Future of Reputation: AI and Insights from Reviews UP Co-Founder Jason Causa – Episode 26 Season 3

Transcript

Dave: So, I’m driving into the office this morning getting ready to to do this podcast and a song came on by George Strait of all people. Do you know who that is?

Jason: I do.

Dave: Okay, good. So, if you don’t know who George is, look him up. He’s a a country music legend.

Dave:  Yeah. And and I’ve I’ve gotten into country later in life. I don’t I used to hate it as a kid, but not like 90s country like more of the new country is not even country anymore.

Dave: I can’t play you the song.

Dave: I can’t play the song because it’s right’s managed. But the song is called Check Yes or No. Check yes or no. It’s all about that. And I thought about that. I’m like, it’s kind of interesting because it made me think about our conversation today. Welcome to another episode of the Agency Balance Podcast. I’m here with Jason Kaja, founding partner at Reviews Up. Jason, welcome to the podcast.

Jason: Thank you. Appreciate you having me on.

Dave: You brought me a little little present here.

Jason: I did. It’s It’s all about reviews today. And before we get into that, what would be your walk up song or like a song that would represent you and re and we’re talking about reviews? I’m going to I’m going to place him here today.

Jason: Probably uh I’ll go with the Elvis Presley. You put me on the spot, but I’ll go with the Elvis classic. A little less conversation, a little more action. How about that?

Dave: Oh, that’s that’s perfect. That’s perfect. This is all going to make sense. I promise. It’s the anticipation and buildup.

Jason: That wasn’t planned, by the way. I just like spitball that one out.

Dave: I like to I like to I like to at least have it, you know, somewhat unscripted here. So, that that’s cool. Yeah. No, that’s a really really good one. So, you have a lot of things going on. We met probably about a year or so ago. Um and but today we’re going to talk about Reviews Up. So, Reviews Up is an experience platform that helps businesses quickly build pre age, manage their customer sentiment, and promote reputation using simple tools like automation, AI. Oh, big shocker, AI. Our tech, their technology drives compliant public and private feedback, which we’re going to talk about, while boosting brand trust and company relevance. And the other key word that you were that I wanted to use is, you know, reputation, right? That keyword of reputation. And we’re going to talk about that. So, Jason, a little bit about yourself and why the heck should anybody be caring about reviews?

Jason: Well, that’s uh that’s a long how much time do we have? Um a little a bit about me is um I’m a partner in a digital marketing company and have been for quite a while and we did a lot of you know digital marketing traditional marketing for businesses and what one thing that we realized over you know period of time is that when we took deep dive into the analytics and all the metrics of what we were doing and the impact that it was having is we were seeing a trend and we were seeing, you know, good traffic and and all the delivery things that you would expect from campaigns that you you spend a lot of time on, but then we weren’t seeing the the right amount of uh I guess you would say conversion or correlation between our ad impact and the results, you know, for the client that they really care about. So, when we got into it, um we really noticed that the common theme was was the businesses that we were trying to help were really suffering because they had a a poor reputation, right? So, you know, you can create curiosity with brilliant ads and clever creative, but then at the end of the day, all that ad traffic is going to look you up, right? And what are they going to find? You know, they’re going to see, you know, laid bare, you know, your reputation, you know, how you treat your customers, um, you know, all of that. So, what we did is is we invested a lot of resources, uh, from our own staff and our own, uh, you know, development department And we focused on helping our clients just kind of for our own private needs, helping them improve reputation. And what we saw was an almost immediate impact, positive impact on the ad results, right? So all of those objectives that you try to hit when you start a campaign, right? Are we getting traffic? Yeah. Are we getting conversions? Yeah. Are we getting more referral business? Yeah. All of the things that really help businesses thrive, we were seeing a big uptick, right? So then it was like kind of a, you know, pivotal moment for us. and we decided to really invest heavily in our development of of our own reputation platform. So there were a few out there um and you know there are many out there that you can do but ours was really geared toward making it very very easy uh for the customers right so easy on both sides right easy for the the client um to manage and easy for the customers to engage right and the employees and the platform really has you know evolved over you know I’d say a period of almost 10 years now And uh we’ve seen you know tremendous innovation you know obviously AI uh has become a big part of what we do but um we’ve really identified a couple of industries where you know trust and reputation and and brand management is so critical um you know a lot of industries highly regulated industries things like finance and and banking and medical and and all that where where people have a better sense of trust like they know what they can expect before they do business with you right and that’s that’s a really big thing you know if if they have a good feeling uh at their core about I can trust these guys, right? That’s it. So that’s that’s what reputation is all about, our philosophy, and that’s what Reviews Up is designed to do.

Dave: Yeah. I mean, so I I I’m a I’m a platform user. I use it. We use it for our clients. Um so immediately, you know, check it out. We’ll link everything up in the description. Get get you get you linked over. It’s reviewsup.com, right?

Jason: Yes.

Dave: Yeah. So check it out right away if you’re listening to this. And and but so here’s The thing, right, I was I was thinking about this is like, all right, I’m a service business company. Well, you know, why should I care about it? I I get it if you’re, you know, a plumber or an electrician or something like that where your business is like solely based on reviews, but it’s more than that, right? It’s it’s for it’s become so important no matter what type of business you’re in. So, maybe let’s talk about like the Google effect.

Dave: I think that’s the I think let’s let’s break that down there because I know you have a lot of great insights on this. So, So, I’m going to shut up now. Talk to me about like the Google effect that’s that reviews have.

Jason: Yeah, it’s a big one, right? And and Google um you know is where the rubber meets the road, you know, um all of your great marketing campaigns, you know, I used in a presentation the other day, all all roads lead to Rome, but all ads lead to Google. Really, and they really do, right? Whether it’s a a broadcast ad, a digital ad, um you know, a billboard you drive by, you know what you’re going to I mean, you sit in front of the television now and you have a a two or three devices half the time, right? And there’s barcodes all over every ad. So, um the experience needs to be uh you know really kind of seamless between your advertising message and your business reputation. And and why that matters is because Google is is really trying to optimize their platform for customer experience. You know, they want to send people to businesses that are highly reviewed and they’re more relevant. So, uh just their most recent uh AI overview, which was the the big core update back in in late November and early December that pushed that is making reviews, reputation, some of the most important content that you could possibly put on your site. So for instance in you know just a few years ago it was you know very important for SEO strategies to put blog content and stuff that was dynamically changing and all that. So now that stuff is still important but not as important as the online reputation and and this is not just from Google’s own platform. They’re drawing in reputation from other sources right other platforms that are out there and then when they see this content on your own website it builds so much relevance that it’s driving search results, right? Organic and map views and all the things that you don’t even have to pay for. They’re showing up. Your ads will cost less. They’ll have better positions. So, that’s a it’s a massive impact for for agencies who are working with clients and trying to optimize, you know, ad deliverables.

Dave: So, what So, all right, I so I’ve now I’ve I’ve come to the at this point of the listening and I’m like, all right, I got to do something about this. Uh, it’s never too late, right?

Dave: It’s it’s never too late. It’s the I don’t that tree thing, you know. I wasn’t that that was on the last episode. Jonathan was talking about that. He’s like the best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the best the second best is today. It’s the same type of thing. Well, you you got to start somewhere with your reviews. So, obviously Google’s smart enough you can’t like stuff them. You can’t fake it. They’ll take them down. You can’t you can’t bribe people either, right? It’s it’s this is regulated. That’s how

Dave: it’s highly regulated. Yeah.

Dave: I which I didn’t even know about.

Jason: Yeah. So, Google has very strict policies and And you know, we can link to the uh description and the policies in the in the in the information, but um you’re you’re not allowed to pay for influence, right? So that that would be have have to be disclosed. So you’re not allowed to, you know, get reviews through um you know, nebulous circumstances. You’re not allowed to pay people. Um you know, if you’re gathering them all from like the same IP address, it’s going to look highly suspicious. If you get like 20 or 30 that come in in a big batch, um you know, I wouldn’t recommend that, but you know, the federal government is involved in reviews, right? So FTC and uh the CFPB. Um you know, these are these are big government watchd dogss that are that are looking into these things because they know how impactful and influential it is on on marketing overall. So yeah, you want to make sure you have a fully compliant strategy. Um obviously the industries have their own compliance, right? So there’s there’s HIPPA, right, with medical and there’s um you know SEC with financial planners and and banks and and things like that. So these are all things that you want to be mindful of for compliance reasons, right? But if you have a good effective strategy and you’re working with a tech partner, it can actually put you in a favorable position if your industry is regulated and audited regularly. Um, so yeah, it’s it’s there’s a lot to know. So I I I would definitely recommend to anyone watching that they do their homework and, you know, maybe find a partner that can, you know, get a good handle on all this.

Dave: So how does somebody that’s struggling with getting reviews, how some some examples or tactics that you have, some recommendations that you’ve seen work really well to try to acquire net new reviews like what are some ideas that you have?

Jason: Yeah, make it easy number one. Like that’s the most important thing is that you know if if you just casually say hey would you leave us a review right? Chances are very low that someone will remember and then you know go home and and and do review. So you’re seeing you know obviously more and more businesses small businesses they’ll have uh touch points at in the in the restaurants and you know at the cash registers you know point of sale that sort of thing where you can simply like NFC chips are in everything now where you can tap it um or scan, right? It’ll take you to um you know, leave a review. In most cases, it’s it’s just taking you to a Google page where it opens a little script and then you can just leave a review. But the best ones are the ones that give you options to leave reviews on multiple platforms. This is little known fact. I mean, Google there’s about 40% penetration for Google accounts of of all users, internet users in the US, right? Big number, massive number. But think of it the other side of that. 60% do not have a Google account, right?

Jason: So, if you’re only asking people to leave you a Google review, you’re potentially leaving 60% of highly relevant, valuable feedback on the table, right? So, it’s it’s really smart to have another pathway for your customers to choose another option because if they just open a prompt and it just says Google and they h geez, I don’t have a Google account, I guess you’re out of luck. But if you give them a choice where they can choose Google or another channel, you know, um you know, an independent channel like ours or you know even Facebook or Yelp or something like that. At least you are increasing your odds of getting public feedback that will power Google’s AI overview.

Jason: It doesn’t have to be a Google review. I mean although that is the most important, but there are other really good ways to do it.

Jason: Yeah. So, everyone’s always striving for a five-star review, but that’s not always the case. Two-part question. One, what should someone be what if you’re if you’re a business, what should you be aiming for if it’s not perfection like what is kind of like you should maintain something because let’s face it we’re we are all humans and we do make some mistakes sometimes so sometimes and I guess maybe this is this this is I’m trying to peel back the onion all right let’s take the first question so what should they be striving for as kind of like the standard is it a four is it a five this is our our kind of best practice um and it rhymes it’s easy to remember strive for 4.5 4.

Jason: That’s kind of the mental, you know, area where somebody perceives you as being highly rated, right? Um, five is extremely unlikely and it actually comes off as being artificial.

Jason: Yes.

Jason: Right. So, so five can be attainable for in a couple of ways. If you have a very low volume, right? If you’re if you have three reviews, pretty easy to get a five, right? If you’ve got a hundred reviews, very unlikely that you would have a five. And if you did, right? tweak the eyebrow a little bit like what’s this this looks a little fishy right um having negative reviews you know we all most of us probably shop on Amazon right so is a good example so Amazon in the olden days is a couple years ago they used to um you know default the search results by you know you could you could pay for position right so what they found is that the Amazon choice badge like which is community sentiment like that’s what people think about your stuff. It sells 30% more that little badge, right? And it’s because of trust. And it’s funny, if you read the reviews, like most of us do, most of us don’t read the good reviews, right? Like you want to read the poor ones, right? I want to buy something and I immediately go to the one stars and see, you know, and and a lot of it is just because you want to see, you know, sometimes you, you know, you buy something and and it’ll be one star and it’ll say the package was damaged and, you know, they threw the box in a puddle or something. You’re like, “All right, well, that doesn’t really apply. to the product. So, I’m not going to hold that against him. So, if you see a bunch of that, it’s just like, okay, well, I’m not going to worry about that. But if you see like a lot of like this thing was junk, it broke, it, you know, it was, you know, didn’t do what I wanted it to do, and then you’re like, all right, well, I’m probably not buying that, right?

Jason: Um, so yeah. So, I mean, obviously for a retailer, if you are pushing your highly rated products, what what you’ll see is that you’ll get, you know, fewer returns, right? Better satisfaction overall, more likely to buy a things from you because of that trust and more likely to refer. So all very very positive if you lead with your highest ratings, right? Most e-commerce sites will say, you know, sort by best sellers, right? Because they know that they’re going to be happy with that purchase and then it’ll lead to future purchases.

Dave: Yeah. And I I sort by not only one, but I also sort by photos. So somebody that contributes a photo

Jason: Yeah. It’s a lot more relevant. Sure.

Dave: Yeah. Because I want to see it. I want to see what it what it actually looks like out of it. And

Dave: No, it’s obviously really really important for for products, but I think it I think it’s getting to be more and more service driven because over the last couple years, more and more buyers out there, even when they’re acquiring acquiring a service, they want to do all of their homework themselves and make up make up their own decision and they don’t want to be filling out forms. They don’t want to be doing their own, you know, evaluation. Their their mind is almost kind of made up and then once they’ve come to you, they’re really just looking for those a few few answers to questions, right, to to get answered. Um, so what if what if someone does leave a really bad review? Like what what best practices do you have? Um, do you is it is I assume it’s good to respond, but like do you have any and does does the platform help you do that as well?

Jason: It does, right? So, it’s funny because we built over the course of our development um, we know noticed that it was common for customers that our our customers for the reputation platform were responding, you know, eagerly to good reviews, but then they weren’t responding to the negative ones, right? And, you know, we noticed kind of a pattern there and started, you know, reaching out and be and we were asking questions like, you know, we notice you’re not responding. Why is that? And the most common answer was, I don’t know what to say.

Jason: Um because we’ve all we’ve all seen businesses respond, let’s just say, more aggressively than they should, right? That and that’s an easy reaction if somebody I mean, you think of it, a negative review is, you know, somebody’s insulting you in some cases attacking you, right? Um, you know, calling you terrible names and, you know, making accusations. So, it’s really easy for you to just go down a dark path and be like, you know, screw you. Um, and and that’s not wise for many reasons, right? Because, um, how you act in that situation is very revealing, you know, about you. and and how you treat your customers. So, we always like to say respond quickly, promptly, right? That’s I mean, imagine this is the virtual world we’re talking about. If somebody walked into a showroom and started screaming, “You guys suck.” And you know, you would you would handle that quickly, right? You would be like, “Oh, hey, let’s let’s let’s take this over here and and have a discussion.” But yet, they don’t do it online. They just kind of stick their head in this in the sand and just like, “Oh, everything’s fine. We’ll just ignore that what that person said.” So, I’d say, you know, to your your question would be respond quickly and respond tactfully.

Jason: Um, and and it’s fair to challenge a review if you know it’s false, right? So, a couple of ways that you can do that, like if you know this is a disgruntled former employee, you know, pretending to be a customer or if this is a competitor, right, trying to be a customer, um, you can obviously there there is a resolution process within the Google platform and others where you can report it. Um, but, you know, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be taken down, right? So, you do those things. You do those things. Um, but address it and you know, basically if if you know it’s false, but say, “Hey, you know, sorry about this, but we have no record of you being a customer.” Everyone’s seeing that. It’s like, all right, well, they responded. They took it seriously, and it probably wasn’t real or authentic, but if it is real, I mean, it’s totally fine to say publicly, look, hey, we are terribly sorry about the situation. We’d love to make it right. You know, please reach out or or we’ll reach out and and offer some kind of a resolution because another benefit of responding to negative reviews is what we found is that people that leave negative reviews organically, they just tend to be very passionate people, right? They’re just they just want to be heard. And nine times out of 10, they just want to be heard and feel empowered like, oh, I got something for, you know, being the squeaky wheel. I got the grease, right? So, if you have those customers, um, yeah, look, sometimes they’re completely irrational and it’s going to happen. But in most cases, you can flip them, right? Somebody was upset about some delivery or whatever, invite them back, make it right, you know, offer them something that makes them happy and then immediately follow up with an invitation for them to edit the review, right? Our our platform makes it very easy. So, if you see a bad review, you can invite the person, get resolution, and then quickly send them a text or an email where they can in one click edit the review. So, not only did you re, you know, erase the bad one. Essentially, you’ve replaced it with a very positive one, and they will become evangelists for you once you’ve made it right by them. So, that’s very important lesson to be learned with with dealing with negative reviews.

Dave: Yeah, I’m going to throw you a curveball. This is something we we we haven’t talked about at all, but it has come up in the last two weeks. I’ve seen this happen twice now. Nothing like related to us, but I felt I actually felt horrible when I saw this. So, someone leaving a review in a private group. So, specifically a Facebook group. There was there was an instance where I’ve seen this happen twice. One was someone and like a local city group, you know, like your your town has their own Facebook group, so like what’s happening in the town? Somebody just came on there and just totally lit up a restaurant and like called out every little stinking thing to kind of like flame them. And most people in the comments were like, like, whoa. Like what? Chill. Like some of what you’re saying is like that’s everywhere. And then other stuff it was, you know, was factual and The other other example was you know a situation where you know someone someone there was like a personal attack like I’m not sharing any details because I don’t but but it was like a personal attack. I mean is there anything you can do about that?

Jason: So technically that’s not a review right so that’s it’s just slander at that point right someone’s in a public space and they’re slandering you or just attacking you.

Jason: Um yeah the the best ways to diffuse those um you know certainly don’t engage in and feed the trolls right. Um, uh, always if you feel compelled to defend yourself, uh, in a space like that, I would just say, “Hey, obviously you’ve, you know, got some misunderstandings. I’d be happy to discuss this with you offline. Let’s connect.” And that’s it. That’s the end of it, right? And then they can go back and forth. And then they look like the crazy person. You look like the responsible person. So, it it’s a good way to, you know, do a little bit of I don’t want to say damage control because it might not even be actual damage, just someone’s opinion of you. But, yeah, not really a review, but still just a good advice for how to handle that. Yeah, always try to take those things offline and and don’t engage where it’s just kind of just rehashes the the entire, you know, argument.

Jason: But I think either way, whether if it’s if it’s in a private setting or a public setting, obviously people are engaging with them, there’s there’s relevancy to algorithms out there and it weights your reputation and and obviously it can it can really hurt it can it can really hurt a company. It also can help.

Jason: Um, you you were touching on something before before that I wanted to to just dig into. So we’ve been talking we so we just talked about public and private. What about internal like get like getting feedback internally if you’re a company and you’re looking to grow or you’re looking to add you know new positions careers talk about the importance of that.

Jason: Yeah that’s a big one right so most vast majority of of customers that we deal with do not have any uh strategy um or policy for trying to get employee reviews right and the benefit of of asking your employees to give reviews um is is twofold really. Um obviously if you are hearing and and most of the most of the platforms out there that’s completely anonymous, right? So like the big ones Indeed and Glass Door, you can you can review your employer and and there will be verification things to make sure you’re an actual employee. Um but there’s never any identity exposed, right? So you don’t have to worry about any fallout from like a review. Um you know, obviously if I’m an employee where it’s helpful for me to know what my employees are thinking, right? So I can maybe address some areas that I I wasn’t aware of, you know? Um so that’s it’s always helpful and we always encourage people, you know, to ask for that constantly, right? Any any opportunity to improve is good. Um but also it it’s very helpful for you when you’re going to try to hire, recruit, right? So on all the big, you know, platforms that are out there, if you think of, you know, big places, uh you know, online boards and things like indeed or whatevers, you know, somebody’s searching for a job in a particular field and they’re going to see all of these businesses that are looking to hire, you know, talent and you’re competing in that space, right? So, you’re you’re against all of your other competitors that are trying to attract the best and brightest. So, if you don’t have a good employee strategy or if you’re just, you know, kind of a a crummy employer or just haven’t put any effort forth, that’s going to hurt you, right? So, that’s that’s going to be um you know, a negative against you when if if other people in your field do have a plan and they are you doing a good job of managing these platforms and getting a lot of employee feedback. And if it’s mostly positive, they’re going to have an edge over you, right? So, in your recruiting efforts, you may not even get a chance to swing the bat, right, for interviews or anything. They might just dismiss you at face at face value. So, yeah, you definitely want to give your employees every chance to uh to give you meaningful feedback and tell you what they think. Um, use it as a chance to improve and it’ll help you uh you know, attract more talent as well.

Dave: Yeah, I can imagine like doing some small surveys if if you’re not doing any type of survey like CSAT not not even like customer sat like just internal satisfaction surveys you doing building some small ones out.

Jason: So one of the things that we do and and one of the newer uh features of our platform is that we can build out um we’re actually going to roll this out and and and kind of brand it. It’s going to be called our one minute survey. Right? So that’s a big one is that most surveys are not completed because the anticipation is that it’s going to take more time than I want to give it. Right? It’s just You know, we’ve all done the surveys where you you answer the okay, reluctantly I’ll do it. You answer the first question and the little progress meter is like, “Okay, question one of 38 and you’re like, “Oh god, I’m not doing this. I’m out.” Um, so ours is going to be very different. Ours is going to be like, you know, here’s our one minute survey. No typing required. You know, that’s it, right? So it’s it’s kind of an upfront contract where they know what they’re getting into. It’s like, all right, I can commit to a minute, right? And it’s just multiple choice or yes, nos and and that sort of thing. At the end, there’s a comment field if you want to leave additional, but it’s not required. Um, yeah. So, the private surveys are are really really important. And for employers, I mean, you can put like scannable, tapable, all kinds of stuff that, you know, we provide, but you can do it yourself in the break room. Like, we’re just non-c customerf facing areas, right? You can send out direct links via email. Hey, we just want want you to take our little survey, right? And you can do these things, you know, on a regular basis, monthly, quarterly, whatever it is. And you can change your topics. Um, you know, but that stuff is super super helpful for especially for big businesses that need to hire a Yeah.

Dave: What when is like is like timing so after a sale after uh a delivery of a service like is it do you have any statistics on that? Is it is because sometimes I get like leave a review like so like Amazon and things that I bought online not even not even Amazon like I’ve gotten to I’ve gotten an email where it’s like leave a review and I didn’t even get the product yet and I’m like I’m never going to do that is is t what like talk about timing of reviews the importance of that.

Jason: Yeah. So um I I think there’s there’s two buckets here. I mean one would be like reviewing a product right and then another would be reviewing a business right? So kind of two different things but I’ll do I’ll I’ll speak u on reviewing businesses right timing is you know obviously very important because you think of the customer cycle for any business you know they’re they’re going to be most joyful usually when they’ve completed the transaction, right? Because in their mind, you had to pass a lot of tests for them to trust you to purchase from you or do business with you. So, that’s probably the peak moment where you could, you know, offer an invitation uh to leave a review because they’re reviewing essentially the transaction that they approved with their purchase. Um, so that’s a good time, right? So, if you give them an opportunity and and don’t think you’re overdoing it, right? So, if you ask them if if you are a customerf facing business and you can ask them right on the spot, hey, would you mind helping me? Right? leave me a review and make it personal. Um, you know, especially if it’s a salesperson, obviously it’s human nature to to want to help each other. Hey, you just helped me get a good deal. I’ll help you leaving you a review. So, tap scan, whatever uh method you choose. Follow up after that. If they didn’t do it right there, if they weren’t comfortable, follow up with a text. If you’re if they’ve opted in, follow up with an email from your CRM and then ask them over and over again, right? And even if they left you a public review, you can follow up with private feedback afterward as well, right? If they choose not to engage, engage, that’s fine. But don’t think you’re asking too much because it’s that important, right? So, you want to make sure that you have every opportunity. But to your point about timing that um the early moments are the most pivotal, right? Because obviously if you give it time, the likelihood of somebody leaving review, you know, a a couple of days a week or a month is low. And if you’ve had time, you know, maybe it was a decaying relationship, then they might be like, “Oh, yeah, I will leave your review. This didn’t do what you said it was going to do.” You know, then you run into that Right. So, I would say yeah, timing is very important. Um, you know, try to get it up front as soon as possible when the transaction occurs. It’s it’s definitely going to help.

Dave: All right, that’s good advice. All right, let’s talk about we we can’t go an episode without talking about AI. So, how is AI affected reviews and what do you see like how are you using it with the platform and how do you see AI having an effect? When I say AI, I I mean like we’re we’re using chat GP and other platforms to help us with search results to help us research to help us is that is that a factor now already

Jason: massively already? Yeah. Big time. So a as we think of it this way, right? So if if a business has 500 or or a thousand reviews, literally no one will read them all, but AI will in a few milliseconds, right?

Jason: So if you were to actually try to read for yourself all those reviews, it would take hours, right? AI can do it in just an instant, right? So, what we use AI for and and really what Google is using AI for is to analyze sentiment. So, they’re analyzing sentiment that exists all over the web from their own platform, which obviously they have all that data, but then they can actually index other sites that are getting reviews, right? They can they can bring in sentiment from Facebook and Yelp and and our own platform, and they can compile all of that, and then they spit it right out. at the top in their little AI overview box. So that’s AI in action, right? So go ahead and and search right now. You can just say what are people saying about business X, business Y, whatever it is, and you’ll see right at the top. And then they provide little links and it’ll show you where they’re pulling that data from. Right? So kind of a a good way to really address this for your own business is put your own reviews on your website. Right? So why that’s important is that you’re bringing all of that relevant data and that and our AI optima optimizes all of the responses for citations. You’re bringing all of that relevant data onto your own reputation page on your own website. So whatever your business XYZ/reviews like that you want that page and you want to pipe in all of your reviews and your responses into that page, right? Massive, massive relevance. In fact, when you do that and you have these things in place, when you look in the AI overview in Google and you say, “What are people saying about my business?” You’re going to see that link number one for the most highly relevant content that Google is finding. Right? So that’s just step one of why AI is important. Why? Another way that we’re using AI is for our own sentiment analysis, what I what I just talked about. So on an executive level, again, if you’re a larger business with many locations, are you going to read every single review that comes in or you just kind of want the the overview that you know? And what our AI will do is analyze all of the sentiment that’s coming in. daily, hourly, whatever that is, it’ll scan for compliance terms. So, if you’re in a regulated industry and you see and you have it scanning for things like discrimination or or this and that, it’ll flag those things and send notifications to key personnel that might deal with those issues. So, you can address so nothing will fall through the cracks, right? So, AI is very good at that. Um, also for what I spoke of before, when people don’t respond to negative reviews and they say, “Well, I just don’t know what to say.” Our AI will offer a lot of really thoughtful suggestions questions and you can choose your brand tone in our platform. Um, which is interesting. So, you can use AI to help you craft responses to good, mediocre and poor reviews and you can choose your brand tone and the AI will basically rewrite it. So, if you want to be strictly professional or you want to be more a little more casual or a little funny, um, you can do it. And if you don’t like what it said, just re hit refresh. It’ll give you a whole new series. And of course, you can edit them and customize them as you will, but it’s very helpful for you. to put content up there and a response up there that is adding relevancy with the correct citations that Google really wants to see, right? Business names, locations, all that sort of thing. So AI is used on on our end and it’s used on the the customerf facing end. Uh so yeah, massively important and it’s it it’s only becoming more important.

Dave: Yeah. So I would imagine that when you’re looking at the platform and looking at the algorithms and looking at the space as a whole, you’re you’re for putting some heavy emphasis on that into how you’re innovating. So I is there anything you can share on because this has been great. Like there’s so many great tips here. If you haven’t been jotting these down, we’ll we’ll summarize them for you on agencybalance.com. So just go there, copy and paste these and even if you’re not in even if you’re not um in charge of this, send this to whoever’s in charge of this in your company. But can you share anything about what’s next? Like things that you’re forwards seeing already that you’re having to make adjustments in in the platform. Anything you know that you can share of kind of like that’s I don’t know.

Jason: Yeah, obviously um I mean we’re just kind of at the forefront of all of this. Um you know we’ve seen like I said in the beginning um the impact that it has on on everything that we did as an agency um with our clients and I would hope that you know the people involved in the agencies that are you know watching this would would take a take a deep look at all of their clients and you know if it’s B2B um some some industries, you know, customerf facing public reviews aren’t as important, but maybe the employee reviews are really important, you know, maybe private feedback and surveys and things like that are more important. And that’s all a component of reputation, right? So, we’re not just advocates of getting public reviews like that’s like kind of a small part of what we do, although it’s an important part. You know, we just believe holistically like have a strategy and and one of the big misconceptions that we hear a lot is that, you know, when we talk to you know, marketing officers and things like that. They’re just, oh, it’s going to create a lot more work for my team. We’re overworked and, you know, we have to do all this. In many ways, this is going to be less work for your team, right? So, you’re going to look like a hero because you’re going to be improving the reputation, which has an impact on ads and conversions and all those things that matter. Um, and a lot of it’s automated, right? So, a lot of what we do, the invitation process can be automated, right, through a CRM, um, where you’re sending links for people. Um, you know, that that that doesn’t have to require any work. The the responding with AI is very very simple. Um you know the feedback and the surveys and the analysis um you know it’s it’s not extra work. Um so yeah it’s forward I would say you know have a plan now right start talking to people about how to implement how to get those reviews on your website if you’re a public facing business. You know I would say that would be something I’d want to do within the next three months like like get that done like that is of utmost importance. It will affect all results um massive impact. So like don’t wait on don’t sleep on that one. That that’s important. But something that we are doing and you know I can kind of tease some some cool things that we are doing is um we we really are big believers in self-promotion right you know humble brag right when you do a good job don’t keep it a secret like like use that for marketing right so our platform is going to basically distill great sentiment featured reviews and content and then AI will generate graphics and cool things that you can use anywhere on your website, on digital ads, on billboards, or wherever you want to put it. It’ll frame it up. It’ll, you know, make it look beautiful. You can share it on your socials right through our dashboard. Um, so that’s pretty cool and that’s coming soon.

Dave: Yeah. Well, so while you were doing, while you were talking about that, I couldn’t help to to go back and I I did uh an an AI overview here. I’ll take a screenshot of this and post it up uh on this episode. Uh so I said, “Give me the give me a summary of reviews of Nike.” I’m wearing my Air Maxes today. I’m getting into my spring colors already. Uh, it said, “Reviews of Nike E generally praise their innovative design, stylus aesthetic, and strong brand image.” I agree with all that, but what was really cool about this and why I’m going to I’m going to circle back to why I’m why I think this is important. It gives positive and negative aspects. So, the the re the AI overview broke it down into high quality design, brand recognition, variety of styles, and then the negative aspects, which I think these are great. So, I guess these are over 10,000 reviews. It did it in milliseconds. Price point. Some customers find Nike products to be relatively expensive than compared to other brands. Yeah, every fashion sneaker is expensive. Now, sizing inconsistency. I agree with that because there’s like I’m wearing Air Maxes today. They’re absolutely different than Jordans versus any any So, yeah, sizing issues, right? Depending on where they’re And then customer service concern. Some users report challenges with returns or customer support with dealing defective products.

Dave: So it’s you’re you’re exactly spot on and obviously I just picked a huge brand here.

Jason: Sure. That’s a great exercise. I’d say anybody watching like go through your client roster and ask Google’s AI to say what are people thinking about this business or that business and you’re going to see it, right? So unless you have a lot of really positive reviews to offset because they’re going to find them, right? Like in one of my presentations I I was just like, you know, uncovering all the skeletons in your closet, you know, Google’s AI overview, they’re going to find the negative. So, you really need a big base of positive to offset that and lead um with the results. Like, so one little thing just like a little exercise fun thing that you can do is if you pop open Google Maps, there’s a little when it says results at the top, it defaults to relevance, right? It it it does not default to distance. And there’s a reason for that, right? If you click on the little I on Google Maps and It actually tells you the methodology for why they recommend things they do. It’s there. It’s in it’s hiding in plain sight. Nobody even looks at it. But it’s telling you these map results. Let’s see if you’re looking it up. You can see if I remember it correctly. It’ll say these map results are showing businesses based on three factors. Prominence, relevance, and distance are the three factors that it uses. Distance is number three. So think of it. Google Maps primarily is to help you find stuff, right? I I want to Oh, here I want to, you know, and two of the three most important factors that it uses to recommend are prominence, relevance, and distance. So, if you are right next door to a really crappy rated business, you’re probably not even going to see them as the closest search. It’s going to show you the better one alternative that’s maybe a mile away or two miles away. So, that’s how important this stuff is. It’s it’s all there for you. It’s hiding in plain sight. They’re telling you the road map to optimize the, you know, the organic results for your customers, your clients. Um, so it’s there, right? So, you know what to do, you know why you need to do it, just a matter of doing it. And there’s great partners that can help you do all this stuff. Um, rather than doing it on your own, because there’s there’s there’s a lot to know, right? And it’s good to have a a tech partner that knows knows all of this.

Dave: Yeah, I I was doing that, too. You’re you’re you’re spot on. The it um the lower review, actually, the lower review came up before the the It was a 4.0 versus a 4.1. The 4.1 was actually shorter distance and it had a better review, but it sent me to the other one. But I don’t know, the gas is more expensive than me. It must be to buy more of the gas.

Jason: Yeah. And and the other thing is it won’t always show the highest rated at the top because it’s looking again for relevance, right? So if somebody’s got a 5.0 but three reviews, the 4.7 with 100 reviews will always show up above. Always because of the base of information. Google has to deal with. They’re going to say this is a way more relevant business. They got more reviews, right? Quality, volume, and recency. Three things. Remember those. Quality obviously is speaks for itself. Volume, and then recency. If you’ve got old reviews and you don’t have a plan to get new fresh ones, less relevant. So, they’re less impactful than they should be. So, have a plan. Get a lot of them and get good ones.

Dave: Yeah. And and to put a bow on on what we’re talking about here, this is your research, right? You could there’s so many times where I hear like, “Well, we don’t even know where to start or like we don’t know what’s going on or we don’t understand why there’s a problem in in customer service.” You have your data right here.

Jason: It’s right here for you. Just start. If you can’t read your 10,000 reviews, use AI to go in there and summarize it for you. And then this is you need to put this into your action plan. You need to start addressing the these things or you’re just going to keep doing the same having the same problems over and over and over again. Um, so this This is absolutely gold, Jason. How do people how do they how do they take a look at the platform? How do they can can they try this? Talk to me about that. I I want to make sure that everybody knows how to find this.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely. So, we’ve got some great agency programs um that are that are wonderful and um we we have we just launched our new agency dashboard, which is a great tool. Um you know, if you’ve got anywhere from just a handful of clients to hundreds of clients, um if you want them active and using our tools. You can manage it all from one dashboard. You can see the reviews and and feedback and private surveys for all of your clients. You can you can engage on their behalf if if they want you to do that. Um and manage um all of this, right? So, right from our tool, it’s reviews.com is is our platform and uh I would just encourage anybody just go on the little demo link and uh and book a time and then we can, you know, talk about all the agency programs that we have available.

Dave: Amazing. We’ll get that linked up as well on agencybalance.com. Absolutely. Definitely check this out if you haven’t. Are you open for some bonus coverage?

Jason: Let’s do it.

Dave: Do some bonus coverage. All right. So, this is going to be a first for Agency Balance. So, if you’re listening right now and you want to see this firsthand, this is the point where you you you quit out of Apple, you quit out of Spotify, and jump onto our YouTube channel. Jason is going to graciously take us through a little sneak peek of of some of the things that we’ve been talking about here and bring it to life visually. So now’s the time to hop out.