Recently, Google changed the way it displays reviews from companies like ours, CitySearch, Yelp and others. As a result, we have added some features that will help auto repair professionals more easily ask their customers for reviews that will post directly to Google Places—we’ve even added Yahoo Local to the mix, something others do not offer. We’ve automated this process every step of the way to make it easy for shop owners and their customers alike. Read below to see what was added and how it works. (None of this replaces our automatic review process that publishes your reviews to Facebook, Twitter and other places important to your business; this is just an added value to help you DIRECTLY with Google and Yahoo Local.)

If you would like to learn more about why these new steps have been included, check out our blog post, “Changes to Google Places: What Does It Mean for Your Shop, If Anything?” which can be viewed by clicking here.

How It Works:

After having their vehicle serviced at your shop, your customers automatically get an email asking for a review. They pick the star rating they want to give, and that brings up the screen pictured below, which is where they choose whether they want to be anonymous or not, confirm the star rating, and fill in the comments portion of their review.

After your customers click submit, they will choose Google (for Google Places) or Yahoo (for Yahoo Local). For the sake of this post, we’ll go to Google since that is the more popular of the two. (They will need to have an account with Google or Yahoo to be able to do this secondary review.)

On the following screen, they will see their original comment near the top. They are directed to highlight and copy that review and then click the red “Write a review” button near the bottom of the screen.

Once they click the “Write a review” button, the Google Places comment box comes up. The on-screen instructions prompt them to paste the original review into this box. They must also select the number of stars for the rating, as that information is required and won’t be part of the text that they copy/paste.  Once they click publish, the review is done.

That’s it.

We believe that this simple addition to the existing program will provide a steadily growing body of customer reviews for shops using our Internet marketing services. Having these reviews gathered automatically should prove increasingly valuable as part of a marketing strategy that includes making the most of Google +, Google Places and Google search results. And the best part, shop owners don’t have to do a thing.