Mastering Review Responses with Right Response AI
Host Bio
Adrienne Wilkerson is the co-founder and CEO of Beacon Media + Marketing, a digital marketing agency focused on corporate branding and content marketing for healthcare organizations, with a strong emphasis on mental and behavioral health. She also hosts The Beacon Way Podcast, where she talks with entrepreneurs and business leaders about what it takes to build and lead resilient organizations—often through the lens of trust, clarity, and real-world service delivery. With more than two decades of small-business experience, Wilkerson is recognized for her work as a speaker, author, and mentor, and for building a team culture designed to support innovation and growth. Under her leadership, Beacon Media + Marketing has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies across multiple years, and her work has also been recognized by the American Marketing Association of Alaska and the Alaska Journal of Commerce. (Beacon Media + Marketing)
Summary
Adrienne Wilkerson frames online reviews as a high-stakes topic for her audience—especially in the mental health and behavioral health space—because the way people interpret reviews (and the way a business responds) can directly shape trust at the moment of decision. Early on, she calls reviews “one of the most…touchy subjects” for many listeners, and the rest of the conversation stays anchored to that reality: reviews are not just feedback; they’re a public trust signal that prospective customers actively use when deciding who to choose.
George Swetlitz’s entry point into the problem is operational, not theoretical. He describes a career split between consulting and operating, including time at McKinsey and then leadership roles that put him close to real customer behavior. His most relevant operating story comes from leading a large consolidation of audiology clinics—roughly 220–225 locations—where the team saw a consistent pattern: some clinics performed better than others even when the advertising inputs looked similar.
That gap led to the idea he repeatedly returns to: the “conversion gate.” As Swetlitz puts it, “I call it the conversion gate,” meaning the point late in the funnel where a prospect—already interested—starts reading reviews to decide whether to call you or call someone else. In his telling, better-performing locations weren’t magically better at ads; they were more likely to get prospects through that gate because they had stronger reviews. The implication is clear: you can spend on websites, SEO, and ads, but still lose the customer right at the end if the review layer doesn’t build confidence.
From there, the episode moves to a practical (and emotional) tension: how do you respond to reviews in a way that builds trust—especially at scale—without sounding hollow? Swetlitz points out that templated responses were common and ineffective, and the challenge gets worse as you grow. A multi-location operator can’t easily match what an individual practitioner can do after hours: write a personal, emotionally intelligent response because it’s their business and they care enough to spend the time. That contrast matters because, as both speakers emphasize, real people read reviews like a conversation.
Swetlitz argues that generic, non-responsive replies don’t just fail to help—they can actively harm brand trust. He describes the review environment as a live exchange between the reviewer and the many future readers scanning for signals. If a business responds with a template, avoids specifics, or uses generic AI that simply repeats what the reviewer already said, the business is effectively choosing not to participate. In his words: “If you don’t say anything of value in a response, you are opting out of the conversation.” He takes it one step further: opting out signals a lack of care, and that can reduce trust when trust is exactly what a review reader is trying to decide.
This is where the episode’s most interesting contradiction shows up. Adrienne and George both acknowledge that “AI” is often associated with inauthenticity—people see content and wonder if it’s real. Yet Swetlitz still asks the central question directly: “Can you use AI to help you be authentic?” The conversation’s answer is not “make AI sound human.” Instead, it’s “make AI stay relevant and truthful.”
Swetlitz explains that RightResponse AI tries to do this by grounding responses in what the business would actually say—then using AI to match the right message to the right review. On onboarding, the system reads a business’s reviews, prior responses, and website content. The purpose is twofold:
- identify what customers frequently talk about (he mentions mapping “10 or 15 most frequent themes”), and
- capture the business’s own marketing messages—what the company wants to communicate to prospective customers.
He gives a concrete example: if a reviewer mentions bringing a child to a dentist, and the business is a pediatric dentist, the response can incorporate relevant, truthful messaging (like specialized pediatric training or long experience with children) that the business would naturally share in person. The key claim is that this is not invention; it’s synthesis and matching. As Swetlitz says plainly, “You’re not making stuff up.” The goal is to make the response useful to the reader, and to make the business feel present in the conversation rather than absent.
Adrienne immediately validates the “participation” frame, and she connects it to a broader marketing trend she’s seeing. She argues that marketing became overly formulaic—especially with ad platforms and analytics—and that the industry drifted away from transparency and genuine connection. In her words, “Marketing was always about connection.” She suggests that AI is forcing a return to that standard, even though AI also triggers skepticism about what’s real. In this episode’s logic, the way out of that trap is specificity: being transparent, adding relevant information, and responding in a way that respects the reader’s intent.
The conversation also gets specific about tone and voice. Adrienne asks whether tone can be trained so replies feel consistent with each client, and Swetlitz says yes—down to using different emotional registers for different review types. He notes that negative reviews can be handled with more empathy, while positive reviews can be more upbeat, based on instructions and context.
A major “operator” theme emerges when they discuss negative reviews. Adrienne underscores that many businesses fear them, but she reframes them as feedback and opportunity—especially when the complaint points to an actionable issue. She explicitly echoes the mindset shift: “even a negative review is an opportunity.” Swetlitz supports that with examples where a response can reduce uncertainty for future readers: a parking complaint can be answered with genuinely helpful logistics (extra parking, accessible options, where to park next time). A pricing complaint can be met with a real explanation of value drivers (for instance, sourcing choices), turning “this is expensive” into “now I understand what I’m paying for.”
Adrienne expands the negative-review point into operations: if multiple people mention parking, that may be a signal to solve the underlying constraint (partner with a neighboring business, change signage, clarify access). She also emphasizes that how you respond communicates as much as the star rating itself, because it shows whether a company is defensive, dismissive, or genuinely helpful.
Scale keeps resurfacing as the pressure multiplier. Adrienne highlights that many listeners run multiple locations across states, and that managing reviews across many locations is “a whole different beast” compared to a single office with a few practitioners. Swetlitz frames the practical question as “highest and best use” of professionals’ time: if they have no tool, writing thoughtful responses matters; but at scale, there should be more sophisticated options. He also mentions a “done for you” service for teams that don’t want to spend their limited time on replies—or for leaders who may get too emotional and accidentally write a response that harms them.
When Adrienne asks what one bad habit he’d erase, Swetlitz is unequivocal: generic AI responses. He says they “wast[e] space,” add “nothing” to the reader’s research, and can be a net negative. His stance is memorable because it’s so absolute: “I’d rather not see any response than generic AI.” The reason ties back to the episode’s central philosophy: a response should earn its place by contributing something real.
The last part of the episode shifts from review responses to changing discovery behavior. Adrienne notes that more people now use AI tools for early research, which means by the time they reach a website they’re often closer to choosing—already narrowed to a shortlist. That makes reviews an even stronger gatekeeper. Swetlitz adds that “answer engines” look for content, and that review responses can become content when they contain useful specifics. Adrienne then offers two practical tactics: build out a presence on Bing (because, as she explains, it “does not gatekeep” the same way), and convert review themes into a robust on-site FAQ format. Her rationale is blunt and operator-friendly: “AI loves that because people are asking AI complete questions.”
Across the full arc, the throughline is simple: treat reviews like an ongoing conversation with future customers, and treat each response as a chance to add relevant, truthful information that builds trust right at the conversion gate.
Q&A
- I run a multi-location practice—how do I keep review responses from sounding templated across locations?
Build responses around what each review is actually about, not a one-size-fits-all script. Use a workflow that maps common review themes to real, business-specific messaging, so replies differ based on context and location realities. - What’s the conversion gate, and how do reviews affect it?
Reviews act like a final decision checkpoint after someone has already found you through your website, SEO, or ads. Many prospects read reviews before choosing who to call, so reviews can determine whether they pick you or a competitor. - Why are copy/paste review reply templates a bad idea?
Template replies can signal that you’re not truly engaging, which can weaken trust. They often add little value for someone trying to learn what it’s like to work with your business. - If I use AI to respond to reviews, how do I keep the replies authentic?
Ground replies in real information you would actually say to a customer—then use AI to match the right message to the right review. The goal is relevance and truth, not generic friendliness. - What’s the biggest mistake businesses make with AI review responses right now?
Publishing generic AI replies that repeat the review or add no substance. Those replies can frustrate readers and make it feel like nobody is paying attention. - Should I respond to every review, or only negative ones?
Engagement matters, but the response has to earn its space by adding value. If you can’t respond with something relevant and respectful, a generic reply can be worse than no reply. - How can I respond to a negative review without sounding defensive?
Acknowledge the concern and add genuinely helpful information that reduces uncertainty for future readers. The most effective responses stay practical and truthful rather than argumentative. - Someone complained about parking—what’s a strong way to respond?
Respond directly to the parking issue with specifics a future customer can use, such as where additional parking is located or whether there are accessible options. - How do I respond when someone says my prices are too high?
Use the response to explain real value drivers—what goes into quality, sourcing, or service—so readers understand why pricing looks the way it does. - Can AI match my brand’s tone and voice in review replies?
Yes. You can train for tone and voice using your existing content, and you can also use different tone rules for positive reviews versus negative reviews. - Is it smart to use a more empathetic tone for negative reviews and a more upbeat tone for positive ones?
Yes. You can instruct responses to vary based on the nature of the review so the tone matches what the customer likely needs in that moment. - What information should I provide so AI can write business-specific review replies?
Use your existing reviews to understand what customers talk about, then use your prior responses and website content to capture the messages you want customers to hear. - I’m worried I’ll get emotional and make things worse when replying to a bad review—what can I do?
Use a process where someone else handles or moderates the response, or where review response is done-for-you. The point is to avoid reactive replies that harm trust. - My leadership team just wants us to respond to reviews as a checkbox—how do I shift the mindset?
Treat review responses as a marketing and trust opportunity, not just compliance. The response is part of what review readers use to decide whether they want to work with you. - As an agency, we already do websites, SEO, and ads—where do reviews fit in the client journey?
Reviews are part of getting prospects over the final hurdle after the funnel is filled. If you stop at traffic generation, you can still lose the customer at the decision moment. - How has AI changed customer research behavior, and why does that increase the importance of reviews?
Many buyers now use AI tools to narrow options earlier, so by the time they reach a website they’re often closer to choosing. That makes reviews and responses more influential as a final trust check. - Do AI answer engines read review responses, and should I treat responses as content?
Yes—responses that contain meaningful information can be consumed as content. One practical move discussed is posting reviews and responses on your website so they can be read there. - What are two practical website moves to make reviews more useful for AI-driven discovery?
Put your reviews and responses on your website, and build an FAQ section based on real questions, concerns, and compliments that show up in reviews. - Is there a practical alternative to Google Business Profile visibility constraints?
One tactic discussed is building out a similar business profile on Bing, which was described as having fewer gatekeeping constraints in this context. - What’s the best way to handle review responses when time is the real constraint?
Use a more sophisticated workflow or a done-for-you approach so professionals can stay focused on higher-value work while still engaging consistently and thoughtfully with reviews.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Beacon Way Podcast. I'm your host Adrienne Wilkerson, and I'm really excited for this special episode today. We've got George joining us today with From RightResponse AI, and he is gonna, we're gonna be talking about reviews. Now, I know this is one of the most.
[00:00:22] Adrienne Wilkerson: Kind of touchy subjects for a lot of our audience in the mental health and behavioral health space. So George and I are really excited to kind of dig into this amazing, uh, product that he's developed and kind of some of the nuances around, uh, reviews and testimonials in this space. So, George, welcome to The Beacon Way Podcast.
[00:00:45] Adrienne Wilkerson: Why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself?
[00:00:48] George Swetlitz: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a really a pleasure to be here to talk to you about these subjects today. So I, um, I've been around a long time. I've had get quite a career. It's really been split between consulting and operating.
[00:01:06] George Swetlitz: So I started my career at McKinsey many, many years ago, and then I moved into operations and went back into consulting and back into operations. But before, uh. I, I got a, I started RightResponse AI. I was the CEO of a consolidation of audiology clinics. And so we, uh, by the end we had about two hundred and twenty two hundred twenty five clinics all across the country, uh, helping people with their hearing.
[00:01:38] George Swetlitz: And so the issues that we talk about today are issues that we struggled with.
[00:01:44] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm.
[00:01:46] George Swetlitz: Doing this social proof, reviews engagement at scale. Mm-hmm. And so that really informed RightResponse AI and what we do today.
[00:01:59] Adrienne Wilkerson: That's amazing. I love that you're coming at this very much from my personal experience. I think that, like you said, really shifts the, the narrative around that.
[00:02:10] Adrienne Wilkerson: So what prompted you to start, RightResponse AI. You've, you've done a lot of things. Seen a lot of things. What, what was kind of the, the thing that spark the problem maybe that you were dying to solve that that started RightResponse AI.
[00:02:26] George Swetlitz: So it goes back to that time at as CEO of Alpaca, that was the name of the company where, you know, one of the things that we noticed was that, well, we had a lot of clinics and some performed really well and some didn't perform so well, as you can imagine.
[00:02:45] George Swetlitz: And we noticed that when we spent money on ads, uh, we got. Better performance out of those ads in certain clinics. Right. In our better performing clinics, we got better results from the ads than we did in our poor performing clinics. Now you, it, it sounds obvious that that would happen, but it's not necessarily true.
[00:03:09] George Swetlitz: You know, you get people into a funnel.
[00:03:12] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:12] George Swetlitz: And so why is it that the good performing clinics do better?
[00:03:17] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:03:17] George Swetlitz: And what we realized was that a lot of that had to do with. I call, I call it the conversion gate. So you do all this work, you, you build a website and you do SEO, and you run ads, and you do all of these things to get people into your funnel, and you get them there.
[00:03:36] George Swetlitz: And then you hit what I call the conversion gate, which is your reviews, right? Because before somebody, not everybody, but most people before they decide where they're gonna go. They read reviews. So you come up Absolutely. You get in the funnel and then they start reading, well, where am I gonna go? Because if they don't call you, they're gonna call somebody else.
[00:04:02] George Swetlitz: They're, you've gotten them interested, right? The question is, are they gonna call you or is something gonna happen in that research process where they say, you know what? Mm-hmm. I'm gonna call this other company instead, and I call that the conversion gate. So the reason why our better performing clinics did better with that is they had better reviews.
[00:04:25] George Swetlitz: Nice. And so more people got through that gate. So we spent a lot of time thinking about, well, how do we, how do we do a better job? And at that time, it's only a few years ago, at that time, you would've respond to reviews using templates. So you would get a review and then you would have a template, you know, if somebody would copy, paste, whatever it is.
[00:04:50] George Swetlitz: And that is not a very effective approach to review response.
[00:04:57] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right?
[00:04:58] George Swetlitz: It wasn't then. It isn't Now the problem is when you're at scale 220 clinics,
[00:05:03] Adrienne Wilkerson: yeah.
[00:05:04] George Swetlitz: You don't have people that can write responses. So you're competing against a individual practitioner. Who is going home at night and writing responses because it's their business and they care and they wanna spend the time to do that.
[00:05:18] George Swetlitz: So you have this templated answer and they have an actual, very engaging emotional response to a review. Yeah, and what we realized was that that makes a difference. Okay. So we ended up selling the business. 'cause that's what happens when you have a private equity owned business. You sell it at some point.
[00:05:37] George Swetlitz: Right. And I ended up with some time, and so, um, then chat CT was launched and I started thinking, wow, you know, maybe AI could help us solve this problem.
[00:05:50] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm.
[00:05:51] George Swetlitz: So we built a little team and, uh, started to go at this reputation management. Product from an an AI forward perspective.
[00:06:08] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:06:08] George Swetlitz: And of course the results of that have changed a lot.
[00:06:12] George Swetlitz: You know, the AI's gotten a lot better. We had a certain level of, you know, output. Now it's better, it will continue to get better. But that was the genesis of RightResponse AI.
[00:06:25] Adrienne Wilkerson: Very cool. Very cool. So what was one. I mean, I would imagine one of your hardest challenges was using AI to translate something very human, you know, empathy and trust into a scalable AI product.
[00:06:42] Adrienne Wilkerson: So can you walk our listeners through kind of how you guys navigated that challenge? 'cause I know that's definitely one of the most common. Snags that we run into. 'cause we leverage AI a lot in, you know, in our marketing throughout our company, actually. And that's a common, you know, roadblock or barrier that we run into is that empathy and trust piece.
[00:07:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: So how would you, how are you guys navigating that part?
[00:07:11] George Swetlitz: Yeah, well that's the key. And so the, the, the, so the question is how did you build trust? How, you know, what it, what is, you know, that trust building process and what role do reviews play in that? And so let's kind of maybe unpack that a little bit.
[00:07:33] George Swetlitz: So the review itself is a form of building brand trust or not. Depends on whether it's positive or negative. If you have positive reviews, you build some trust. Other people are essentially. Talking on your behalf, right? And 'cause it's third party, it's very valuable. But when, when people say negative things, it breaks down that trust,
[00:08:03] Adrienne Wilkerson: right?
[00:08:04] George Swetlitz: People say, well, I don't, I don't know now, but I should do, can I trust this provider? Can I trust this company? And, and what happens is most people through templates. Or generic AI responses essentially are opting out of being part of the conversation.
[00:08:28] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm.
[00:08:28] George Swetlitz: So if you don't say anything of value in a response, you are opting out of the conversation, the conversation taking place.
[00:08:41] George Swetlitz: Right. There's a conversation taking place. There's people reading and there's people writing, and they're all, they're doing that. They're actually doing. There's no AI there. Someone who's writing a review writes it. Someone who's reading a review reads it. There's no ai. So when you then participate in that conversation by using a template or by not engaging or by using generic ai, which simply repeats back in the review, well, what's in the review?
[00:09:09] George Swetlitz: You are doing two things. One, three things really. One is you are not engaging in the conversation. Two, you are in a way damaging your brand trust because you're telling them that you don't care enough to actually participate in the conversation.
[00:09:30] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:09:31] George Swetlitz: And third, you're missing this huge opportunity there.
[00:09:34] George Swetlitz: You have an opportunity to say Very
[00:09:36] Adrienne Wilkerson: true.
[00:09:37] George Swetlitz: Yeah. You're not, you're choosing not to. Right. So there's all of these things that are wrong.
[00:09:42] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:43] George Swetlitz: And so the question is. Can you use AI to help you be authentic?
[00:09:52] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right? Absolutely.
[00:09:52] George Swetlitz: So that may sound like an oxymoron, right? Because in the world today, AI is inauthentic.
[00:10:02] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm. It is. Where you
[00:10:02] George Swetlitz: go read social media posts and everyone says, I don't know whether this is true or not.
[00:10:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right?
[00:10:08] George Swetlitz: Right. Because,
[00:10:09] Adrienne Wilkerson: yeah,
[00:10:10] George Swetlitz: AI is there and a lot of times it's fake. And so therefore AI is taking away from authenticity. So in people's minds, I think is this idea that AI is a net negative, right?
[00:10:29] George Swetlitz: But it's actually not, because AI is really good at doing what you tell it to do. Right. If you tell us to do something negative, most of the time, negative,
[00:10:40] Adrienne Wilkerson: yes.
[00:10:41] George Swetlitz: Right. You know it's gonna do something negative. But if you tell us to do something positive, it can do something positive. So how do you operationalize that?
[00:10:50] George Swetlitz: So,
[00:10:51] Adrienne Wilkerson: right.
[00:10:51] George Swetlitz: What we do is when we onboard a customer, we use AI to read all their reviews, all their responses, and their websites.
[00:11:07] George Swetlitz: They're
[00:11:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: training it. Yeah.
[00:11:09] George Swetlitz: Yeah. So we read the reviews so we can understand what do people talk about?
[00:11:15] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm.
[00:11:15] George Swetlitz: What are the 10 or 15 most frequent themes in a conversation. Then we look at the responses in the website to understand what, what are the marketing messages? That you as a person who wrote the website or wrote these responses, would like to communicate to your customers.
[00:11:39] George Swetlitz: And we map all of that together.
[00:11:42] Adrienne Wilkerson: Okay?
[00:11:43] George Swetlitz: So if somebody says in a review, I brought my child to this dentist, and you happen to be a pediatric dentist. You might have a marketing message in our system that says if somebody mentions a child, right, including the response that you have specialized training in pediatric dentistry, or that you've been practicing with children for over 20 years or whatever, it's something that you would say to that person if you were talking to them.
[00:12:19] George Swetlitz: It's the message. And so what our system does is that when a review comes in and we look at what's that about and which of these messages are relevant
[00:12:31] Adrienne Wilkerson: mm-hmm.
[00:12:32] George Swetlitz: To that review, and then we incorporate the marketing message in the response. So now you're actually participating in the conversation. Yeah.
[00:12:42] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:12:43] George Swetlitz: In a very positive way. In a very authentic way. Mm-hmm. You're not making stuff up.
[00:12:48] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:12:48] George Swetlitz: You're just using AI to synthesize what is it that would be helpful to this person?
[00:12:57] Adrienne Wilkerson: Other one. Can you train tone and voice into the responses as well that are kind of customized to each client? Is that part of what pulling in the website information does?
[00:13:08] George Swetlitz: Yeah, so you absolutely can do that, and you can even do it. You know, differently between positive reviews and negative reviews, so Okay. Negative reviews can be much more empathetic. Positive reviews can be more upbeat. You, you, you know, you can, you can tell it to operate differently depending on the nature of the review.
[00:13:32] Adrienne Wilkerson: Fantastic. I, I love that being transparent, being part of the conversation. I feel like something that has gotten. Lost a little bit in marketing in the last few years. It's become very formulaic for many, you know, paid ads made it easy and for it to be formulaic in many ways. You know, Google Analytics gives you this data.
[00:13:58] Adrienne Wilkerson: Meta gives you this data, you do this algorithm, you spend this much, you're gonna get this many leads and et cetera, et cetera. It became very formulaic and something that I think AI is sort of forcing on our industry is. Kind of a, a movement back to that transparency, which again, like you said before, is a little bit contrary because AI's also, you know, creating a sense of is that real or not?
[00:14:26] Adrienne Wilkerson: But I think that's, it's taking some of the formulaic stuff out of it with like paid ads and forcing us, I think, to focus a lot more on the connection, because at least for me as a marketer. Marketing was always about connection. It wasn't necessarily about a formula. It was about how do you create the right connection with the right people.
[00:14:48] Adrienne Wilkerson: And when that becomes your focus, then you're more likely to get the right, you know, leads in the better qualified leads, which means your investment goes farther and. You're right, people are, they're going to look for reviews that, and that's part of how I believe they establish connection. Is there somebody else, you know, who has a similar experience or, you know, how did other people interact?
[00:15:12] Adrienne Wilkerson: And to have real connection, that requires being part of the conversation. It requires a certain level of transparency and so. I, I'm loving what I'm hearing as far as how you're integrating AI into that com part, and like you said, make sure that you are continuing to be a part of the conversation. I think a lot of businesses are very afraid of reviews.
[00:15:37] Adrienne Wilkerson: They're afraid of how do I handle a bad review? And it sounds like this product can take a lot of that fear out of the equation. For people and, and help them be more a part of that conversation, which is really powerful.
[00:15:54] George Swetlitz: Yeah. Think about a negative review you have. Let's say you serve an older population.
[00:15:58] George Swetlitz: Somebody writes a negative review that says, I had a difficult time finding parking. Every other person reading that's gonna say, I'm not gonna go there. I have a hard time walking. Right. I, yeah. So,
[00:16:10] Adrienne Wilkerson: mm-hmm.
[00:16:10] George Swetlitz: Wouldn't it be nice if. The responder just said it, it saw that the, the issuers are about parking.
[00:16:18] George Swetlitz: Mm-hmm. And so it's relevant to say in that response, Hey, for the next, next time you come, keep in mind that we have additional parking and handicap accessible.
[00:16:30] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:16:31] George Swetlitz: You know, parking behind the building off of Beacon Street or whatever it is. Right. That. Is a great response. So even on negative reviews, you can take things.
[00:16:41] George Swetlitz: Think about a restaurant. Mm-hmm. The Yeah. Price is too high. Right? I was surprised by the pricing. Well, if the, yeah. If your response incorporates, oh, you know, we're, we're sorry you were surprised. But we source all our products to be organic. We buy our mm-hmm. Prime beef from a farm in Colorado. Right. And we do the best we can to bring great value to the table.
[00:17:07] George Swetlitz: Mm-hmm. If you take something where someone would read and say, oh, it's, it's high priced, just something where somebody looks at and says, I wanna go here. I like the fact that they work with a farm in Colorado.
[00:17:18] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:17:19] George Swetlitz: So you're, you're taking a situation that might create a lack of trust or uncertainty and turning it.
[00:17:31] George Swetlitz: To your advantage? Not through inauthenticity, not through lies, right. But through,
[00:17:36] Adrienne Wilkerson: right.
[00:17:37] George Swetlitz: You know, real honest things that you would say to somebody if they were in front of you. AI makes that possible. At scale.
[00:17:47] Adrienne Wilkerson: At scale. Right,
[00:17:48] George Swetlitz: right.
[00:17:49] Adrienne Wilkerson: Well, and I love the about
[00:17:50] George Swetlitz: Yep. Good.
[00:17:52] Adrienne Wilkerson: Sorry, I, I was just gonna say I love the, the at scale component.
[00:17:55] Adrienne Wilkerson: Uh, many of our listeners, many of our clients, they have multiple locations, um, you know, sometimes in different states, um, or across an entire state. And like you mentioned earlier in, in your particular case, managing reviews across multiple locations is a whole different beast than. When you've got two or three practitioners in one location.
[00:18:19] Adrienne Wilkerson: And so that at scale piece is, I think a really vital component of, of what you're bringing forward here.
[00:18:26] George Swetlitz: Yeah. And, and what's the highest and best use of that professional's time.
[00:18:31] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:18:32] George Swetlitz: Are they better off doing some high value thing that contributes to their marketing effort? Right. Or are they better off sitting there, you know, writing a review response?
[00:18:40] George Swetlitz: Yeah. So you know, it's. Right. If they don't have a tool, then they should definitely spend time writing the review response. But there are options for people to, to do that in a more sophisticated way now.
[00:18:52] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah. I also really appreciate your point of even a negative review is an opportunity, and that's something that we communicate a lot with our clients because there is a, an intense fear of a negative review and what is that going to do?
[00:19:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: And you know, it, it, it's kind of interesting. There's a lot of data out there. That supports, if you don't have any negative reviews, that's actually more negative than having a couple of negative reviews because there are also the black hat side of AI reviews where there's a robot that's going through and doing fake reviews.
[00:19:28] Adrienne Wilkerson: Um, you know, we've had to, oh, we've had some. Crazy experiences with that where we've had competitors create fake accounts and give negative reviews, uh, and having to get those pulled down and all that kind of stuff. But we always talk about like, if you don't have any negative reviews, that's also a red flag and you want those negative reviews.
[00:19:49] Adrienne Wilkerson: Sometimes, obviously not all of them, but they, one, they give you good feedback. Like if the parking example that you gave. Say you didn't have any auxiliary parking, but you were getting a few reviews that parking is a problem. That's a great opportunity to go to the business next door and go, Hey, can we work out something here with extra parking or, and then that's an amazing piece that you can now solve for that you might not have known that somebody.
[00:20:20] Adrienne Wilkerson: Was struggling with parking. And so I love that your, that this AI and you guys have the mindset of even a negative review is an opportunity. 'cause that I think is one of the critical things get missed in reviews very frequently, that how you respond to that review, even a negative one, tells as much about your company as how you respond to the positive ones.
[00:20:43] Adrienne Wilkerson: And. As much as the positive reviews. So I love that your system can really respond even to the negative reviews in a way that turns that into an opportunity, doesn't slam the person, doesn't shame them, doesn't, you know, whatever, but really gives them a solid answer and turns it into something positive.
[00:21:05] George Swetlitz: Yeah. Yeah. We have a, a done for you service where we essentially do everything for people.
[00:21:10] Adrienne Wilkerson: Okay.
[00:21:11] George Swetlitz: And, and some people it's because they just. They realize it's not the highest and best use of their time, they would prefer someone else to do it. Sometimes it's because they get too emotional and you know, they end up hurting themselves when they, you know, write that, you know, that response to a negative review that really shouldn't have been written that way.
[00:21:32] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right. Yeah. Well, that leads me to an interesting question. If you could erase one bad habit. Around reviews or reputation management, what would it be? What was one that you see a lot that maybe you've answered with your program, you know, or the done with you service, but what's one that you see a lot?
[00:21:54] George Swetlitz: I mean, the biggest one, and we kind of talked about it, but it's these generic AI responses.
[00:21:59] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm. Gotcha.
[00:22:00] George Swetlitz: To me, it, it, it, so it's interesting because. I'm in this business. So when I read these generic AI reviews, when I'm doing my own research and I read generic AI reviews,
[00:22:15] Adrienne Wilkerson: right.
[00:22:15] George Swetlitz: It turns me off completely.
[00:22:17] Adrienne Wilkerson: Absolutely. '
[00:22:17] George Swetlitz: cause in my view, they're just wasting space.
[00:22:20] Adrienne Wilkerson: Hmm.
[00:22:20] George Swetlitz: I'm trying to learn. Right. And now there's all of this crap that I gotta navigate around.
[00:22:27] George Swetlitz: Yeah. That's adding nothing to my research. At all. Mm-hmm.
[00:22:31] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:22:32] George Swetlitz: So I view it as a net negative. I'd rather have someone who I'd, I'd rather not see any response
[00:22:42] Adrienne Wilkerson: mm-hmm.
[00:22:43] George Swetlitz: Than generic ai. I think generic AI is like the worst thing that's ever happened. Mm-hmm. To reviews.
[00:22:50] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:22:50] George Swetlitz: Um, so that's kind of the, so, but then we did some research.
[00:22:54] George Swetlitz: We actually went out and did a survey. People told us that there is, you know, the pe there is this growing, you know, dissatisfaction with, they call, you know, bot respon, you know, bot review responses, right. People don't like them. You know, it, they, they feel like no one's even reading them.
[00:23:19] Adrienne Wilkerson: Absolutely.
[00:23:20] Adrienne Wilkerson: Because they're right with the bot responses. Right.
[00:23:24] George Swetlitz: Yeah. It's the worst. It's the worst of all worlds.
[00:23:29] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right. Exactly.
[00:23:30] George Swetlitz: Because you're actually, so I feel that, I feel like people have always thought about review responses as something they have to do.
[00:23:39] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:23:40] George Swetlitz: Right. I just, you know, you just have to do it. It's a box.
[00:23:44] George Swetlitz: Yeah. That needs to get ticked. We, we get a, we get a lot of inbounds from big companies. Whenever I'm talking to companies, I say, well, what's your objective? Like what's, what's driving you? Are you trying to cut costs? Right? Are you trying, is quality important? What's important? Yeah. So I know how to talk to you about it.
[00:24:05] Adrienne Wilkerson: Of course.
[00:24:05] George Swetlitz: And a lot of times people will say, well, management's decided that we should respond to all the raise. Not that we should have a quality response to all the reviews, not that we should. Right. Management decided that we should respond. So we're looking for a responder. Wow. And sometimes companies are so big that when you make the point that, you know, it's really a marketing opportunity, this is a marketing opportunity.
[00:24:32] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:24:32] George Swetlitz: But you're talking to people that you know, that's not where they are. Right. They're there the way it, like I just got told to find a responder. So like that's, that's, yeah, exactly what I'm trying to do.
[00:24:45] Adrienne Wilkerson: That can definitely be a challenge. 'cause usually marketing does not wanna deal with it. Um, so yeah, I feel like it very commonly gets voiced off on the front desk person or, you know,
[00:24:59] George Swetlitz: no, that's right.
[00:25:00] Adrienne Wilkerson: An admin assistant or something of that nature. When, like you articulated, that's a huge missed opportunity for marketing.
[00:25:08] George Swetlitz: Yeah, no, it is. I, I, I. We do a lot of outreach to agencies and
[00:25:14] Adrienne Wilkerson: mm-hmm.
[00:25:14] George Swetlitz: What I, I try to explain to them what we talked about at the beginning, that you do all this work for your clients.
[00:25:21] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:25:21] George Swetlitz: You build their websites and you do SEO and you do ads, and you do all the things to fill the funnel.
[00:25:27] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:25:27] George Swetlitz: And then you get them there and you're not doing the next thing.
[00:25:30] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:31] George Swetlitz: The next thing is you gotta get that customer over the hurdle.
[00:25:34] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right,
[00:25:35] George Swetlitz: right. And, and reviews. Are a part of that. They're not the only thing, but they're a part of getting them. Mm-hmm. Over the hurdle. Picking up the phone.
[00:25:45] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah.
[00:25:46] George Swetlitz: Whatever.
[00:25:46] George Swetlitz: It's.
[00:25:47] Adrienne Wilkerson: And I think they're a really vital part in becoming even more of a vital player as AI changes user behavior. You know, there, it used to be, we did a lot more of our own research. You know, we would try to get the right keyword and our question into Google and hopefully, you know, get a whole list of blue leagues and we'd go research each one.
[00:26:13] Adrienne Wilkerson: And now most of us. Some more than others, or we're using ai, some version of AI for that research. And so by the time a lot more customers are showing up on, you know, a website, they've already used AI to narrow it down probably to their top two or three. So when they come to the website there, there's a different mindset now than there was even a year ago, or even six months ago, where now there's where they're more, they're farther down that funnel.
[00:26:48] Adrienne Wilkerson: They're much more closer to making a decision. And I do think reviews play so much more of a bigger part than they ever have. In that decision because they're looking for that connection. They're looking for, do I like this company? How do they handle complaints? You know, how do they handle good and bad?
[00:27:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: And what have other people encountered working with this company? And so the research is shifting and has shifted and is just, I think, gonna continue to go that way. Where people are kind of in a different place when they show up on your website and. So those reviews, I think, are even more of a gatekeeper than they maybe have ever been.
[00:27:31] Adrienne Wilkerson: So I love that you're solving this problem for companies, especially multi-location companies, because I think it, it just is becoming so much more vital. And it's, I think a lot of companies don't realize how much user behavior has shifted and is shifting, that there's a lot less research going on before they show up at your website the way it used to happen, kind of a scenario.
[00:27:58] Adrienne Wilkerson: So I love that piece, um, of what you're bringing to the table. 'cause I think it's, the timing is, is amazing for where user behavior is shifting.
[00:28:09] George Swetlitz: Yeah. No, you're, this is a really great topic that well, that you just brought up here, and, and it, AI answer engines are now reading.
[00:28:19] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:19] George Swetlitz: When you, when you ask a question, they go out and they search and they look right.
[00:28:26] George Swetlitz: Yeah. And that is very, very broad. So what's interesting is, you know, Google blocks the other engines from reading. The Google business profile, all the reviews. Mm-hmm. And the Google business profile, but Gemini reads them.
[00:28:40] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:41] George Swetlitz: And so it's looking for content.
[00:28:44] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:28:44] George Swetlitz: So your response, if it has content, is content,
[00:28:51] Adrienne Wilkerson: right.
[00:28:51] As
[00:28:51] George Swetlitz: much as the review is content.
[00:28:53] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:54] George Swetlitz: That information that you are a specialist in pediatric dentistry and you've studied for 20 years, and that's important.
[00:29:01] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:29:02] George Swetlitz: That's content that gets summarized. It could be brought up mm-hmm. In the results.
[00:29:07] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:08] George Swetlitz: But the other side to that is, you know, chat GPT can't read that.
[00:29:13] Adrienne Wilkerson: Right.
[00:29:13] George Swetlitz: So if you have these reviews with the responses, you can put them on your website.
[00:29:19] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:21] George Swetlitz: And chat, GPT can read your website.
[00:29:23] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yep.
[00:29:24] George Swetlitz: Right? And so now there's content. And you're telling it, you know, and you're, you have your reviews and your response. So it's all now with these answer engines, it's about content.
[00:29:38] George Swetlitz: You gotta develop, you know, content and the review and the response are all, is all content that can be consumed and, and used.
[00:29:48] Adrienne Wilkerson: Yeah, I love that you brought that up. And so here's. Based on, to play off of what George just said, here's uh, two tips for our listeners. What he said about Google, you know, gatekeeping with the other ais to capitalize on their ai.
[00:30:05] Adrienne Wilkerson: Gemini is spot on and so, but Bing does not gatekeep. And Bing has a very similar setup to Google business profile and they don't gate keep. So for those of you who can also go over and establish the same similar Google Business profile over on Bing's platform, you get a lot more traction over there.
[00:30:31] Adrienne Wilkerson: We're seeing a lot more traffic coming from Bing. Through AI to clients' websites and, and ours as well, because they don't gatekeep. And so that's a really kind of interesting little backdoor tip for you, if you will. And another one is that. Like you were saying, George, to take those Google responses and put 'em on your website, create an FAQ page, or have an FAQ section at the bottom of your service pages, and take the questions or the concerns or the compliments that are coming from your reviews and make a robust FAQs section that directly, here's the question.
[00:31:15] Adrienne Wilkerson: Here's the answer. Here's the question, here's the answer. AI loves that because people are asking AI complete questions, which we didn't do with Google we're doing at ai. And so AI's looking for human answers to human questions, right? As opposed to content that is AI or a keyword optimized, which is what it used to be.
[00:31:37] Adrienne Wilkerson: So, um. Thank you for bringing that up, George. That was perfect for, you know, there's some really interesting ways that we're finding to work with some of the gatekeeping that Google's trying to do and, and is doing unfortunately.
[00:31:54] George Swetlitz: Yeah. Yeah. And I think for your, for your listeners, you know it, the, the message, my message is really, you should pay attention to your reviews.
[00:32:03] Adrienne Wilkerson: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:04] George Swetlitz: You need them, you need a lot of them. Right. And you know you need to respond and you need to engage in the conversation and treat your review readers and prospective customers with respect. Yes. And if you do, that's part of what you talked about before, of establishing that connection.
[00:32:24] Adrienne Wilkerson: That was a perfect sum up to our whole session today.
[00:32:27] Adrienne Wilkerson: Thank you, George. Yeah, I love that. Um, so for our listeners out there, if anybody's interested in checking out RightResponse AI and seeing if it's a good fit for their company or practice, what's the best way to, to get ahold of you, George, or, or somebody at RightResponse AI?
[00:32:46] George Swetlitz: Yeah, so you know, it's, it's right Response ai.com.
[00:32:51] George Swetlitz: Right on our page, we have book a call and usually that's me. And so I spend all my time talking to people and I love talking to people and helping 'em solve their problems and strategizing about, you know, how they can, you know, at the end of the day, it's about building your business, getting more customers, building revenue.
[00:33:09] George Swetlitz: It's not about increasing your response rate or decreasing the time. You know that it's about revenue, right? Building your business, and so happy to do that. Anytime.
[00:33:21] Adrienne Wilkerson: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, George, for joining us today. This has been an amazing conversation and yeah, I really appreciated your time today.
[00:33:33] George Swetlitz: Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here.
[00:33:35] Adrienne Wilkerson: Wonderful. Well thank you to all of our listeners today for joining us for another episode of The Beacon Way Podcast. We'll make sure those links, um, are published with this episode so that you can reach out to George if you're interested in learning more. And I love how George sued it up.
[00:33:53] Adrienne Wilkerson: Reviews are something that are very important and it's definitely worth the investment. Um, whatever that investment ends up being for you and your company. Um. To not ignore reviews, but uh, to treat them as an amazing opportunity to connect and keep the conversation going with your clients. So thank you again for joining us for this episode of The Beacon Way Podcast.
[00:34:17] Adrienne Wilkerson: Um, you know the drill. If you like what we're bringing forward today, please uh, subscribe. Hit that subscribe button, um, for those of you on YouTube, and we'll hopefully see you back here for our next episode.
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