Have you ever thought about the best way to write a review on Google maps or anywhere else about a small business? How would you make it really useful for people to decide whether or not they should try it? Apparently, the best strategy is to imagine yourself in a position of such people. What would you like to know about the place? Would you be satisfied to read a bunch of the reviews like “It is a decent place, the staff is polite, the prices are good”? Who does not want to be polite with the customers; who does not want to be a decent place? No doubts, such reviews are pretty much useless as you cannot figure out if the place is good/bad/something special/etc. On the other hand, super long and detailed reviews might be a bad example either, especially if a reader does not quite understand all the special issued discussed in it. They just won’t read it, you know right.
To be more specific, consider an example of a small mechanic shop. Suppose you are a new guy arrived to a new place of living and you want to figure out the best place to do oil change and some maintenance of you car. You open Google maps and check the places around: 4 stars here, 4 stars there, a good place is everywhere. You pick up one car shop at random and read the reviews about it. The first thing you (and most people) usually do – skip all short 5 star reviews where everything is great with 5 stars. Indeed, why should you care about the cases when everything was great? You do care instead about something possibly can go wrong. Then you skip all one star reviews for obvious reasons as well. Now, you are left with somewhat helpful and worth reading (which is about 30% or reviews or so).
One thing you definitely want to know is the price range of the place. You not gonna fix your 20 y.o. Honda Civic in a fancy shop that deals with Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Therefore, this information is truly essential, so make sure you include it in your review! Better yet, if yo can take a picture of the place and attach it as well, as it shown in Fig. (1), for example. It is obvious from the picture that the place cannot be expensive, hence most likely will suit people who do not want to spend much. And yes, you won’t be served free coffee with muffins like in a BMW dealership but you will get you stuff done for half a price.
Also, you can attach a picture of the exterior, so that people can have a better idea about the place. In Fig. (2), one can see their promo on brakes work. Comparing this price to the others on the market will help you to estimate costs on the job you want to be done with your car. I guess the second important thing is the quality of the services. You won’t be happy to spend 30% less on some car fix if it breaks down again in half a year, will you? Thus, include more or less detailed description of the services you had, the quality, warranty on the parts, etc. Do not overload the review with details: otherwise people won’t read it, as I mentioned before. People want to know if the job is done well, the parts are reliable, and that you can confirm that. In particular, that means you need to test it over a period of time. For example, if you had your AC done yesterday, do not write a review on that the next day. Wait for couple months to be sure that everything still works great. I understand that you will most likely forget about the review in couple months, but you know, that is what distinguishes a good reviewer from a bad one. It is also a good practice if you include a picture of what was done. For example, you can see an old radiator in Fig. (3). You can notice a leakage and the fact that the shop staff shows it to you serves as an extra proof they are not cheating on you.Finally, you should mention staff relationship. Do not just write they are good/bad, polite/rude etc. What can be rude for one person is completely normal for the other. Better briefly describe a situation and tell how they (and you!) behaved. For instance, you can mention a small favor they have done for free. In my case, they removed a scratch on the door for free, see Fig. (4), what made me really happy
Or you can mention a problem they fixed in a wrong way and did not listen to your opinion on that. Or you can mention a problem with the payment when you credit card was not accepted. Or when they promised to finish the job in two days but left you without the car for a week, or vise versa. Of course, all these small episodes are not as important as price range and quality of the services, however they still play a role, as they help to distinguish a great business from a good one.
In conclusion, remember that the main purpose of your review should be to help people to decide about the place they want to go. Try to ask all the questions about the place yourself and provide the answers in a short, yet detailed and understandable manner.
