Artificial intelligence (or AI for short) seems to be dominating the news for all kinds of different industries lately, and we don’t foresee it losing its appeal anytime soon. In fact, the more advanced it becomes, the more headline-worthy it will be.
We’ve already seen major platforms like Google and Meta adopting into their search functions and beyond. But what about its use case for a local business like yours?
You may already be using ChatGPT to help you craft emails or plan your daily to-do list, but you could be using AI in even more beneficial ways.
If you haven’t already guessed the answer to the question, “Should I use an AI response generator to reply to reviews?” Is a definite “yes” from us! We’ll break down a couple of reasons why we think it’s a good idea in this blog.
You might have avoided using an AI generator to respond to customer reviews up until now because it seems a little impersonal. But we’re going to talk about why that isn’t the case in a world where AI is taking a front seat in tech and business. We’ll also touch on how AI can lessen your daily workload a bit.
Yep, you read that correctly. In a recent blind test done by BrightLocal, when customers were shown two responses to a review, one written by the business owner and one written by AI, 58% of consumers preferred the AI-written review response when shown one written by a human and one generated with AI.
Surprised? We don’t blame you. This just shows how far advancements in AI have come and how it’s proving to be a hugely valuable tool for small business owners.
So, if you were feeling like using AI to respond to your customer reviews was impersonal or not good customer service, you can rest easy knowing that your customers are still feeling the love. Most of the time they just want to know that they’re being heard and that you’re addressing concerns, whether that comes from you or AI.
Customers expect a business to respond to every review that they receive. Studies show that 88% of people are likely to use a brand if they can see the business responds to all reviews, whether positive or negative, however only about 75% of businesses don’t respond to their negative reviews at all.
We get it, responding to positive reviews is easy and it’s quick. Simply thank them for their business and express some sentiment about how you’re glad they enjoyed their purchase and you’re done. Responding to negative reviews is a lot harder and takes a significant amount of time.
Since your online reputation and your business rely on responding to both positive and negative reviews, why not let an AI generator take care of that for you? Since we’ve already established that most people prefer AI-generated responses anyway, even just letting AI handle all of your negative reviews will save you huge amounts of time. Then you can reinvest that time into other areas of your business.
AI doesn’t have to be scary when it’s used correctly, and taking advantage of it to respond to your customer reviews is one of the ways it’s doing good for small businesses like yours. If you were worried that it would affect the customer experience, rest assured that most people actually prefer an AI-generated response. What customers are really looking for is a response to every review that comes in. Since that kind of work takes a lot of time on your part, using AI will greatly reduce your workload.
If you’re looking for a little help managing your reviews and an AI response generator tool, look no further than the RevLocal Marketing Platform. You get access to this all-in-one system that will help you monitor, request and respond to reviews when you sign up for a Local Search Plus or Premium plan. For more info, reach out to us today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a digital marketing expert!
Mideya Kinney, Junior Content Writer
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