Purplebricks - a condemnation of review sites

 This article appeared on Property Industry Eye this morning...

But, should you look at Purplebricks' review sites of choice...

But, you may well say, those scores - 4.4 from Trustpilot and 4.5 from Feefo - are more than respectable. Why are allAgents so hard on them and why does Purplebricks accept it needs to improve 'quality of service to our customers'? Maybe a look at their Google scores - where they are available - may help?

Here's London...

And their HQ in Solihull...

Oh! - and here's another review site that they don't belong to...

And the aforementioned allAgents...

Now, we don't propose to go into any more in-depth analysis of the whys and wherefores of all the above, simply because we think we've already given most people enough information to come to the conclusion that subscribing to a review site can make even a business that rates so low on Google and other review sites look great. 

There is only one review mechanism that is open to all without interference from the business under review and that's Google. And our sincerely held view is that consumers are best served by reading a business's Google reviews and being guided by a business's Google score.

That goes for businesses as well: how can you justify - to the regulators, to your potential customers - using any other review mechanism but Google?

Google also happens to be seen by everyone when they search - that's unless the business has made strenuous efforts to make its Google reviews as invisible as possible. So why would a business pay for a review solution that comes a very poor second - in terms of both visibility and credibility (not to mention transparency) - to Google reviews?