Most businesses read reviews one at a time, as they come in. That is the right way to reply to them, but it is a poor way to learn from them, because a single review is one person's experience on one day. Read a whole season's reviews together and patterns appear that no single review shows.
The holidays are the best season to do this for, because they are when a business is under the most pressure. If something breaks when you are busy, last December's reviews will probably say so. Reading them in October gives you time to fix it before it happens again.
Pull every review from last November to January
Gather the reviews from the season on every site you are reviewed on, not just Google. Include the good ones as well as the bad, and if you have them, add complaints that came in by email, phone or social messages. Customers who were unhappy do not always leave a public review.
Then read them all in one sitting and note every specific thing customers mention, positive or negative. Ignore the star ratings for now. You are looking for what happened, not how people scored it.
Look for what repeats
One complaint about a long wait is a bad day. Four complaints about long waits on Saturday afternoons is a staffing problem. Group your notes by theme and count them. The usual holiday ones are:
- Waiting: on hold, in line, for a callback, or for a reply to a message.
- Mix-ups: wrong orders, missed bookings, or details lost between one person and the next.
- Information that was wrong: hours, availability, prices or delivery dates that did not match what the customer was told or saw online.
- Staff stretched thin: customers noticing that the team was rushed, or that nobody seemed to know the answer.
- What went well: the people, products or touches customers singled out for praise.
A season's reviews, read together, are a list of what to fix before the next one.
Fix the top two or three
You will not fix everything before December, so pick the two or three themes that came up most and do something specific about each. If people waited on hold, decide who covers the phone at peak times. If information was wrong, check your hours and holiday details on every listing. If orders got mixed up, look at where the details are written down and who passes them on.
Do not ignore the praise. If customers singled out a particular person, product or habit, make sure it happens again this year, and tell the people involved. It is good for morale, and it tells the team what matters to customers.
Plan who will reply this year
While you are looking at reviews, decide how new ones will be handled during the season. Who answers your reviews over the holidays? covers how to keep replies going when the team is busy, and your review reply is written for the next customer explains what makes a good one. If a problem from last year comes up again, a reply that says what you changed is more convincing than an apology.
Reputation management with Vizible brings reviews from the major sites into one place, with alerts for each new one and sentiment analysis that helps surface the themes customers mention most. A free growth proposal shows how it would work for your business.
Frequently asked questions
- Why read last year's holiday reviews?
- The holidays are when a business is under the most pressure, so reviews from that period show what breaks when you are busy. Reading them early gives you time to fix it before this season.
- Which reviews should I include?
- Every review from the season on every site you are reviewed on, positive and negative, plus complaints that came in privately by email, phone or message.
- What should I look for?
- Themes that repeat, such as long waits, mix-ups, wrong information or stretched staff, and anything customers singled out for praise.
- What if I can't fix everything before the holidays?
- Pick the two or three themes that came up most often and make one specific change for each. That is more useful than trying to address every comment.