John Carroll, Senior Manager of Business Outreach at Yelp, joins the Social Pros Podcast to discuss the importance of responding to online reviews and why you should never underestimate the value of good customer service.   Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn't do it without their help! This week: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Emma   Respond to Customer Reviews! Did you know that reviews that mention good customer service are 15 times more likely to be a 5-star review than a 1-star review? The problem is that so many businesses are focused on perfecting their product and ‘brand identity’ that customer service is often put on the back burner. John Carroll, Sr. Manager of Business Outreach, believes that you shouldn’t have a different customer service strategy for each channel. Instead, you need to adopt a global customer service strategy that’s consistent across all of the channels. So, if you respond promptly in person, you should respond promptly online. What your customers say about you online is important and if you want to keep negative reviews at bay, you’ve got to improve your customer service. Of course, you can’t always prevent customers from blasting negative feedback. But, there is a way to turn your most critical review into a positive insight. You’ll just need to tune in to our discussion with John Carroll to find out how…   In This Episode: 02:10 – Interesting statistics about how people leave reviews based on customer service and the speed of service 06:58 – Why it’s so important for brands to respond to reviews 14:13 – How brands have listened to Yelp reviews and turned things around 20:32 – John predicts the future of Yelp reviews concerning 5G, GPS and mobile 24:05 – Tips to help businesses get more reviews on Yelp 30:22 – How Yelp leverages social for customer service   Resources Get the new State of Marketing report for free from Salesforce here. Find out more about the community at SocialMedia.org with a special form for Social Pros listeners here. Learn how to stay connected with your email marketing subscribers using Emma Find out more about Yelp’s Study: Customers Often Talk To The Manager Before Writing a 1-Star Review Discover why Faster Service Leads to Better Reviews and Happier Customers Learn why Customer Service is the Secret to 5-Star Reviews Log in to Yelp for Business Owners and start responding to customer reviews Take a look at Marina Abramović’s nerve-wrecking performance of “The Other: Rest Energy” (1980)   Visit SocialPros.com  for more insights from your favorite social media marketers.