Only 3% of consumers say they never check online reviews — but for the remaining 97%, reviews play a critical role in influencing shoppers' decisions.
For example, did you know 50% of people "trust consumer reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family," according to research from 2024? Or that more than a quarter of consumers — 28% — won't even consider using a business with under 50 reviews?
There's no question that online reviews have a massive impact on your bottom line — and when it comes to review platforms, Google reigns supreme. More than 80% of consumers say they've checked Google reviews in the past year, versus just 45% of consumers checking the second-largest platform, Facebook.
To manage your Google reviews efficiently, your small business needs the right review management software. But with so many services available, navigating your options can be a time-consuming project.
That's why we created this guide to Google review software, which compares seven of the best Google review management tools for small businesses in 2024. Whether your goal is to get more customer feedback, respond to negative reviews, or boost your brand reputation with review analytics and insights, you'll find Google review management software that fits your organization's needs.
Before we jump into our list of the seven best Google review management tools, let's go over some factors to consider when evaluating your software options:
It's impossible to manage reviews without monitoring them. Be sure to look for software that provides robust review monitoring capabilities: the more review sites it allows you to track, the better.
The platform should pull all of your reviews from multiple sources into a single, easy-to-navigate dashboard, including your Google Maps reviews, Yelp reviews, Facebook reviews, and more. This will enable you to save time by managing reviews from one central location, instead of having to individually check multiple platforms and accounts.
The software should also allow you to sort and search reviews using various filters, like displaying new reviews first or sorting by star rating. Additionally, it should feature customizable notification settings, such as the option for you to receive text or email alerts when new reviews or ratings are posted about your business.
BrightLocal research reveals that almost nine in 10 consumers — 88% — say they're likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews, including both negative and positive reviews. But that percentage plummets to just 58% when businesses only respond to negative reviews. It shrinks even further to 54% when they only respond to positive reviews, and down to 47% when they don't respond to reviews at all.
In other words, replying to reviews makes your business significantly more likely to attract potential customers. Therefore, your business should look for review management tools that allow you to respond to reviews quickly and frictionlessly.
For example, some platforms provide review response templates your business can edit and use to accelerate its response time. Other platforms use AI and/or human writers to respond to reviews for you, which eliminates not only the task of writing, but also the task of publishing your responses.
Learn more about creating effective Google review responses for your business.
If you want to improve your brand reputation, you need to generate positive reviews — and if you want to get more positive reviews, you need a platform that makes it easy to solicit customer feedback.
Look for software that lets you send review links and QR codes to customers, personalize your review requests, follow up with review reminders, and share positive reviews to your social media pages.
With review generation software, your team no longer needs to manually create or distribute review invitation links, saving you valuable time while helping your business grow its reputation.
Not all review management software is ideal for small businesses. Some platforms are geared toward large or midsize organizations, while others offer a variety of solutions depending on your business size:
When choosing a review management tool for your small business, it's a good idea to check out the typical user base of each platform, which will help you find software that aligns with your goals and budget.
Where can you find this information? One good resource is the software review site G2, which breaks down various review platforms by market segment.
For example, while the platform Yotpo offers enterprise solutions on its website, G2 reports that 76% of the platform's users are small businesses, while mid-market businesses comprise 21% of its user base. Some examples are even more pronounced, such as the platform AiTrillion, whose user base is 92% small businesses according to G2.
On a similar note, it's helpful to choose a platform that's geared toward your industry. For example, the platform ReviewInc offers review management tools for automotive, dental, financial, home services, and other types of businesses.
No matter what review management software you ultimately choose, it needs to fit your organization's budget. Most platforms offer more than one pricing tier, so be sure to select a plan that includes the features and services you need.
Many platforms offer a free demo or trial period, which gives you a valuable opportunity to preview and explore their features and use cases. Some also offer discounted pricing for choosing an annual plan over a monthly plan, which can help you save money in the long run.
Now that we've discussed what to look for in review management software, such as tools for automating review requests, let's check out seven of the top platforms for small businesses in 2024:
You'll find an overview of each platform's key features, advantages, and use cases, along with screenshots and information about pricing.
ResponseScribe is a mobile-friendly, AI-enhanced reputation management platform. It offers multiple features for managing online reviews, including review tracking with automatic alerts, human and AI review responding, and review sentiment analysis.
The platform streamlines your review management process by automatically aggregating all of your reviews from 50+ platforms into one secure dashboard, including Google, Yelp, Facebook, the Better Business Bureau, and industry-specific review sites like Angi and Healthgrades.
Whenever your business receives a review, ResponseScribe generates an on-brand response using your preferred strategy of AI or human content. All human responses are delivered within 24 hours, and AI responses are ready in just minutes. Your business can optionally review the responses before they're published, which ensures that all replies are consistent with your desired messaging.
ResponseScribe is designed for multi-location businesses of all sizes and scales to meet your evolving needs as your business grows. The platform has use cases for various industries, including automotive, public storage, dental, hotel, restaurant, and more.
Whether you need to manage five listings or 50, ResponseScribe's powerful AI tools and experienced content writers make tracking and responding to your reviews truly effortless. The platform also includes review generation features as part of its ReviewNavigator package, enabling you to collect more positive reviews and boost your local ranking on Google.
ResponseScribe costs just $29 per month, per location. That includes review reporting and insights, unlimited revision requests, and up to 50 custom responses per month. There are no long-term contracts, and you're always free to cancel or upgrade plans.
Birdeye is a multipurpose platform for managing your online reputation and enhancing the customer experience your business delivers. Birdeye has use cases for both small businesses and enterprises, along with numerous types of industries, including retail, wellness, real estate, and financial services.
Along with webchat software, business listing management, and social media management, Birdeye also offers various AI-powered tools for review management, including features that support review generation, review responding, and review monitoring across more than 200 platforms.
Using Birdeye's platform, small businesses can easily display positive reviews on their websites, respond to Google reviews using Birdeye's AI writing assistant, send QR code review invites to their customers, and more. Plus, Birdeye is a certified Google partner and integrates with Google’s private API.
Birdeye offers three types of plans — "Starter" (the most basic option), "Growth," and "Dominate" (the most advanced option) — but does not provide pricing specifics on its website. Instead, you'll be prompted to enter some basic details about your business into Birdeye's pricing configurator, such as how many locations you need to manage.
Podium calls itself an "AI-powered lead conversion platform that sells, schedules, communicates and accepts payments from customers." Industries that Podium serves include automotive, health and wellness, home services, and retail.
The platform offers a wide variety of features to help you capture and convert leads, such as lead reporting and summaries. It also provides tools for managing online reviews on Google and other platforms, including review reporting, automated review invites, and AI-powered review responses.
Podium offers three pricing plans: Core ($399 per month), Pro ($599 per month), and Signature (custom pricing). You can see an overview of what each plan includes in the screenshot below:
If you’re in digital marketing, you may have already used Semrush to research keywords and check how your site was performing. But did you know that, in addition to its keyword generator and traffic analytics, Semrush also features a powerful review management tool?
The Semrush review management tool aggregates reviews from across more than 80 directories, so that you can efficiently sort and view online feedback from your customers — without the need to check multiple platforms.
One of the platform's stand-out review management features is its ChatGPT-powered AI Auto Reply tool, which speeds up and simplifies replying to customer feedback. However, the AI Auto Reply is only available with Premium Semrush Local, which you'll find more information about in the section on pricing below.
Semrush offers four pricing plans: "Pro" ($139.95 per month), "Guru" ($249.95 per month), "Business" ($499.95 per month), or a custom plan tailored to your business. However, there's an extra charge to access Semrush's review management features, including the ability to respond to Google reviews using AI:
Semrush is currently offering a discount for businesses that pay annually instead of choosing a monthly subscription. Plus, you can try Semrush for free.
Yotpo describes itself as a retention marketing platform and caters to a diverse range of industries, including food, fashion, beauty, travel, and software companies. Yotpo helps businesses analyze customer data, predict customer behavior and trends, create and moderate customer communities, and "create seamless eCommerce journeys" that strengthen brand loyalty and increase engagement.
Along with email marketing, referral programs, and several other use cases, one of the platform's chief functions is to help your business build trust — and boost retention — by collecting and showing off positive customer reviews (along with other types of user generated content, or UGC).
For example, your business can use Yotpo to get more reviews by sending your customers personalized requests and invites, which are simple to build using the platform's AI-powered "advanced review request flows." You can also use Yotpo to send SMS review requests, discover emerging customer trends, analyze customer sentiment, and display review summaries on your website.
Yotpo offers three pricing tiers: the "Starter" plan ($79 per month), "Pro" plan ($169 per month), or "Premium" plan ($699 per month).
You can also try Yotpo for free with limited features, which include a review dashboard, automated email and SMS review requests, and a widget to easily display reviews on your site.
Yotpo provides a detailed side-by-side comparison table, enabling businesses to find the right plan for their needs. For example, customer onboarding is only available with the Premium plan.
ReviewInc describes itself as "AI-powered review and reputation management software." The platform has use cases for various industries including veterinary, insurance, and dental, and offers services tailored to single-location small businesses, businesses with up to 50 locations, and enterprises looking to manage 50+ locations.
ReviewInc's platform provides your business with a comprehensive suite of tools for monitoring, collecting, and responding to customer reviews, including Facebook and Google reviews.
For example, you can use ReviewInc's ready-made templates to easily create on-brand, custom review invites — and when the reviews start coming in, replying is a snap using the platform's AI writing tool, which also allows you to build a response library.
The platform will also send you "instant notifications for reviews and mentions" of your brand, along with "comprehensive reports [that] offer insights into your online reputation."
ReviewInc does not provide specific pricing on its website. However, the pricing page features a comparison table of four plans: "Monitor," "Basic," "Pro," and, for large companies, "Enterprise."
It's important to note that you'll need a Basic, Pro, or Enterprise plan to access most of the platform's review generation features:
However, all four plans come with various review management features, including a review response library, responses to Facebook and Google reviews, a centralized dashboard for managing all of your business listings, and automatic alerts about new reviews:
ReviewTrackers is a reputation management platform that empowers your business to "gain social proof with more reviews," "retain your customers with [customer] experience analysis," "outperform your rivals with competitor insights," and "attract new customer[s] with high star ratings."
To help you accomplish these goals, the platform provides various review management tools and capabilities, which include review monitoring, review generation, and review response. For example, your business can use ReviewTrackers to automate requests for customer feedback, generate on-brand replies to Google reviews, and respond to reviews or brand mentions on social media.
Additionally, the platform's Natural Language Processing engine "identifies trends and sentiment across feedback and reviews," enabling you to make business decisions based on detailed, up-to-date data. And since ReviewTrackers integrates with over 1,000 popular apps, its easy to connect with your existing tech stack.
ReviewTrackers offers three types of plans — "Data Only," "Essential," or "Custom" — but does not provide specific pricing details on its website.
To access certain review management features, including the platform's review request and review response capabilities, you'll need an Essential or Custom plan.
Increase customer satisfaction, improve your online reputation, and manage Google reviews — all from one powerful dashboard. With an intuitive interface, lightning-fast setup, and integrations with 50+ platforms, ResponseScribe makes managing customer reviews a breeze for small businesses.
Discover how fast you can grow your business with the right review management tool supporting you. Get started with your free trial of ResponseScribe today.
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