Every marketing dollar is under more scrutiny than it was a year ago. Paid keeps getting more expensive, organic traffic keeps shrinking, and AI-generated answers mean most customers decide who to call before they ever land on your website. So the question every multi-location leader is asking is a fair one: where does spend actually still pay off?

The answer is hiding in plain sight. Reviews, ratings, and listings are the signals customers and AI both read first — and unlike paid media, they compound. The work you do this quarter is still working for you next year.

In this Lunch & Learn, we’ll share findings from Consumer Fusion’s 2026 Online Reputation Report and connect them directly to revenue: what active review management is actually worth, why review volume and recency move the needle more than most brands realize, what a single star costs you, and why listings quietly drive both traffic and customer action. Then we’ll hear from a leader at one of the top-performing franchise brands we work with on what they’ve seen firsthand and what changed across their locations.

If you’re trying to make the case internally for where reputation belongs in your budget, this session gives you the numbers to do it.

Speaker: Xan Gulish, VP, Business Development, Consumer Fusion

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