Topics discussed in this episode with time stamps

00:00 – 00:43 “Our point of differentiation from other review management platforms is we add interesting things about the business into the response. So most AI review platforms parrot back what’s in the review. I liked the burgers and hated the fries. Well, we’re glad you loved the burgers and we’re disappointed you didn’t like the fries. What we’ll say is we’re glad you liked the burgers. We work with this farm in Colorado, ranch in Colorado that has grain-fed beef. We’ve been working with them for 25 years. We build on the review. We say something in that response that wasn’t in the review that gives the business personality.” — George Swetlitz

00:44 – 01:01 Welcome to Peppershock Media’s Marketing Expedition Podcast

01:02 – 02:57 George’s Background

02:58 – 08:28 Marketing Essentials Moment: AI Summary Search Results

08:29 – 10:29 Welcome to the show, George!

10:30 – 12:29 Generating Reviews with AI

12:30 – 14:59 Case Study: Restaurant Success Story

15:00 – 17:59 Personalization in Review Responses

18:00 – 20:59 Sentiment Analysis in Reviews

21:00 – 22:32 Handling Negative Reviews

22:33 – 23:08 Poderific, baby! Whether you’re looking for a podcast studio to rent or need help with the entire production and distribution of your podcast, we gotcha covered.

23:09 – 26:59 Notifications for New Reviews

27:00 – 29:59 Increasing Review Volume

30:00 – 32:59 Integration with Other Tools

33:00 – 36:29 Future of Review Management

36:30 – 37:56 How to Get Started with RightResponse AI

37:57 – 38:19 Thank you so much, George! Share this podcast, give us a review, and enjoy your marketing journey!

38:20 – 39:07 Join the Marketing Expedition Community today!

Like what you hear, but need more information?

Meet with Rhea Allen

——————————————————————————————————

Read the full Transcript

George Swetlitz: Our point of differentiation from other review management platforms is that we add interesting details about the business into the response.

Most AI review platforms just parrot back what’s in the review: “I liked the burgers and hated the fries.” Then the response is: “We’re glad you loved the burgers and disappointed you didn’t like the fries.”

What we’ll say is: “We’re glad you liked the burgers. We work with a ranch in Colorado that has grain-fed beef. We’ve been working with them for 25 years.”

We build on the review. We add something that wasn’t in the review to give the business personality.

Podcast Intro

Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast, an auditory journey through the latest in marketing, branding, and advertising. Now, here’s your Marketing Expedition guide, Rhea Allen.

Episode Intro + Setup

Rhea Allen: On today’s episode of the Marketing Expedition podcast, I get to speak with George Swetlitz. He’s the co-founder and CEO of RightResponse AI, a reputation management platform designed to help location-based businesses drive customer growth.

RightResponse AI uses advanced AI to help businesses grow through better review management, deeper review insights, and a stronger understanding of the competitive environment—all focused on driving customer acquisition and retention.

George’s approach to AI is grounded in operational experience and creating practical solutions that deliver measurable results.

Before launching RightResponse AI, George led Alpaca Audiology, scaling the retail healthcare company to over 220 locations nationwide. He began his career in consumer goods at Sara Lee Corporation, later advising businesses on earnings improvement and operations strategy.

A graduate of Harvard Business School, George is a seasoned operator who understands how to grow organizations both organically and through smart systems.

We’re going to dig into what he and his team built, why it matters, and why reviews are more important than ever—especially now that AI tools pull from reviews to generate summaries and recommendations.

Stay tuned.

First, it’s time for your Marketing Essentials Moment: the basics you need to keep building your brand and bottom line.

Marketing Essentials Moment: AI Summary Search Results + Reviews

Rhea Allen: Today I want to dig deeper into AI summary search results—and how reviews are impacting the results we’re seeing.

We’ll talk about this even more in the interview with George, but I also did a little research so you can learn with me.

User-generated reviews can contribute to a brand entity’s authority inside Gemini summaries and other AI-driven results, whether that’s ChatGPT, Gemini, or other platforms.

More and more, we’re seeing AI summaries at the top of search results. Sometimes people don’t click anywhere else. That “zero-click” behavior means the summary itself becomes the decision point.

So it’s worth thinking about how LLMs use reviews and user-generated content from Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, Reddit, and other sources.

When AI cites sources—especially when you ask it to—you can often see where it pulled information from. If your business is trying to rank well not only in traditional search results, but also in AI summaries, reviews are a major lever.

You’ll also notice different areas where you can show up:

• The AI summary response
• Sidebar links and citations
• Traditional organic results (the “blue links”)

One stat that stood out: 92% of queries in AI Mode are featured on the sidebar with links, while only 1.7% of results appear underneath as traditional organic websites.

So as you think about visibility, it’s not just about ranking in the old model—it’s about being present where AI is pulling answers.

Now, let’s get into the interview. And if you take one thing away today, let it be this: reviews matter.

I’m also going to encourage you to leave us a Google review. Search Peppershock on Google, find our Google Business Profile, and leave a review. And if you can, leave a podcast review too—those are gold for us.

With that, let’s jump in.

Interview

Rhea Allen: Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast. I’m your host, Rhea Allen. I’m the President and CEO of Peppershock Media and the founder of the Marketing Expedition community.

Today’s guest is George Swetlitz. Welcome to the show, George.

George Swetlitz: Thank you. Nice to be here.

Rhea Allen: I like to start with a little more about you—how you got to where you are, and what made you the expert you are today.

George Swetlitz: I’ve been in and around consulting and operating businesses for many years.

In 2018, I was asked to be part of a roll-up of audiology clinics. I got very involved, and we ended up building the business to 220 clinics.

One of our biggest challenges was organic growth—what we called same-store sales growth. How do you build revenue in each store?

Every location is its own competitive environment. What we learned quickly is that local reputation matters.

We tried a lot of different approaches. We sold the business in 2022. Then ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, and I got my team together and said, “We might be able to do many of the things we talked about using AI—and help other businesses leverage reputation in a more sustainable way.”

That’s the origin story of RightResponse AI. It’s AI-first, built to do things we could never do at scale when we were running our own business.

Rhea Allen: I like the name. Ideally, you’re always going to have the right response—especially with a good prompt.

Give me an example of how you’ve worked with a business: what you did, the steps you took, and the results.

George Swetlitz: Here’s the way to think about it—and this is what I say on podcasts and to owners and managers.

The review response is the most underappreciated element of the review ecosystem.

There’s no one closer to the bottom of the funnel than someone reading reviews. The intent is there. They’re deciding who to buy from—whether you’re a restaurant, a window company, pest control, or anything else.

People think about reviews as: “I need more reviews. I need keywords in the review.” And yes, that matters.

But when someone is buying, they want engagement. They’re in a trust-based moment. Reviews feel trustworthy because the foundation is a third party—someone not connected to the business.

Rhea Allen: And now we know a lot of AI tools are looking at reviews to serve up results inside platforms like Gemini and ChatGPT.

So reviews are gold right now.

George Swetlitz: Exactly. And our differentiation is that we add interesting details about the business into the response.

Most AI review platforms just repeat the review. We build on it. We add something that gives the business personality.

When you’re the review reader, you see those details and think, “Oh, that’s interesting. I want to try that.”

You’re using that space to share more about your business—things the reviewer didn’t mention.

You can’t do that consistently unless you write every response yourself, which most businesses don’t have time for, or you use AI intelligently.

Rhea Allen: If you’re getting that many reviews, it’s a good problem—but you still don’t want to write them all yourself.

Do clients get to review what AI writes, or is it fully automated?

George Swetlitz: It’s up to them. They can publish automatically, or they can review everything.

Most clients, once they’re comfortable, will review negative reviews because they may want to add something specific.

For positive reviews—which are 90–95%—they automate the process with rich, helpful responses.

And from the LLM perspective, content is content. It doesn’t matter whether the reviewer said it or the business said it. If it’s useful, AI will use it.

We see our responses float to the top of Google’s “relevant reviews” because the response itself is relevant.

We also see those responses show up in AI citations.

Rhea Allen: That’s a smart way to win visibility.

Sometimes it takes us a while to respond to reviews. Your system can be almost instantaneous, right?

George Swetlitz: Yes. Think of AI as extending you—extending how you speak about your business.

You craft the messages. We draft them, owners refine them so they’re true and real.

Then the AI looks at the review and asks: “What’s the most important theme here?” Reviews can include a lot.

Then it checks: “Do we have a message in our database that matches that theme?”

If we do, we integrate it into the response.

Rhea Allen: So the tool isn’t only about getting reviews—it’s also about responding once they come in.

George Swetlitz: We do both.

We have review generation tools as well. You can feed into our platform what you know about the customer, and the AI will write a personal, emotional request for a review.

The problem with review requests is that most people don’t respond.

Generic email requests might convert at 2–3%.

Direct, face-to-face requests—like a QR code at the moment—convert around 60–70%.

Rhea Allen: In the moment, they can open it right there. Even if they don’t finish, it’s on their phone.

George Swetlitz: Exactly.

So the question becomes: how do you take email and bump conversion from 2–3% to 15%?

You do it through personalization.

You can include a photo. You can ask them to comment on specific parts of their experience. Those details create personalization—and that changes conversion.

Rhea Allen: That’s sophisticated, but still doable for businesses that don’t want to build automations themselves.

George Swetlitz: Right.

We have a large customer that gets tens of thousands of reviews a year on platforms like Trustpilot.

They asked us to respond based on sentiment. If the review is negative around timeliness, they want a specific response.

We modified our UI to support that. It created responses that were emotionally connected to the review because they matched the sentiment.

Rhea Allen: I love sentiment scoring.

People say you can’t measure branding, but you can measure sentiment—how people feel, what language they use, and how often certain themes show up.

George Swetlitz: Exactly.

Negative reviews are the biggest risk. Someone reads one and decides, “I don’t want to take that chance.”

Rhea Allen: And if you never respond, it looks like you don’t care.

George Swetlitz: Right. And I might be biased, but generic AI responses to negative reviews are even worse than not responding.

Rhea Allen: Because it looks fake.

George Swetlitz: Exactly. You’re basically saying, “I care so little about your experience that I’m going to respond generically.”

That can be more damaging than silence.

Ad Read

Want to start a podcast but don’t know where to begin?

At Poderific, we don’t just produce podcasts. We help you create auditory experiences that will captivate your audience.

Our state-of-the-art podcast recording studio, powered by Peppershock Media, is designed for creators like you. Record with high-quality equipment supported by our expert team and distribute your podcast across major platforms like Apple and Spotify.

Whether you’re launching your first episode or you’re a seasoned podcaster, we’ve got you covered.

Visit Poderific.com today to learn how we can help you produce, record, and share your story with the world.

Your podcast deserves to be Poderific.

Continuing the Interview

Rhea Allen: Does your system alert you when someone leaves a two-star review versus a five-star review?

George Swetlitz: If someone reviews you on Google, you don’t know until they post it.

We pull the review in, and for negative reviews we notify the business—usually by email, depending on what the client wants.

Then we draft a response. We’re not defensive. We respond to the specific sentiment.

Rhea Allen: And you’re careful about apologizing.

You can acknowledge what happened without admitting fault—especially if there’s a legal issue.

George Swetlitz: Right.

For example, in a restaurant: if someone waited too long or the food wasn’t right, a good response is:

“Sorry we didn’t meet your expectations. We hope we have another chance. Next time, if something happens, please tell us while you’re here so we can fix it.”

You acknowledge their experience, and you invite them to give you a chance to make it right in the moment.

Rhea Allen: I also encourage businesses to take negative conversations offline.

Offer a phone call or a real conversation. It shows you tried to address the issue—and it reduces the “keyboard warrior” effect.

George Swetlitz: Exactly.

No one expects a business to be perfect. They’re looking for empathy and acknowledgement.

And they’re looking for the preponderance of the evidence to be positive.

That’s why getting more reviews matters. If you don’t ask, you mostly hear from people who are upset.

We worked with a restaurant in the competitive San Francisco market.

They were getting five to ten reviews a month, and about a third were negative.

We helped them implement QR codes. Every staff member had an individual QR code. The owner created incentives to get the staff engaged.

They went from five to ten reviews a month to about 60 reviews a month.

Rhea Allen: That’s a massive change.

George Swetlitz: Huge.

We also made responses highly personalized. It was a Mexican restaurant, so we would reference things like the chef coming from a small village in the Yucatán and bringing that authenticity into the food.

Their rating went up.

Their ranking went from number 59 in that market to number three.

You can leverage the review ecosystem to drive the business forward without spending a lot of money—because most people aren’t doing it.

If you do it consistently, you win.

Now the owner is opening another restaurant because he feels this approach helps him grow faster and reduces downside risk.

And honestly, you can’t do it at scale without AI.

Rhea Allen: AI is central to keeping up with 60 reviews a month.

George Swetlitz: Exactly.

We also have a done-for-you service. We monitor reviews, improve the messaging over time, make sure responses get posted, and handle the process end to end.

That way the owner can focus on running the business.

Rhea Allen: I was on your website and saw you can play around with tools and rankings.

Can you integrate with other tech stack tools—like GoHighLevel?

George Swetlitz: Yes.

We have Zapier integrations and API integrations.

Often a customer asks, “Do you integrate with X?” If we don’t, it’s usually not hard to build as long as the platform has API access.

Our integration portfolio grows as customers request new connections.

Rhea Allen: Every day there’s a new tool. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.

But this seems like something that’s straightforward to implement and immediately useful.

George Swetlitz: Exactly. And the restaurant example is a great illustration.

They increased review volume, improved ranking, and attracted more customers because people saw strong reviews and thoughtful responses.

Rhea Allen: And the responses were authentic to the business.

George Swetlitz: Right.

If someone says, “The food was so authentic,” we trigger a message about the chef’s background and the restaurant’s story.

Those details add richness—and people read them and think, “I want to go there.”

Rhea Allen: Let’s go, George. That sounds amazing.

I love the idea of weaving brand story into review responses. It helps customers, and it helps AI summaries.

George Swetlitz: Exactly. Content is content.

Gemini can read that and decide it’s useful. That detail may show up in the AI summary.

Rhea Allen: Where do you see this going? Do you think businesses will realize they need reviews even more than before?

George Swetlitz: Yes.

Over time, the value of adding more content in reviews and responses will become obvious.

We’re also building new features.

For example, we’re working on something that detects a review update and incorporates it into the response.

If someone left a four-star review and later updates it to a five-star review, we can acknowledge the improved experience.

If someone changes a five-star review to a one-star review, we can acknowledge that the recent experience wasn’t as good and invite them to reach out so we can understand what happened.

It’s personal and engaging—like you’re standing in front of them.

AI gives you the ability to go deeper in those interactions, and that’s where we’re focused.

Rhea Allen: If people want to use your services, what should they do?

George Swetlitz: Go to RightResponseAI.com—RightResponseAI.com.

You can sign up for a free trial directly, or schedule a call with our team.

We make it easy to figure out the right solution for each business.

Rhea Allen: And you have pricing on your website. That’s great.

George Swetlitz: We’re transparent. We tell people exactly what to expect.

Rhea Allen: I’ve really appreciated our conversation.

I hope listeners see the value in what RightResponse AI does—because reviews are becoming even more vital for AI engine results, not just search engine results.

George Swetlitz: 100%. It’s going to be more and more critical to provide content if you want to win that summary battle.

Rhea Allen: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time today, George.

George Swetlitz: Great conversation. Thank you.

Rhea Allen: And for those of you listening, the best thing you can do for George and me is share this episode with someone who needs what he does.

Until next time, everybody—enjoy your marketing journey.

Podcast Outro

Thanks for listening to the Marketing Expedition podcast. Want to continue the journey? Don’t miss out on new episodes. Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was one place you can go to get all the latest information and tips about marketing and advertising? The Marketing Expedition community is that place.

People like you gather in our online community to build relationships with others and find the latest marketing trends, tactics, tools, and technology. We help you build your brand and your bottom line.

Start your adventure today. Visit TheMarketingExpedition.com to find out more.