Do Reviews Still Matter in 2025? New Study Says It's Changed

Do Reviews Still Matter in 2025? New Study Says It's Changed

BrightLocal's recent report, analyzing 15 years of consumer review behavior, highlights significant shifts in how individuals research and engage with local businesses.

Here at Rainmaker Reputation AI, we appreciate BrightLocal’s survey.  As a Local Search tool, they have a terrific & broad data set to dig into. 

The survey shows key trends that include a reduced emphasis on perfect ratings, evolving platform preferences, and an increased willingness to write reviews.  These are all good news for local business owners who have active review collecting processes, like our own ReputationGenius AI tool.

Here’s more about the study and what it means for marketers.

Historical Trends

The survey tracks, among other things, the popularity of online reviews. It notes a rise in local business researching by prospective customers from 2015 to 2016, which coincided with smartphone ownership reaching a whopping 77% among U.S. adults.

This trend peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when 59% of consumers said they researched local businesses almost daily.  That’s a LOT of daily searches with local intent!

After that point in time, the number of consumers researching local businesses has steadily decreased.  That’s expected, as the pandemic changed shopping behavior forever.  QR codes are now a thing (Source: Forbes).  During the pandemic, a lot of local searches were done to see if a favorite business was staying open, or closing down.  Local service repair businesses also saw a lot of activity, as with lockdowns, many homeowners used the time to fix & upgrade things around the home.  It’s a little stunning to think about how chaotic that time was.  Yelp reported that 60% of the businesses in their index closed down for good (Source CNBC)!

That’s a lot of good reasons for locals to search platforms to see if how their favored local brands were doing.   

Traditional Review Metrics Less Important

Consumers now place slightly less importance on traditional review metrics:

• Fewer consumers expect perfect five-star ratings.  This is GREAT news for local business owners.  It appears discerning consumers now understand that not only can a local business honestly drop a ball now and then in the service department, but also that there are some reviewers who are hypercritical in their reviews.  Anecdotally, we often here from consumers that they trust a 4.9 score MORE than a 5.0 review score.

• People care a little less about how recent reviews are compared to 2018–2020.  Again, 2018 to 2020 was a wild time for local businesses in hiring, making it difficult to stay on top of customer service procedures being followed by new employees.

• Star ratings still matter, but more customers are now more forgiving and less accurate indicators of business quality as a whole.  Again, consumers now understand that negativity in some reviewers can be excessive, and appreciate the effort a local business has to put in to keep an operation running smoothly.

The report notes:

“This reinforces the point that consumers are more understanding of the challenges for local brands to maintain high ratings, and that it’s not a realistic indicator of true quality as a standalone factor.”

Consumers Are MORE Willing To Write Reviews

Consumers may care slightly less about reviews when deciding what to buy but are now even more willing to write them.

In the last five years, almost three-quarters of adults in the US have written an online review.

Additionally, data indicates that consumers are now more willing to write reviews, even if they didn’t do so in the past year.  That is a big change in behavior that should encourage local business owners to ask for them more.  It’s notable in the graph above that Yelp is seeing a decrease in review collecting activity.  Google’s Business Profile still dominates the field, and should still be a local business owners primary focus (especially since review activity affects Google Business Profile visibility in local intent searches)

The report states:

“For business owners, what this shows is that, despite the challenges of maintaining a consistent stream of new reviews, consumers are overwhelmingly willing to write one. It’s all about giving them a strong reason to do so (AKA a memorable experience) and catching them at the right time.”

Here is a notable change in behavior, while Google continues to lead as the preferred review platform, but the research shows other platforms are being used by potential customers:

• Facebook has dropped in both usage and trust from 2020 to 2025.  We can verify that, and the issues are many with Facebook.  They don’t make it easy for Local Brands to direct consumers to a review section on their Facebook pages, and it seems to be the platform for enthusiastic complainers.

• While Yelp remains stable as a trusted review source, the trend is going to less activity and review posting.

• Platforms like YouTube, local news outlets, and social media are becoming more influential in helping consumers make decisions.  Smart shoppers are now doing a little bit more research in their decision making, and it’s natural that they would look for other channels.  Some of these other channels also allow for more in-depth reviews, like the video socials that can host long format & more detailed reviews.

The survey suggests that the distinction between “traditional” and “alternative” review platforms is becoming less relevant, posing the question:

“What does a consumer care about the definition of a review platform, really?”

This makes a lot of sense.  A testimonial shared in non-dedicated review platforms is still a testimonial.  The advantage many consumers may not discern is that dedicated review platforms put forth a greater effort to ensure testimonials are legitimate and that there is not a gaming of the system being deployed.

Still, local business owners can get peeved with the dedicated review platforms as they fight review gaming schemes too broadly & hide or disallow legitimate reviews.  This happened a couple weeks ago with Google Reviews when all over the country, business owners noticed reviews disappearing, lowering review scores, only to reappear again a couple days later.

Notable addition is ChatGPT as a platform that consumers will look for reviews. We expect the category of LLM platforms being used to increase in the future. LLMs are now being included on mobile devices making them more accessible than ever. We have already seen Google losing a share of search volume to LLM tools.

What This Means For Local Business Owners, Coaches & Content Creators On The Rainmaker Reputation AI CRM Platform?

Our own data backs up what BrightLocal’s new survey shows.  Since releasing ReputationGenius AI, our users have dramatically gotten more reviews per request, and seen their shared 5 star reviews in other socials bring in more business.   While recency and star ratings matter for local visibility, they no longer tell the whole story for customers who are trying to discern where to spend their dollars for local services and products.

BrightLocal’s study offers these takeaways for local brands, coaches and content creators:

1. Be visible on various platforms like YouTube & other Socials, not just review sites.  Our Rainmaker Reputation CRM customers are using our ReputationGenius AI tool to repost their new 5 star reviews on their socials with an attractive graphic that gets more visibility to their growing reputations.  The video based socials are also excellent platforms to share video reviews.  These socials will share Review videos as they do other content, so it’s also worth the time for local business owners to ask for video testimonials now, more than ever.

2. Respond to customer feedback instead of just aiming for high ratings.  NOTE: Our ReputationGenius AI tool responds appropriately (with Search Optimized responses) to reviews so local business owners don’t have to.

3. Use your business identity, like a Google Business Profile, to connect with consumers.  Reviews affect Google Maps rankings, so include your Google Business Profile in your efforts for more visibility.

4. Ask for reviews. Customers are more willing to write them, so don’t hesitate to ask.  NOTE: Our ReputationGenius AI tool comes with NFC cards that have shown to dramatically improve how many reviews a local business can harvest for the amount of time invested in asking for them.  How?  Our NFC cards when swiped on a happy customer’s mobile phone, puts the local brand’s invitation to review the company right on their mobile phone.  Why does it work so well?  Because most people willing to post a review after a great experience, will still not only forget to do so, but can be frustrated in having to go to Google and do the search.   Its just enough friction in the process to make it a hassle.  The ReputationGenius cards make it so easy.  All the customer has to do is fill out the review on their phone, no searching necessary.   Local Business Owners, get more reviews, and more local visibility with ReputationGenius AI