Google My Business and DMA: what’s changing for your customer reviews
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2024 6:04 am
If you weren't aware that the Digital Market Act came into force on March 6, you probably don't know what this article is about.
Indeed, we had explained to you the potential impacts of the DMA on Google . To summarize simply, this legislation voted by the European Union aims to force large digital companies to comply with new rules in order to fight against anti-commercial practices. Google, Apple and Microsoft are therefore among the companies targeted by these imposed changes.
For Google and especially Google My Business , this notably involves leaving space for its competitors on its platforms and putting an end to its dominance: especially in terms of customer reviews .
Changing the display of reviews, multi-platform belarus mobile phone number list collection… we explain it all to you in this article.
1. What are the changes for your customer reviews on Google My Business?
2. How to adapt to changes in Google customer reviews?
Conclusion
Google My Business customer review changes
1. What are the changes for your customer reviews on Google My Business?
You may have already noticed it, and it is most obvious when looking for information on an establishment: Google customer reviews are no longer displayed as before.
First of all, you no longer need to click on the stars on a Google My Business page to see reviews appear (although this still works). You just need to indicate the name of the establishment, followed or preceded by the word “ reviews ”.
DMA display google customer reviews
New display of customer reviews on Google
In addition, once this search is done, you can see that not only Google reviews are displayed, but also those from different platforms , regardless of whether they are paid for establishments (with verified reviews ) or free and accessible to everyone. There are tools such as:
Yellow Pages
Trustpilot
Trustfolio
Verified Reviews
Planity
Tripadvisor
Thefork
Yelp
DMA customer reviews google new display
New display of Google customer reviews: several platforms grouped together
Latest change in the display of customer reviews and more particularly in the sorting of these, it is no longer possible to display reviews by categories “The worst”, “The best,” “The most recent”, “The oldest”... Depending on your point of view, this can be good or bad news. Now, the Google algorithm makes its selection randomly by taking into account the usefulness of the reviews, their age and by favoring those with photos, videos and comments.
adapt changes google my business customer reviews
2. How to adapt to changes in customer reviews on Google?
To cope with these changes, you must therefore adapt and modify your habits in order to continue to excel in the management of your customer reviews .
Claim all your profiles
If you have read our previous articles and followed our advice, you are currently the owner of your Google My Business listing(s). However, with the display of new platforms, it becomes imperative for you to also claim ownership of your profiles on them in order to be able to respond to reviews and adjust the information listed there if necessary.
So remember to create your accounts or retrieve your identifiers on the different customer review collection solutions.
Change your routine and adapt your strategy
As you will have understood, all the online reviews on your establishment become visible from a single place, which is also very accessible to everyone.
If you're used to checking and responding to your Google reviews every morning, it's important to incorporate into your routine the other platforms where your customers can potentially provide feedback.
To help you, you can, for example, set up Google Alerts to monitor what is being said about you.
Beyond your habits, it may be necessary to review your customer review management strategy :
How do I respond to my reviews in a timely manner?
How can I improve my customer experience to get more positive reviews?
How do I collect new reviews?
Respond to all customer reviews
The most important step is this: whether on Google My Business or not, you must respond to all your customer reviews. Whether they are good or bad, honest or not, with or without comments. This will allow you to improve your e-reputation and compensate for changes in display but also to be more visible online by improving your local SEO .
To do this, you can use Digitaleo, which thanks to the automatic response to customer reviews will allow you to achieve a response rate of 100%.
If you don't know how to answer it , you will find two guides here:
How to respond to a satisfied customer?
How to respond to a dissatisfied customer?
Conclusion
Contrary to what we may have heard following the announcement of the Digital Market Act, no, Google My Business is not “dead”: it is re-adapting to the new requirements of the European Union but remains a must for local marketing , particularly in terms of customer review management, even if these changes may seem restrictive.
To support this transition and these new habits, we can only recommend that you equip yourself with a customer review management solution like Digitaleo. Your Google and Facebook reviews will be centralized in the same place to save you time and the automatic response to customer reviews will allow you to obtain a 100% response rate on Google and give you time to respond to those on other platforms. You will also receive a complete report thanks to the semantic analysis , enough to know your strengths and areas for improvement and notifications for each new review thanks to the mobile application. Moreover, the Presence Management module from Digitaleo is complementary and will allow you to improve your local SEO as well as the experience of your users!
Finally, Google announced the testing of a new feature that will allow you to display a business's social media posts directly on Google My Business listings. This is a new feature that you should prepare for now, as are other potential changes to come.
Indeed, we had explained to you the potential impacts of the DMA on Google . To summarize simply, this legislation voted by the European Union aims to force large digital companies to comply with new rules in order to fight against anti-commercial practices. Google, Apple and Microsoft are therefore among the companies targeted by these imposed changes.
For Google and especially Google My Business , this notably involves leaving space for its competitors on its platforms and putting an end to its dominance: especially in terms of customer reviews .
Changing the display of reviews, multi-platform belarus mobile phone number list collection… we explain it all to you in this article.
1. What are the changes for your customer reviews on Google My Business?
2. How to adapt to changes in Google customer reviews?
Conclusion
Google My Business customer review changes
1. What are the changes for your customer reviews on Google My Business?
You may have already noticed it, and it is most obvious when looking for information on an establishment: Google customer reviews are no longer displayed as before.
First of all, you no longer need to click on the stars on a Google My Business page to see reviews appear (although this still works). You just need to indicate the name of the establishment, followed or preceded by the word “ reviews ”.
DMA display google customer reviews
New display of customer reviews on Google
In addition, once this search is done, you can see that not only Google reviews are displayed, but also those from different platforms , regardless of whether they are paid for establishments (with verified reviews ) or free and accessible to everyone. There are tools such as:
Yellow Pages
Trustpilot
Trustfolio
Verified Reviews
Planity
Tripadvisor
Thefork
Yelp
DMA customer reviews google new display
New display of Google customer reviews: several platforms grouped together
Latest change in the display of customer reviews and more particularly in the sorting of these, it is no longer possible to display reviews by categories “The worst”, “The best,” “The most recent”, “The oldest”... Depending on your point of view, this can be good or bad news. Now, the Google algorithm makes its selection randomly by taking into account the usefulness of the reviews, their age and by favoring those with photos, videos and comments.
adapt changes google my business customer reviews
2. How to adapt to changes in customer reviews on Google?
To cope with these changes, you must therefore adapt and modify your habits in order to continue to excel in the management of your customer reviews .
Claim all your profiles
If you have read our previous articles and followed our advice, you are currently the owner of your Google My Business listing(s). However, with the display of new platforms, it becomes imperative for you to also claim ownership of your profiles on them in order to be able to respond to reviews and adjust the information listed there if necessary.
So remember to create your accounts or retrieve your identifiers on the different customer review collection solutions.
Change your routine and adapt your strategy
As you will have understood, all the online reviews on your establishment become visible from a single place, which is also very accessible to everyone.
If you're used to checking and responding to your Google reviews every morning, it's important to incorporate into your routine the other platforms where your customers can potentially provide feedback.
To help you, you can, for example, set up Google Alerts to monitor what is being said about you.
Beyond your habits, it may be necessary to review your customer review management strategy :
How do I respond to my reviews in a timely manner?
How can I improve my customer experience to get more positive reviews?
How do I collect new reviews?
Respond to all customer reviews
The most important step is this: whether on Google My Business or not, you must respond to all your customer reviews. Whether they are good or bad, honest or not, with or without comments. This will allow you to improve your e-reputation and compensate for changes in display but also to be more visible online by improving your local SEO .
To do this, you can use Digitaleo, which thanks to the automatic response to customer reviews will allow you to achieve a response rate of 100%.
If you don't know how to answer it , you will find two guides here:
How to respond to a satisfied customer?
How to respond to a dissatisfied customer?
Conclusion
Contrary to what we may have heard following the announcement of the Digital Market Act, no, Google My Business is not “dead”: it is re-adapting to the new requirements of the European Union but remains a must for local marketing , particularly in terms of customer review management, even if these changes may seem restrictive.
To support this transition and these new habits, we can only recommend that you equip yourself with a customer review management solution like Digitaleo. Your Google and Facebook reviews will be centralized in the same place to save you time and the automatic response to customer reviews will allow you to obtain a 100% response rate on Google and give you time to respond to those on other platforms. You will also receive a complete report thanks to the semantic analysis , enough to know your strengths and areas for improvement and notifications for each new review thanks to the mobile application. Moreover, the Presence Management module from Digitaleo is complementary and will allow you to improve your local SEO as well as the experience of your users!
Finally, Google announced the testing of a new feature that will allow you to display a business's social media posts directly on Google My Business listings. This is a new feature that you should prepare for now, as are other potential changes to come.