We sat down with Matt Smith, the creator of Moxly, to discuss this new review automation service that was designed specifically to help small businesses and nonprofits get more Google reviews.
TWPeng: Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions, Matt! We are very intrigued by your take on this type of service. What makes Moxly different from other companies that help small businesses get more Google reviews?
Matt Smith: Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Moxly to the readers of TWPeng! You’re right that we aren’t the only ones offering a service that makes it easier for small businesses to increase their number of positive Google reviews. Companies and individuals have been doing this for as long as Google reviews have been in existence. There are a few things that make us different, though.
First of all, a good portion of how the system works relies on automation. This helps to keep the cost of our service low, but it also ensures that people get regular reminders about leaving a review. Typically, a person will get three reminders (unless they leave a review after the first or second ask, or if they unsubscribe). These reminders are spaced out in accordance with what our data has shown to be the optimal time frame.
Second, we work really hard to keep our interactions with people as polite and natural as possible. Even though we use a lot of automation, we don’t want people to feel like they are dealing with a robot. The emails we send out are written by actual humans (not AI), with input from our small business owner clients.
Finally, our service does a really great job of filtering out any negative feedback from appearing on Google. Instead of negative reviews going public, feedback from unsatisfied customers goes directly to the small business. The business owner can then choose to respond to the unsatisfied customer, or use that feedback to make internal adjustments.
TWPeng: It sounds like a pretty slick system! How did you come up with it?
Matt Smith: In addition to being the creator of Moxly, I am the owner of a digital marketing company, Modmacro. So many of our small business clients were having trouble consistently getting Google reviews. They knew reviews were an important part of getting new customers, as well as for search engine optimization (SEO), but they just didn’t have the time to be sending out emails asking for reviews from their customers and then following up. They would make the effort for a little while, but with a million other tasks competing for their attention, asking for reviews would get pushed to the bottom of their to-do lists.
Now that we know that answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others also rely on online reviews when they are asked to recommend local businesses, it’s even more important that small businesses have a good number of recent reviews on their Google profiles!
Since I have a strong background in software development, I decided to create Moxly to help my marketing clients get more Google reviews. However, I soon found that many other small businesses and nonprofits, besides just my clients, were interested in the service as well, so I decided to make the service available to any small business or nonprofit that wanted to benefit from it.
TWPeng: Tell me more about your “Moxly Most-Loved” distinction.
Matt Smith: That is something we came up with after we started seeing the data from the people who were receiving emails from Moxly. Before asking for a Google review, email recipients are first given the opportunity to answer a simple question, such as, “Were you satisfied with your interaction with [small business]?” They are then presented with two options: “Satisfied” and “Not Satisfied.” A lot of people were clicking “Satisfied,” but then, for whatever reason, weren’t choosing to leave a Google review. We didn’t want to just disregard all of that positive feedback. We wanted to use it in a way that could benefit Moxly clients by showing that they have high rates of satisfaction among their customers, even if they weren’t receiving a ton of Google reviews.
A Moxly Most-Loved business or organization is one that has had 90% or more of respondents click “Satisfied,” regardless of how many reviews were left. Those with the Moxly Most-Loved designation get a digital badge that they can place on their websites. They may also get a write-up on the Moxly website like this.
TWPeng: What kind of results are Moxly clients seeing?
Matt Smith: The results have been really impressive! Moxly clients are seeing an average increase of 550% in positive Google reviews since starting with our service. As of this interview, none of our clients have received a negative review on Google! Not one. Now here’s an important distinction: some of our clients have received negative feedback from their customers, but because of the way Moxly is set up, that feedback went directly to the small businesses, instead of being posted publicly on Google.
TWPeng: Where do you see Moxly going in the future?
Matt Smith: There are a lot of ways we could take this. Right now, we are focusing on getting our clients Google reviews, but if other types of reviews start to prove more valuable, we can certainly help our clients get reviews on other platforms. We are also looking at allowing people to leave reviews for our clients directly on the Moxly platform. Eventually, Moxly could become a well-known review site for small businesses and nonprofits.
TWPeng: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions about Moxly, Matt. We wish you and your team all the best as you continue to grow this valuable service!
Matt Smith: My pleasure! Thank you for the opportunity!
