General questions about Online Reputation Management for clients

[JeffClevelandTN]

For our clients, we've never really delved into offering Online Reputation Management (ORM) as a paid service.

We have a prospective client with a number of locations and are pretty confident they will signing soon for SEO, Social, Ad Management, content and creative. However, one of the partners asked if we would consider handling their reputation management. While I'm still waiting on some additional feedback as to what they consider "reputation management", I do know they are currently using BirdEye for automated replies to Google reviews with different templates based on number of stars. One of their staff personally handles any reviews two-stars or less.

I did a quick search on the forum for previous threads, but not much there. I'd really appreciate feedback from anybody that has experience in this area to share their insight.

1. What services do you provide related to ORM? Is it just replying to Google reviews, or other platforms like Yelp?
2. I know this is a very broad question and some may not want to share this, but what is a general monthly price model?
3. What tools are out there? I already mentioned BirdEye, but I've seen GatherUp mentioned. For this client at least, we'd not be handling review acquisitions.

@ErinJones I think when we talked at the LocalU Event you may have mentioned you have experience in ORM?

Thanks in advance!

 

[elephant]

Hi Jeff,

Well, first off you might want to consider offering a superior alternative to Birdeye like SeoSamba Marketing OS, under your own brand. It covers over 100 platforms, it also covers citation building, social marketing, has AI response built-in etc...

As for ORM, from the experience of agency partners who offer this service, you should expect to manage the first 10 results of Google for your client.

As such, pricing depends on the queries (usually a name/brand), prominence of the customer and the severity of the situation. It can range from a few hundred dollars to many thousands a month.

We recommend that you explicitly label results that need to be targeted, as any new adverse result might pop up at any time during the engagement. Feel free to PM if you need additional guidance.

Good luck

Michel

 

[stevehartman3]

For our clients, we've never really delved into offering Online Reputation Management (ORM) as a paid service.

We have a prospective client with a number of locations and are pretty confident they will signing soon for SEO, Social, Ad Management, content and creative. However, one of the partners asked if we would consider handling their reputation management. While I'm still waiting on some additional feedback as to what they consider "reputation management", I do know they are currently using BirdEye for automated replies to Google reviews with different templates based on number of stars. One of their staff personally handles any reviews two-stars or less.

I did a quick search on the forum for previous threads, but not much there. I'd really appreciate feedback from anybody that has experience in this area to share their insight.

1. What services do you provide related to ORM? Is it just replying to Google reviews, or other platforms like Yelp?
2. I know this is a very broad question and some may not want to share this, but what is a general monthly price model?
3. What tools are out there? I already mentioned BirdEye, but I've seen GatherUp mentioned. For this client at least, we'd not be handling review acquisitions.

@ErinJones I think when we talked at the LocalU Event you may have mentioned you have experience in ORM?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Jeff,
I'm biased on which platform is best (working for GatherUp) but I'll answer the other questions. When it comes to ORM we see:
- Some agencies will offer ORM as part of their SEO offering with the benefit of utilizing a review widget or stream to display reviews on the business' website.
- We encourage 3 pricing models, Do it With You, Do it For You, and Do it Yourself, with corresponding margins or markups for clients based on the level of effort for your agency. For instance, Do it For You would require your agency to respond to reviews and thus you would charge a higher price for that, vs just offering the software white-labeled (Do it Yourself).

Hope that is helpful.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@elephant and @stevehartman3, thank you both for the great feedback and advice! Steve, I LOVE the pricing model names: Do it With You & Do it For You.

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Jeff, a some ORM-related things our clients have asked for include

• A positive Google review disappeared and they want help getting it back
• A negative review is posted that violates Google's guidelines (fake, irrelevant, etc) and they want help getting it removed
• They have very few reviews and want us to reach out to past, current, new clients and get them to post reviews

Just some things to consider as you decide what to include in a ORM service.

 

[keyserholiday]

Jeff, we set up email alerts each time a new review comes in. We flag the negative reviews and respond to them. With multi-location businesses, there's never a dull moment. A few went viral, and we had to get the reviews removed. Those are slam dunks. I also audit the negative reviews to see the common themes so those issues can be addressed. You can take the positive reviews and create social posts.

Since they are using Birdeye, ensure they are not soliciting Yelp reviews. That violates Yelp's TOS. Also never state that you remove Yelp reviews, you will get a letter from legal.

If you have more questions, hit me up.

 

[Jenny_BrightLocal]

Hey Jeff, BrightLocal offers Reputation Management. I recently spoke with a large agency customer who does it for one of their national multi-location brands.

She explained how part of their service includes responding to all customer reviews across multiple platforms so they can maintain and preserve the client's brand. As a third party, it means they're objective about all reviews (even the negative ones!) so they can respond in a measured way. It was really interesting to hear how they offer this as a service and how it works agency-side.

Hope that helps!

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@Jenny_BrightLocal thanks for the reply! We are a subscriber to BL and had totally forgotten about your ORM product. I'll take a look. Thanks!

 

[Jenny_BrightLocal]

You're welcome

 

[SSMMatt]

@JeffClevelandTN I found your thread and was wondering how you ultimately included this service in your offerings. Let me know how it's gone. Thanks!

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@JeffClevelandTN I found your thread and was wondering how you ultimately included this service in your offerings. Let me know how it's gone. Thanks!

Hi Matt, our client's needs weren't complicated and the ORM features available in our existing Brightlocal subscription are going to handle it just fine. Let me know if you need any additional info!