This letter was sent to Demandforce Customers this morning:
To our Valued Customers,
Late last week, Google made yet another update to its Google Places Pages. We’d like to take this opportunity to explain these changes and review the suite of world-class reputational marketing tools that Demandforce offers to help our customers increase the value of their online reputation.
Google and Reviews
Demandforce has had a data integration agreement with Google since 2008 and that status has not changed. Demandforce continues to make available business profile data and certified consumer reviews to help populate Google’s Places pages. Currently, Demandforce makes available over 1 million reviews from our more than 11,000 business customers. Through our integration agreement with Google, our Demandforce Connect for Facebook module and our WebFeed data delivery service to 90 additional Web sites, you can trust that your business listing, specialties, hours of operation and other information are accurately and reliably represented on the web.
Regarding the recent Google Places changes, Google provides its users with an ever-evolving online experience, and they will continue to do so. The most recent update is particularly interesting for these two reasons:
1) Reviews written directly on the Google Places 
Page have increased visibility:
2) A single call-to-action to drive consumers to third-party sites like Demandforce now is displayed:
We think these changes benefit our users, because consumers are most likely to click on the sites showing large numbers of reviews, leading users to our businesses’ Demandforce Business Profile pages, where they can schedule appointments or learn more about you. In addition to Demandforce Certified Reviews, our customers can increase the number of organic Google reviews by easily executing our Demandforce Reputation Builder for Google, details for which are below.
We’re giving you the tools to own, build, and manage your online reputation.
It bears repeating that Demandforce creates a valuable asset—certified consumer reviews—that you own and can leverage to better understand and market your business. In addition we provide a platform that puts those reviews to work for you, with the Google review feed being just one of the tools available. I want to remind our customers of some of the other great reputational marketing tools available for use right now:
Demandforce Connect For Facebook provides businesses with a fantastic and easy option for leveraging the largest social network in the world to build on their online reputation and generate new business.
Demandforce Connect Website Widgets provide businesses with the ability to provide the same information – fresh, real, accurate customer reviews and an online appointment requester that feeds directly into their Demandforce D3 portal – on their private domain websites so they can provide a consistent and relevant experience across all of their online assets. If you haven’t already added the review and scheduler widgets to your website, I suggest you put that on your high priority list!
With the release of our updated Business Profile Pages earlier this year, we also did some great work around keywords and search engine optimization so when consumers are searching for information about you organically, your Demandforce Business Profiles will show in results.
Since Facebook is also displaying search results from around the web, you’ll find that Demandforce Business Profile Pages are also showing up here prominently:
Reputation Builder was introduced earlier this year as a way for our customers to draw on their active customer base and encourage activity on a variety of other social ecosystems where the business may want to do some work. These emails, just like all other email and text communications sent through our system, are always free for Demandforce Customers to send. A great way to increase the number of native reviews on Google is to execute a Reputation Builder for Google Places campaign. To the right is a sample of what the Google Places message looks like:
We also have several other templates ready to go for our customers in their portals:
Our Customer Care Team has had numerous conversations about Reputation Builder since the feature was released, and customers have reported great results simply by asking their customers for help. Want to send Reputation Builder for Google now? Follow these easy instructions.
Demandforce WebFeed is a frequently overlooked benefit that warrants special attention when we’re talking about making it easier to manage a business’ online reputation. Webfeed ensures that our customers have accurate and consistent information about their business across the various websites consumers visit. Over 90 sites receive regular updates from Demandforce with business information – our customers only have to update this information in one place, their D3 portals. We emphasize how important this is for your business. The #1 factor to improve local search rankings for your business is to have your business represented the same way on all websites. This is written about by many of the influential industry experts. It is so important that we offer it to you for free.
The Demandforce Network is a newer tool in our toolbox, but it’s also probably the most powerful addition to our suite of services when it comes to a business’ online reputation. The Demandforce Network displays your hard earned reputation to over 65 million consumers who are actively engaging with other non-competing Demandforce businesses in your local area.
As we grow our customer base across additional industries, the Demandforce Network will continue to grow quickly. We are investing heavily in new, exciting and robust features for the Demandforce Network so look for news on that front very soon!
The future is bright, and we’re really excited.
Demandforce has always stayed heads down and focused on building innovative products and services for our customers. We are providing an easy, automated, and turnkey solution for a pretty complicated problem. We continue to add new features year after year so our customers can stay ahead of the ever-evolving online space. We’re here to help our customers thrive in the Internet economy, and every single person who works for this company lives and breathes our mission, every day. We are all very excited about our roadmap for the rest of this year and into 2012, and I know our customers will be as well.
Demandforce is committed to providing the most innovative communication, reputation and social networking solutions to our customers. We stand ready to assist our customers at any time and appreciate you being part of the Demandforce family.
Kind Regards,
Patrick Barry
VP, Marketing and Products
Demandforce, Inc.
Related posts:
- Basic Rules – Dos and Don’ts for your Google Places profile
- Kicking off 2011 with new social media features!
- Coming Soon To A Portal Near You…
- Demandforce Tips for Google Local Success
- New Business Profiles are here!
Tags: Demandforce, demandforce d3, google places pages, news
July 25, 2011 at 7:16 pm |
How come there are so few negative reviews on Demandforce?
July 25, 2011 at 10:19 pm |
Hi there! Our reviews are generated based on actual visits and therefore are certified to be from real customers of the business. Unlike other sites, Demandforce takes the pulse of all consumers not just the ones who are motivated (either positively or negatively) to search out a review site to let their voice be heard. Demandforce provides internal survey functionality to our businesses so they can make the necessary changes to ensure customer satisfaction. To date, our reviews are over 99.8% correlated to the internal survey scores.
July 25, 2011 at 7:50 pm |
Why can’t the public see the list of their 10,000+ dentists and read all 1 million reviews in one place? And why haven’t you posted my first question by now, Demandforce?
D. Kellus Pruitt DDS
CC: spamgroup
July 25, 2011 at 10:22 pm |
There are a lot of great features coming out in regards to the Demandforce Network in over the next several months – this feature is something we have been discussing as a potential feature for a future release.
July 25, 2011 at 11:09 pm |
Thank you, Annie.
July 26, 2011 at 6:01 pm |
[...] Google reviews. IT WORKS! See comment from another one of my Dentists below the image and quote. An Update Regarding Recent Google Places Page Formatting Changes Late last week, Google made yet another update to its Google Places Pages. We’d like to take this [...]
July 26, 2011 at 7:43 pm |
can a rep contact me to upgrade to these services?
you guys are the best! thank you for everything!
Dr. Blau
July 26, 2011 at 8:43 pm |
Hi Dr. Blau – Great to see you reading the blog! Everything noted here is included with your standard subscription. I’ll ask someone reach out to you to make sure all’s well?
Best, Annie
July 26, 2011 at 10:30 pm |
With reviews now being labeled clearly as a third party extension, how can you spin this to be a good thing? They no longer appear as a numbered review, like they were before, and quite frankly, they now appear somewhat illegitimate to the common eye.
July 27, 2011 at 3:48 pm |
Hi Sam, Thanks for your comment. We definitely think this is a good thing – The reality is that Google, along with all other search engines and sites, is free to display public data how they feel is best use of their web space. Consumers are adapting faster to change and search engines will continue to evolve how they categorize and display data. This is just another iteration of that. It’s important for businesses to continue to be where their customers and potential customers are, and start leveraging word of mouth in a social manner if they have not already. There’s a lot of opportunity. Cheers, Annie
July 27, 2011 at 5:32 pm |
Hi everyone, For customers that have questions about their accounts, please contact Customer Care so we can make sure someone is getting back to you in a timely manner and measure the quality of the interaction. Thanks very much!
July 28, 2011 at 10:12 pm |
Does your system give customers the ability to approve or deny reviews that are posted to their accounts?
July 28, 2011 at 11:16 pm |
Hi Topher, There is no approve/deny feature in the system. There is a Public Review Policy in place, which can be viewed on our website here: http://www.demandforce.com/reviewpolicy.php
July 28, 2011 at 10:26 pm |
This was great news for me. It made me aware of the “real” power of demandforce and caused me to change my reminder service to demand force.
July 28, 2011 at 11:16 pm |
Hi Dr. Bailey, Great to hear from you, and glad to have you in the Demandforce family!
Cheers, Annie
August 12, 2011 at 9:26 pm |
Nice post about the new format and its impact, and it’s great that you’re encouraging Clients to ask for reviews on not only your platform but directly on Google Places. Smart!
December 12, 2011 at 6:06 pm |
Global market Social Network, Worldwide professional and Business Community site…
[...]An Update Regarding Recent Google Places Page Formatting Changes |[...]…