Get All Access for $5/mo

How to Save Time and Money by Analyzing Your Reviews In this conversation with Jeff Toister, author of The Service Culture Handbook, you'll learn how evaluating your reviews can save you time, and improve your business.

By Emily Washcovick

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Jeff Toister

Behind the Review host and Yelp's Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick, shares a look at this week's episode of the podcast.

Online reviews can be an important source of feedback to help improve your business. They're a signal to what's going well and what needs to improve.

Jeff Toister, author of The Service Culture Handbook, has some surprising advice for small business owners who feel they're too busy to read through all their reviews. "It's going to save you time, and it's going to improve your business."

This can be very manageable if you're using the right process. "You really don't have to spend more than 30 minutes per week doing this," explained Toister.

Analyzing your reviews can help you improve customer service, increase sales, and pinpoint problems that are costing you customers. Reviews can sometimes reveal unexpected insights.

Toister shared an example of a small restaurant chain with five locations that requested customer service training for its staff. The management team was concerned about a recent trend of negative online reviews and hoped the training would turn things around.

Yet an analysis revealed it was food quality, not poor service, that drove most complaints. The restaurant had recently changed its menu and introduced lower-cost ingredients to cut costs. Customers weren't happy with the changes, though many reviewers were careful to point out they still received great service.

Carefully analyzing the restaurant chain's online reviews zeroed in on the real issue and prevented it from organizing a costly and time-consuming training program.

Toister shared the process he used for quickly analyzing the restaurant chain's Yelp reviews. You can apply the same process to your own business.

Start by going to the Yelp Page for your business and sort your reviews to show the newest first. "A review from a year ago might not be relevant today," said Toister. "I want to make sure I'm looking at the newest reviews first so I can focus my attention on those."

The next step is to create what's called a check sheet. Get a piece of paper and draw five columns, one for each type of possible rating. Label the columns one through five stars.

Read through each review and notice the star rating. Try to identify specific themes that the customer wrote about and record those in the column that corresponds to the review's star rating.

For example, let's say a customer gave a restaurant a 3-star review and wrote, "The service was really good, but my meal was undercooked and way too salty." The two themes are a positive sentiment for service and a negative sentiment for food.

Write the words "service" and "food" under the 3-star column since it's a 3-star review. Next to service, put a "+" sign to indicate it was positive and next to food put a "-" sign to indicate that it was negative.

Repeat this process for each review you received in the past 90 days. Add new themes as you go. When reviews mention similar themes with the same sentiment, put a check mark next to that item.

Another 3-star review might say, "We had to wait 45 minutes to get seated, but our server was really friendly." Under the 3-star column, you would add "wait time" with a "-" sign next to it to indicate negative sentiment and a check mark next to "service +" to indicate another mention of good service.

By the time you've finished, you will have a grid that shows what customers talk about when they give you each star rating.

The next step is looking for themes. "What we want to do here is understand what's driving positive and negative sentiment," said Toister. The check sheet will help you identify what causes customers to give each type of rating.

Once you've identified some issues, it's time to go beyond the review and investigate. "We want to get a sense of what's really happening," said Toister.

There could be many reasons why those restaurant customers complained about poor food quality. It might be a new chef who hadn't mastered the recipes, new ingredients that didn't taste as good, or menu changes that customers didn't like.

The final step in the process is taking action. "It's one thing to know what the themes are," said Toister. "But if you don't do anything with it then you aren't able to improve your business."

Small business owners can spot insights to improve their business by spending just 30 minutes per week analyzing online reviews.

  • Sort reviews by newest first. Focus on the most recent trends.
  • Create a check sheet. Identify what customers say most often about your business.
  • Search for themes. Look for both positive and negative trends.
  • Investigate issues. Dig into the root cause of things that dissatisfy customers.
  • Take action. Leverage these insights to improve your business.

Listen to the episode below and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.

Emily Washcovick

Small Business Expert at Yelp

As Yelp’s Small Business Expert, Emily is meticulously focused on helping local business owners succeed and grow. Her expertise lies in customer engagement, reputation management, and all things digital marketing. Through speaking engagements and thought leadership, Emily shares industry insights that entrepreneurs in any business category can leverage for the growth and well-being of their businesses. She is also the host of Behind the Review, a podcast from Yelp and Entrepreneur Media, where each episode features conversations with a business owner and a reviewer about the story and lessons behind their interactions.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

These Companies Offer the Best Work-Life Balance, According to Employees

The ranking is based on Glassdoor ratings and reviews.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Leadership

Why Your AI Strategy Will Fail Without the Right Talent in Place

Using fractional AI experts through specialized platforms allows companies to access top talent cost-effectively, drive innovation and scale agile strategies for growth.

Science & Technology

Use This Framework to Successfully Integrate AI Into Your Business Operations

Here's how to ensure both innovation and compliance when using AI in your organization.

Growing a Business

5 Effective Strategies to Boost Your Business's Online Presence

Boosting your online presence in 2025 is the key to success for businesses looking to grow. Working on your branding and reputation management is important to drive more sales and improve conversion.