Trust & Authority (E-E-A-T) · 6.27
Reviews
What real customers say about you, publicly, and how — or whether — you respond to it.
Why this matters
The customer’s side
Checking reviews before ever calling an agent is now completely standard behaviour — a low count, old reviews, or an unanswered negative one all actively make people hesitate, and many will simply choose whoever looks safer instead.
The search engine’s side
Count, rating, and recency directly feed Google's “prominence” signal
89% of consumers are more likely to choose a business that responds to every review, and review count, rating, and recency are all directly part of Google's local “prominence” ranking signal.
How to check yours
Method 1 — Check your own numbers
the baseline — count, most recent date, and how many you've actually replied to.
- 1.Open your Google Business Profile and check your total review count.
- 2.Note the date of your most recent review.
- 3.Count how many reviews currently have no reply from you.
Method 2 — Check against a close competitor
“good” is relative — a buyer comparing you side-by-side with a rival cares about the difference between you, not an abstract number.
- 1.Search your business type in your town on Google Maps.
- 2.Open your closest competitor's profile.
- 3.Compare count, rating, and recency directly against your own.
How to fix what you find
Count or recency is low
ask every happy customer directly, right after helping them — including landlords once a tenancy's set up, not just buyers or sellers after completion.
Reviews are going unanswered
respond to every review, positive or negative — a considered reply to a negative one often does more for trust than the review itself did damage.
Keeping on top of it
Getting five reviews was never the hard part — keeping a steady flow coming in, indefinitely, is. This needs to be weekly, ongoing.
How Reyse handles this
Done With You
we give you the exact process and templates to run this yourself.
Done For You
we manage requests and responses directly, ongoing.