As a consumer you probably use Google ratings as an important tool to help you decide where to shop, dine and visit. But did you know that they could also impact your business’s profits? With our partner MARC USA, Influence Network performed a study to look at the impact of a location’s Google rating on store profitability in the auto service industry. Looking at Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) data we found that the impact of location ratings on store profitability is undeniable :

On average, for an individual store, every ½-star drop in ratings, annually stores gave up:

  • 12% of listing views
  • 10% of website clicks
  • 5% of your click-to-calls

Each one of those impacts revenue in their own way:

  • Fewer listing views result in fewer potential customers even seeing your listing.
  • Fewer website clicks result in fewer customers exploring your products and specials,
  • Fewer calls have the most measurable direct impact, suppressing people who are close to a purchasing decision.

So what’s the bottom line? Looking only at the loss of calls we can determine this with the following formula:

AVERAGE CLICK-TO-CALLS PER MONTH * 0.05 * ESTIMATED CONVERSION RATE * PER CUSTOMER PROFIT

So for example if a location gets 900 click-to calls each month, and half of these can be converted to customers, with a profit margin of $200 per customer visit, an individual store risks losing $4500 monthly (over $50K annually).

900 * 0.05 * 0.50 * $200 = $4500

You should consider this a floor, as computing the impact in the loss of listing views and website clicks will pile additional profitability leaks on top of these numbers.

To see what this might mean for your business, use the formula above and see what managing your ratings and reviews can do for your profits.