HelpHound - reasons to join, updated for 2022

It's a while since we focussed on us! So here's a reminder for clients - some of whom may be unaware of all the services we provide these days - and an unashamed pitch to everyone else who is yet to join.

1.  Results

Why do anything in business without being as sure as possible of the financial returns? Not a bad mantra really.

The results HelpHound provides for its clients are measurable - within weeks of joining. How so? Each month your business receives a report from Google detailing, amongst other things:

• how many potential customers found your business in Google search and called you
• how many potential customers found your business in Google search and clicked through to your website

For full details read this article. But for now we think these two anecdotes sum up the value we add pretty well. The first is a report by a client of a client of ours...

The second is an analysis of another two locations of that same client by a direct competitor commenting on an industry forum..

We think that, combined, these speak for themselves.

2. Safety - and boring old compliance

HelpHound pays for itself over and over again where high-quality professional businesses are concerned. Nothing stops inbound enquiries faster than a factually incorrect or potentially misleading Google review. And the only way to ensure your business gets the absolute minimum of these? Moderation. And the only way to have your reviews moderated? By inviting them to your own website in the first place.

Case history 1

Anyone who doubts the impact such a review can - and will - have should read this horror story: it's about a law firm that lost so many enquiries thanks to just one such review that they felt they had no alternative but to take the reviewer to court. They won - or did they? 

Case history 2 

We have a client that conducted an experiment: what if they simply bypassed moderation and embedded a Google widget to feed - and invite - Google reviews direct to their website(s)?

Sounds great? Save all the hassle of having to get the client to copy the review they've already written on the business's website over to Google. Bound to get more Google reviews that way - and the Google widget has the same SEO impact, right? And it's CMA compliant.  

All went swimmingly until unhappy consumers began to find the 'Write a [Google] review' button on their websites. Within six months nearly half of the locations involved in the experiment were showing a damaging 1* review front and centre on their websites' home pages. 

Now, there's being open and there's being rash. We suppose it would be kind of OK if the 1* reviews that appeared there were fair and balanced assessments of the service the business had provided, but the overwhelming majority were not, they were just the kind of reviews that would have previously benefitted most from our moderation: mistaken, wrong-end-of-the-stick, inaccurate and potentially misleading - sometimes one of these, more often a handful.

The business is in the process of unwinding the damage done. Not quite as simple as replacing the Google widget with the HelpHound moderated mechanism (there are compliance and SEO issues at play), but we're getting there.

Compliance

Yawn. Until you begin losing business because a competitor has spotted that you are selectively inviting Google reviews (illegal) or only showing 5* reviews on your website (also illegal). Then you will suddenly want to be compliant. All of our clients are complaint from day one. To continue the sleep analogy: they can all sleep soundly in their beds at night knowing they are not vulnerable to criticism by anyone, including the CMA.

 

3.  Service - we're here when you need us

See 'Safety' above. We have so much experience - just see how far back this blog goes and how many articles there are - and all of it is here for our clients to use. Seen a new review site and want to know if it will suit your business? Ask us, and we will know all about it. Have a review you are having trouble finding just the right response to? We'll have seen one just like it. Have a Google review you think is unfair or inaccurate? We'll know exactly how to draft an appeal to Google.

N.B.  We hope you never need any of the above, and I'm sure you do as well, but when you do need help - and the phones have stopped ringing - you will then be sure to understand the value of our service and the decades of knowledge behind it.

4. Total coverage - we know the mechanisms and the marketplace

We didn't just invent review management - although we did! - we stay abreast of every single development in the world of reviews (just put 'Trustpilot' into the search box on this blog, and we're sure you will see what we mean). And there's an awful lot to know about that you don't want to be bothered with. Think of us in the same way as you do your lawyers - we're there to provide specialist knowledge and advice exactly when it's needed, not software (that's a given) but person-to-person specific and targeted advice.