing for local businesses, which was a jump from 60% in 2020. This means that reviews are popular with consumers and are growing in popularity.
You see, our trust in traditional institutions such as governments, the media, and big business is declining. Instead, we are turning to our peers for advice, guidance, and information. Reviews fulfill this desire for advice from peers.
In one split test conducted by Growth Rock, an e-commerce site increased its conversion rate by more than 15% and revenue per session by 17% by adding the review star summary to its product pages.
As the research demonstrates, online reviews are one of the key factors in the guest decision-making process, especially when it comes to local businesses. In fact, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Moz reports that 13% of the 200+ factors in Google’s algorithm involve review signals, including the number, frequency, and the breadth of review sites.
So, if you don’t have any customer reviews or only have positive ones, you could be missing out on a lot of potential business. On the other hand, if you have a lot of negative online reviews, it could be deterring guests from booking a tour with you.
In addition, the qualitative feedback you receive is useful for 3 main purposes:
- You can discover what your guests value about your tours – because they’ll mention those aspects most.
- You will learn of any pain points your guests are experiencing on your tours and have the opportunity to correct them.
- You can see what words your guests use when talking about your tours and match their language when writing copy.
It’s no wonder that customer reviews are now so important; they provide an honest assessment of tours from the people who have experienced them. This is invaluable information for tourists who are looking to make informed decisions about where to invest their time and money.
What’s more, customer reviews are often far more accurate than the hype that surrounds a tour in traditional marketing channels. We’ve all been bombarded with advertising that claims a tour is the best thing since sliced bread, only to be disappointed when we go on it. Online reviews cut through the marketing fluff and give us the real story.
How online reviews impact tour bookings
Consumers regularly filter out businesses with less than a 4-star rating, according to ReviewTracker’s research. If you’re not actively managing your reviews, it’s highly likely your star rating is less than 4, which means you’re missing out on lots of bookings!
Positive reviews can help to attract new guests, but did you know that they can also lead to higher search engine rankings? That’s because they’re considered to be a form of ‘social proof’, which can help to build pre-booking credibility. More on this later.
On the flip side, negative reviews can do damage to your tour business’s reputation, but there are ways to mitigate that. For example, you can respond publicly to negative reviews and show potential guests that you’re taking their feedback on board.
How to ask for online reviews
The best way to get online reviews is to simply ask your guests! You can do this by sending an email after their tour, asking them to leave a review on your Google Business Profile, TripAdvisor page, Facebook page, or Yelp page. You can also include links to these pages in your post-tour follow-up emails.
Here’s a quick guide on how to ask for online reviews in a way that will help your tour business grow. As a rule of thumb, you want to be asking for them promptly, authentically, and consistently:
1. Promptly
The best time to ask for a review is immediately after the guest has finished your tour. This way, they’ll be able to give you an accurate and honest review.
2. Authentically
When you’re asking for a review, be sure to do it in a way that feels natural and authentic – use your brand’s unique tone of voice. This means avoiding anything that might come across as spammy or dishonest.
3. Consistently
Finally, make sure that you’re asking for reviews regularly. This will ensure that you’re always getting fresh ones, which is helpful for search rankings (as we’ll discuss in more detail later).
Another great tip for encouraging reviews is to offer incentives. For example, you could offer a discount on future tours for guests who leave a review, run a monthly prize draw for reviewers, or make a donation to charity on their behalf for leaving a review. Just be sure not to offer anything that would violate the terms of service of the review site (such as offering to pay for positive reviews).
When asking for reviews, consider these pro-tips, too:
- Include a framing sentence before asking and a reason for the guest to provide a review. For example, “If you had a great time on our tour, please help other people just like you to come on our tour, by leaving a review.”
- Provide the guest with choices when it comes to online review platforms. We suggest Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Facebook as options (for reasons we’ll explain later).
- Also, provide a way for the guest to give negative feedback without leaving a review. In this case, you don’t want the only method for the guest to provide feedback to be a review!
- Mention that leaving a review is quick and easy. For example, “It will only take you 2 minutes to help others by leaving a review.”
- Ask twice for a review – the first time via SMS and the second time via email 2 days later.
By following these simple tips, you can make sure that your tour business is getting the greatest number of positive reviews.
How to automate the process of gathering online reviews
There are a few different ways you can automate the process of asking for reviews. One way is to use a tool like ReviewTrackers, Podium, Birdeye, Delighted, or ReviewPush, which allows you to send automatic review requests via email or text to guests after each tour.
You should also consider rewarding your tour guides for positive reviews that mention them by name. The reward could be cash, a bonus (perhaps consisting of points per review), or gift cards. Discuss the options with your guides and go with whatever motivates them most.
Report on guide-generated reviews at staff meetings. You might even create a visual ‘review leaderboard’ to appeal sparingly to their competitiveness.
Where to display your reviews
Once you start receiving online reviews, it’s important to make them visible to potential guests. The best way to do this is by displaying them prominently on your website and social media profiles. You can also create a testimonials page on your website where you showcase positive reviews.
If you have a Google Business Profile, you can also embed them on your website using the Google Maps API.
Where should guests post reviews online?
According to BrightLocal, 59% of consumers use 2 to 3 online review sites before making a purchase decision. There are many great online review sites that tour businesses should use to satisfy a prospective guest’s pre-booking skepticism.
ReviewTracker’s 2022 research revealed that 88% of all reviews come from 4 online review sites. Tour operators should encourage guests to leave reviews on the most popular sites – which are Google (where 73% of reviews are left), Yelp (6%), Facebook (3%), and Tripadvisor (3%). However, it is important to note that this study was not specific to an industry and so TripAdvisor likely has a much greater market penetration among tourists.
Tour businesses need to make sure that they are active on these platforms and encourage their guests to leave reviews. That way, guests can leave reviews on the platform of their choice. And, if you’re actively encouraging guests to leave reviews, you’ll be more likely to get them.
Online reviews aren’t the only way to get feedback from guests. You can also encourage guests to fill out surveys or contact you directly with any feedback they have.
How to monitor online reviews effectively
If you’re not already monitoring customer reviews, now is the time to start! Here’s a quick guide to get you started:
1. Google Business Profile: Claim your business listing and keep an eye on new reviews as they’re provided by your guests. You can respond to them directly from your Google Business Profile dashboard.
2. Yelp: Claim your business listing and monitor your reviews. Yelp also offers a series of tools to help manage your online reputation, including the ability to respond.
3. TripAdvisor: Claim your business listing and monitor your reviews. TripAdvisor also offers a management center where you can view all of your reviews and respond to each of them.
4. Facebook: Claim your business page and monitor your recommendations. Facebook doesn’t allow reviewers to rate businesses, but you should respond to any comments made when a guest is recommending your business.
By monitoring online business reviews, you can get a pulse on what guests think of your tours and make necessary changes to improve them. What’s more, you can respond as they’re posted.
You can also set up Google Alerts, or a paid service like Mention, for your business name or keyword phrases related to your business so that you’ll be notified whenever someone leaves a review. This can help you quickly respond to comments.
So if you’re not already monitoring for every online review, now is the time to start. It could make a big difference to your profitability.
How to respond to negative online reviews
It’s important to respond to both positive and negative online reviews. This shows potential guests reading your reviews that you care about what your guests think of your tours.
What’s more, research indicates that 89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews, both positive and negative.
And on the flipside, BrightLocal’s research revealed that 57% of consumers say they would be ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ likely to use a business that doesn’t respond to reviews at all.
The moral of the story (or the research), respond to all your reviews!
If you do receive a negative online review, remain calm. Remember, even the best tour operators get negative reviews from time to time. The important thing is how you handle them.
The first step is to take a deep breath and resist the urge to reply immediately. You must take the time to craft a well-thought-out response. However, don’t wait too long to respond because ReviewTracker’s research reveals that 53% of customers expect businesses to respond to negative reviews within a week.
When responding to a bad review, always be professional, courteous, and respectful. Avoid getting defensive or attacking the reviewer. Instead, focus on resolving the issue and making things right.
Here’s an example of how you could respond to a negative online review:
“Dear ____,
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We’re sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy your tour. I will discuss the situation you’ve outlined with the tour guide mentioned, and provide training to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
We appreciate your feedback and will use it to improve our tours. If you’d like to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to contact me on [email].
Again, thank you for your feedback. We hope you’ll give us another chance in the future.
Sincerely,
Your name”
How to respond to positive online reviews
You might be thinking, “Do I need to respond to positive reviews as well?” The answer is “yes” for two reasons.
- Responding to positive (and negative) reviews demonstrates your commitment to your guests.
- Responding to reviews is a local SEO factor, so it will help you rank in the search engines for important local search terms like ‘food tours near me’. N.B. SEO will be unpacked in greater detail later.
When responding to positive comments, you should do three things. Firstly, thank your guest for leaving a review. Secondly, add a personal touch to your response so it’s clear that you’ve personally responded to the review. Lastly, convey how much you’d like them on your tours again soon.
Here’s an example response to a positive online review:
“Dear ____,
Thank you so much for your kind words! We’re so happy you enjoyed the tour and our guide Tony was able to show you a great time. We would love to have you on tour again soon!
Sincerely,
Your name”
When you respond to online business reviews, you show your guests that you care about their experience. You also have an opportunity to resolve any issues they may have had. This can turn a negative review into a positive one! And, it can help to build trust between you and your guests.
Are online reviews trustworthy?
This is a question that prospective guests ask themselves constantly. With the power of the internet, anyone can say anything with little to no consequence. So how do you know if online reviewers are telling the truth?
The answer is: it depends.
Some online reviews are biased and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, other online reviews are more reliable and can be helpful for prospective guests in making booking decisions.
As a tour business owner you need to know that savvy travelers are discerning genuine reviews from fake ones using the following strategies:
- Source checking: they’re checking that reviews are on reputable websites. That’s one of the reasons why we recommend promoting Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Facebook for the collection of reviews – they’re well-known brands.
- Multiple sources: they’re checking several review sites to inform their decision. As mentioned earlier, 59% of consumers check out 2 to 3 review sites before making a decision.
- Analyzing the reviews: they’re reading the comments carefully and looking for any red flags that may indicate they’re untrustworthy or fake. If the language in the review seems overly positive or negative, it may be fake.
- Reviewer’s history: they’re checking to see if the reviewer has a history of leaving reviews for lots of other businesses in the same industry. If they do, it’s possible that they’re being paid to leave them.
Interestingly, many consumers believe that online reviews are more trustworthy than traditional advertising. The reason for this is that online reviews are perceived to be more unbiased than traditional advertising, which is often biased in favor of the business that is paying for the advertising.
What percentage of online reviews are fake?
According to a 2021 Uberall study on review fraud, Google has as high as 11% of all reviews being “inauthentic” on its platform, followed by 7% on Yelp, and approximately 5% on TripAdvisor and Facebook.
When it comes to online reviews, it’s important to be aware that not all of them are necessarily real. Just as businesses may pay for positive ones to boost their ratings, they may also pay for negative reviews to damage their competitors. We strongly recommend that you avoid both of these options!
If you think you’ve received a fake review (as opposed to a negative review), you should report it to the review platform that it’s been given on.
So what’s a tour business owner to do? You can’t control whether or not people write fake reviews, and you can’t control what people say in their reviews. But you can control how you respond to online reviews.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to handling online reviews like a pro:
Step 1: Check the source
Before you do anything else, take a look at who wrote the review. Is it a verified guest? If not, there’s a good chance the review might be fake. If you suspect it is, report it to the review site that it’s on.
Step 2: Read between the lines
Even if the review is from a verified guest, that doesn’t mean it’s 100% accurate. Pay attention to the language the reviewer uses and look for any red flags that could indicate bias, such as the reviewer being a family member of a competitor.
Step 3: Take it with a grain of salt
Remember, online reviews should be one of many tactics in the marketing strategy of your tour business. Don’t put too much stock in any one review, positive or negative.
Step 4: Respond thoughtfully
Whether you’re dealing with a positive or negative review, your response should be professional and respectful. Thank the reviewer for their feedback and let them know you’re taking their comments seriously. If you’re dealing with a negative review, offer to make things right.
Marketing of online reviews
Leveraging your online reviews has become a powerful marketing strategy for tour business owners because people are generally distrusting of authority figures. By collecting and posting online reviews, you can build trust with potential guests and increase your chances of conversion.
In addition to the logistics of asking for reviews, and responding to them, you can actively leverage online reviews for broader marketing purposes.
Here are 3 ways to leverage reviews for marketing:
- If you receive a truly standout review, you should send a message to the reviewer asking if they’d consider providing a video testimonial on Riverside.fm or similar which you can use on your website or in social media marketing.
- Once you’ve generated positive reviews, start adding them to your website. Make sure you include them on your sales pages at the very least.
- Ask positive reviewers for referrals. It’s much easier to convince a guest who has provided a positive review to give a referral than someone who hasn’t. You might want to offer an incentive for referrals or introduce a loyalty program with rewards.
In addition to the above strategies, be sure to highlight positive reviews in every possible marketing channel. You’ll be delighted by the increase in your conversion rate that this will provide.
How online reviews impact local SEO
As I hope you’ve realized by now, online company reviews are important. But what you may not know is that they can also deliver SEO benefits.
A high Google rating is the most important element in determining conversions on a Google Business Profile, according to the experts. Even though, in 2021 Google announced that a blend of good and bad reviews boosts the trustworthiness of a local business. That’s because consumers believe a business to be more credible if they have a percentage of negative reviews.
Think about it – when someone is looking for a tour business in their area, one of the first things they’re going to do is go online and search for reviews. If your tour business has a lot of positive ones, and a few negative ones, it’s going to show up higher in the search results, which means more people are likely to find and book your tours.
But it’s not just about getting more reviews, it’s also about maintaining a good rating. If your rating dips below 4 stars, you’re going to start losing business. So it’s important to keep an eye on your rating and make sure that you’re doing everything you can to encourage happy customers to leave a review.
Here are the key factors when considering the impact of reviews on local SEO:
- Quantity – for local searches, search engine users are shown what’s known as the ‘3-pack’ at the top of the results. The businesses in the 3-pack are those with more reviews with a high star rating. What’s more, searchers tend to trust the review results of businesses with over 40 reviews, a lot more than those with only a handful.
- Star rating – similar to quantity, Google also prioritizes your overall star rating. While a few negative ones won’t be detrimental to your search ranking, lots will.
- Frequency – how regularly you’re receiving reviews also impacts your local search ranking. You want a steady stream coming through consistently.
- Diversity – how many review sites your tour business is receiving reviews on matters because gaining them across a diversity of sites appears more authentic to the search engines. As mentioned, we suggest collecting them on Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Facebook.
- Responding – whether the business owner responds to reviews or not is also a local ranking factor as is the timeliness of those responses.
You have a better chance of getting discovered and clicked on in search results if you receive more reviews with high ratings and positive sentiment across several high-authority review platforms.
Case Study: Bulldog Tours generates 8,249 TripAdvisor reviews … and counting!
Bulldog Tours in Charlestown, South Carolina has accumulated 8,249 TripAdvisor reviews alone … and counting! The number of reviews is especially impressive given that most are 5-star.
A Bulldog guide sharing her local knowledge with guests
What’s their secret?
Simple: they offer an experience that can’t be found anywhere else.
Most tour companies simply provide a guide who points out the sights and gives a little history along the way. But Bulldog Tours offers something different – their guides are residents who have lived in Charlestown for years, and they share personal stories and anecdotes about the neighborhood that you just can’t find in a history book.
In addition, Bulldog Tours has a systematic way of generating reviews that includes incentivizing their guides for each review given that mentions them by name. They also relentlessly collect customer feedback and act on it. Generating more online reviews forms one part of their guest-centric approach to attract new customers.
If you’re looking for a way to stand out from the competition, consider offering an experience that can’t be found anywhere else, collecting customer feedback and incentivizing your guides for generating reviews. It just might be the key to generating an avalanche of online reviews – and growing a profitable business!
Action Plan
1. Make it easy for guests to leave reviews.
Make it easy for your guests to leave reviews by providing links to your review sites on your website and social media pages. You should also send review requests via text message or email after every tour.
2. Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative.
When you get a positive review, thank the guest for their feedback. When you get a negative review, try to resolve the issue with the guest. This shows other potential guests that you’re committed to providing a great experience for everyone.
3. Use positive reviews to promote your business.
Make sure to share your positive reviews on social media and your website. This can convert lookers into bookers and build trust with potential guests.
4. Get reviews from multiple sites.
Don’t just focus on one review site. Get reviews from multiple sites, such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. This will help you reach a wider audience, improve your chances of getting positive reviews, and improve your local search rankings.
5. Analyze your reviews for ways to improve your tours.
In keeping with the Guest Focus philosophy, continually be looking for ways to improve your tours based on the guest feedback contained in your reviews.
