How to Manage Google Reviews for Multiple Business Locations?
Nikola Bojkov
Managing Google reviews for multiple locations can be very challenging, as businesses with multiple physical locations need separate Google locations.
In such cases, you need separate Google business accounts for each office or store for various reasons, especially review management purposes.
There are two approaches for this situation: you can either manage all locations on a corporate level or have a dedicated person in charge of each location.
Continue reading to learn the best practices for getting more reviews and creating a multi-location reviews management strategy for your brand.
Google business profile management for multi-location businesses
Leverage API-only functionality for multi-location brands and enterprises.
Multi-location review management means monitoring and responding to customer feedback across all your business locations on different review sites, such as Google Business Profiles, Facebook pages, or Yelp listings.
This is crucial because each review, negative or positive, shapes the perceptions potential customers have of your brand and impacts their purchase decisions.
When creating your review management strategy, you first have to think about the review sites where you want to collect customer feedback and the way you will do it: via the corporate or the individual approach.
1. Decide the multi-location listing policy and approach
First, consider whether you want each location to be responsible for managing its presence on review platforms or if reviews should be aggregated by the main corporate office and managed there. Here’s a breakdown of both approaches:
Corporate management of Google reviews—the customer service team of the entire company manages the reviews of individual Google locations. This can also be a person in existing teams, such as marketing or customer service teams.
Individual management of Google reviews—each business location establishes and manages its own Google review policies independently of the main office.
2. Select the review sites relevant to your business
Given its influence on local search visibility, Google Business Profile should be your first choice, and it already supports businesses with multiple locations.
However, don’t overlook social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, or industry-specific review sites like Yelp or Trustpilot, as each plays a specific role.
How to manually manage multiple business location reviews via Google Business Profile?
Managing manually means that you need to access each account to find the latest Google reviews and respond to them. This includes the following steps:
Create a Google location for each separate business (steps below).
Navigate to your Google Business Profile dashboard or manager.
Go to the ‘Reviews’ tab and click individual reviews to reply to them.
How to add more locations to your Google Business Profile account?
To add locations to your Google Business Profile (GBP), you need to:
Sign into Google with the same email you used to create your business location.
Type your business name or ‘my business’ into Google Search
Click ‘Add a new Business Profile‘ to initiate the process.
Follow the steps to add a new location to your Google Business Profile manager.
Once you start receiving reviews for each location, you will need to access them separately for each location.
So, if you have over 10 locations, this means that you will be spending too much time replying to individual reviews.
That’s where multi-location review management software comes in, which is built specifically for this purpose.
How to automatically manage Google reviews for multiple locations via EmbedSocial?
Big enterprises managing Google reviews can face a variety of problems if they use only the native option. Google’s system already allows agencies to manage their clients’ profiles, but usually, this process is a one-size-fits-all solution and can be complex for managing accounts and sharing information.
That is why using a multi-location review management tool specifically built for companies operating in different locations is crucial.
Here’s how EmbedSocial helps you manage multiple reviews from a single dashboard:
1. Connect your accounts and generate reviews
With the EmbedSocial platform, you can connect multiple business profiles by navigating to Sources and, for example, selecting Google. Here, you will need to allow the permissions necessary to collect your reviews.
2. Analyze, search, and respond to reviews in one dashboard
Once you collect all the reviews from multiple locations on Google and also other review sites, you will get all the reviews in one place where you can search through, do your sentiment analysis, and find insights for business growth.
3. Display reviews on a website
You can reuse these reviews by embedding them on your websites. You can create widgets for different reviews that will further impact your local SEO positively.
4. Schedule GBP posts automatically
Google post scheduling again is another challenge for multi-location businesses, which need to post updates on their Google Maps for each particular business.
This also becomes complicated if the same message needs to be updated on more than one location.
Also, this update can appear in Google Search when looking for the brand and on business listings on Google Maps.
Luckily, most Google review management tools provide options to schedule GBP posts to multiple locations.
Features of a complete multi-location Google management tool
If you manage multiple locations on Google, then you will probably need software that automates this process and comes with all the features you would ever need.
Examples of companies successfully managing multiple Google locations
Looking for real-life examples of how businesses utilize a complete review management platform like EmbedSocial? Check out these real-life examples of two different types of companies using review management tools:
a large enterprise (McDonald’s) handling its review management needs for multiple locations.
Case #1: How an agency manages the reviews of multiple clients from one dashboard
This full-service digital agency manages the Google review needs for several doctors’ offices, including the process of collecting, moderating, and displaying all their reviews.
The process they utilize is seamless as they control every phase of the process from a single review management dashboard inside their EmbedSocial account.
There, they can separate their reviews based on star rating or overall sentiment, choose from different widget templates, and embed them across most website builders out there.
Plus, they do all the heavy lifting for their clients despite having the option to give some control to these individual doctors’ offices.
In summary, here are the features used by the marketing agencies:
Use separate sub-accounts for each client
Use multi-account management features to access each sub-account from the admin dashboard
Clients get access to separate sub-accounts and activities such as reply, generate reports, or moderate the widgets
Check out the look of these widgets on their clients’ websites:
Case #2: How a large enterprise quickly and efficiently replies to all their Google locations
Can you imagine what managing the reputation of a huge enterprise like McDonald’s involves? Let us tell you that replying to each individual review is almost impossible!
That’s where EmbedSocial comes in. It saves McDonald’s and similar enterprises tons of time to set up customized reply messages based on the star rating of their Google reviews.
Here is what one of the large enterprises using EmbedSocial benefits the most:
Control their reviews via different subsidiaries and from the main office.
Automatically pull and reply to reviews from within the platform.
Use combined widgets from every location embedded on the website.
Option to create separate widgets for different subsidiaries.
Review badge with buttons and star snippets for every location.
Team members have access to the account for assistance.
Each subsidiary has a different account if they are more independent.
They set a Google autoresponder to auto-respond to reviews with specific star ratings.
The AI review auto-responder is a good way to respond to reviews that have a particular rating. This short message can be useful, especially if there is a problem, and can respond to 1-star reviews with more directions on how to further connect with a team that is responsible for managing issues.
Strategy for managing Google reviews for multiple locations (checklist)
The goal of defining a review management strategy is to keep every team member on the same page and create consistent handling of customer feedback across all locations. This strategy should detail how to respond to both positive and negative reviews and outline steps to assign tasks for particular issues when necessary.
1. Choose review management tools
Implementing review management tools can significantly simplify the process of monitoring and responding to reviews across multiple sites. Tools like EmbedSocial can aggregate reviews in real-time from various platforms into a single dashboard, enabling efficient management and response at both the corporate and local levels.
2. Balance corporate control with local flexibility
While corporations can provide general guidelines and support, empowering local managers to respond to reviews allows for quicker, more personalized customer interactions. This approach also ensures that responses are tailored to the specific circumstances and cultural specificity of each location.
3. Address negative reviews strategically
This is usually done with a unified review response policy, where negative feedback is usually addressed up front so the situation is de-escalated, including apologizing if necessary and taking steps to resolve the issue. This type of policy needs to be clearly defined and implemented across all locations.
4. Setup process for asking for positive reviews
Create a procedure that will encourage every new customer to provide feedback. This can include sending follow-up emails after a purchase or visit, providing links to your review profiles, and politely asking customers to leave a review.
5. Define a procedure for analyzing reviews
Regular analysis of your reviews can provide valuable insights into customer satisfaction, product quality, and service levels across different locations. Look for common themes in feedback to identify areas for improvement or successful practices that could be implemented across other locations.
6. Leverage and re-purpose reviews
Don’t forget to showcase your positive reviews. Use them in marketing materials, on your website, and in social media posts to build trust and attract new customers. Positive reviews are powerful endorsements of your brand and can significantly influence consumer behavior.
7. Invest in a review management strategy
AI is a useful assistant for analyzing and responding to reviews. Sometimes, you lack ideas on how to compose unique responses, but AI can help a lot and make the review response process more efficient.
EmbedSocial has a built-in AI engine to help you generate assistance while writing replies to the reviews.
Sign up to manage your multi-location reviews
Implement tools like EmbedSocial to simplify monitoring and responding to reviews, aggregating feedback from various platforms into a single, efficient dashboard.
The easiest way to manage multiple locations on Google is to use a third-party review management platform like EmbedSocial that can connect to each of your locations and pull and moderate all your reviews automatically so you can embed them on your websites.
How do you optimize Google Business Profile for multiple locations?
To optimize your Google Business Profile for multiple locations, it’s essential to maintain precise and consistent information for each site. Also, categorize your business accurately to improve its discoverability and use specific keywords related to each location. Finally, you should encourage customers to leave reviews and regularly post updates, promotions, or events at each location to engage with your audience.
Can I transfer Google reviews from one location to another?
No, you cannot transfer Google reviews from one location to another, as reviews are inherently linked to the specific location where they were submitted. This policy ensures that reviews remain relevant and accurate to the customer experience at that particular location.
