Moderation - the Golden Key to reviews

Note for regular readers: we have introduced this 'key takeaway' box to summarise the essential points of each article; hopefully, it will enable you to decide if you need to read further, or even pick up the phone straight away! As ever, we welcome feedback and you can comment by clicking the link at the bottom of the article - we will respond, you can be sure of that.

Now: on with the article...

All indications show that people are spending much more time on pre-purchase research in the 'new normal'. Why?

• because they have more time on their hands - often because they're working from home
• because they are more concerned that they make the correct purchasing decision
• because, for a lot of people, their finances are more stretched, or are under threat of becoming so 

Impulse buying, for big-ticket items and especially services, is fast becoming a distant memory.

So, in practical terms, what are consumers now doing pre-purchase? They are...

• Speaking to friends, family and colleagues 
• Researching on the web - often extensively
• Reading Google reviews - especially negative ones
• Comparing competitive products and services

Let's take a look at these in more detail.

Speaking to friends, colleagues and family

We have all always done this, haven't we? Yes, but not nearly as extensively as we do now. There are two key reasons why we ask more questions of more people these days. First: we are aware of just how fragile the economy is becoming and when this happens people are naturally more cautious. Secondly: many people have much more time on their hands - they have 'commuting time' if they are now working from home and they have 'social time' because they are not getting out nearly as much.

Researching the web and reading Google reviews

Pre-COVID consumers may have read a business's Google reviews, or even simply relied on the business's Google score. Now they have both the time and the inclination to mine down further. 

Take this high profile business as an example: back in the pre-COVID environment a score of 4.4 (although marginally failing the Google filter) might have sufficed:

But now? Suppose a potential customer takes just ten more minutes on Google, what might they discover? First stop: read the negative Google reviews:

Then read the first Google 'People also ask' question:

Then read what their employees say about them on employment sites such as Indeed and Glassdoor:

And read the business's responses to negative reviews...

...to see if they address the issues raised.

Comparing equivalent services

Every Google search - even one on a specific business such as this for Pimlico Plumbers  - throws up alternatives:

Making it easy for consumers to compare any business or service.

What should a business do?

To take this example: Pimlico Plumbers have over two hundred self-employed tradesmen on their books and they deal in a highly contentious area: emergency services. They are bound to have customer disputes. The problem they have - in common with just about every other service business - is that all their disputes have the potential to be aired in public, on the web, often as Google reviews. 

Without what follows, consumers will resort to posting a negative and potentially damaging review, often in the heat of the moment, without any meaningful dialogue with the business, and we have a pretty good idea that's what's happened in the majority of cases where Pimlico Plumbers have received a one-star review. And those reviews will be deflecting business.

This is quite easily addressed by one straightforward mechanism - independent moderation.

Moderation: how it works, for you and your customer

Moderation involves an independent agent acting as an intermediary between the reviewer and the reviewed business - HelpHound in the following example. The moderator reads each and every review before it is then published on the business's website and the reviewer is subsequently - and automatically - invited to copy their review to Google.

Benefits for the business

All our clients' websites host a 'write a review' button that enables anyone - anyone at all - to write a review of the business in question at any time:

A review such as the one for Pimlico Plumbers above would have had a very good chance of being submitted through this system and therefore become subject to moderation (the client so obviously requires a response from the business - why wouldn't they use a mechanism that promises a response?).

 

Even if it were not the business would be able to respond to this Google review inviting the customer to take such a course of action. Lastly, the business would be able to respond publicly on Google saying that 'All our customers are able to take advantage of our independently moderated customer review system by simply clicking on the button on our website.' and at the very least show others that they have gone to lengths to enable both happy and unhappy customers to communicate with them.

 

N.B. This review was only written two weeks ago and already six Google searchers have voted it 'Helpful'. We estimate that less than one in thirty people who read a review bother to vote, meaning that at least 180 people have read the review.

Moderation ensures that the business is able to comply with the law - which requires all businesses that proactively invite reviews from their customers to ensure that every one of them is able to write a review at a time of their own choosing - without undue risk that its reputation will be harmed by inaccurate and/or misleading reviews.

Above all it gives the business the confidence to actively invite reviews - with the proven advantages such a strategy has, without the real fears inherent in adopting an unmoderated approach.

Benefits for your customer 

Moderation also ensures - as far as is humanly possible - the accuracy of each and every review and as such it is welcomed by reviewer and business alike (and we're pretty sure Google is all in favour as well!).

 

Very few reviewers want inaccurate or misleading statements publicly published (and we have never yet met a business that was happy with such comments either). Perhaps, most important of all, is the effect moderation has on the relationship between business and customer: customers who post inaccurate or misleading reviews are most unlikely to use the reviewed business again, they are simply too embarrassed; moderation enables mediation to take place, in private, so misunderstandings are resolved before the crucial businbess/consumer relationship is irrevocably damaged. Put simply: moderation retains customers.

Conclusion...

With moderated review management everyone wins. The business:

• is given the confidence to invite all its customers to post a review
• becomes instantly legally compliant (see below)
• retains more customers
• achieves a more impressive Google score
• has great reviews and a great score on its own website and those reviews and scores drive more clicks and calls (see below)

The consumer:

• is impressed by the business's Google score and the individual reviews
• is far more likely to contact the business  
• is far less likely to be put off using a business by its negative reviews and lower Google score
• is given reviews they can trust
• is much more likely to remain a customer - even after a negative experience

Further reading...

• Moderation - a full explanation of the process
• The law - so many businesses currently run foul of UK law relating to reviews
• Killer reviews -  essential reading for anyone that thinks 'the odd bad review won't hurt'

Google reviews: don't sacrifice quality - or honesty - in the quest for volume or scores

Every business wants - needs - a great reviews score. But many are adopting the wrong strategy to achieve it.

Let's first examine why a great Google score is so important...

1. Every potential customer, bar a very few of those that physically walk through your door, will have seen your Google reviews and the attendant score. How so? Because it is right there when they search, even if only for your phone number...

This is a screenshot of a client's Google knowledge panel - the mechanism Google use to feed all searches, specific (on the business's name) and local ('estate agents Woking').

2.  Correction to point 1: even those the 'walk through your door' will have seen your reviews, because they will invariably have searched on Google to find directions...


3.  Businesses with a Google score of 4.5 or more attract more enquiries, both through their websites and through other channels (calls and emails). The weight of research proving that is now overwhelming. Here are the results for a client of ours...

4. Businesses that score 4.4 or less are vulnerable to the Google Filter; local search is vital for most businesses: now you see [all of] them...

Now you don't...

Three out of the seven businesses listed in the unfiltered search have fallen out of search altogether.


Strategies...

As soon as most businesses understand the power of Google reviews they do the most obvious thing: they begin selectively, and very carefully, inviting their most satisfied customers to write reviews to Google. This strategy, however, is in direct contravention of the CMA's core regulations.

So then a business might look at one of the many reviews websites. Here is where we often see the quality drop ('plummet?'). Look at these reviews...

There are over a thousand more, so why so short? Because the 'review' that is being invited is of the quality of the customer touch point - invariably a phone call. So what is wrong with that? Superficially? Nothing. But let's look at how these reviews are aggregated...

And then shown in a Google search...

All of which would be fine if the reviews host and/or the business concerned made it clear to potential customers that a significant proportion of the 'Genuine Customer Reviews' are of telephone calls rather than of the business's core offering.

And it is all too easy to use a mechanism like this for gating. All the business then has to do is invite all those that post a 5* review on the reviews site to copy their review to Google. Gating is not only against the CMA regulations, it contravenes Google's own rules regarding reviews and when this happens Google are prone to deleting all a business's reviews without appeal.

This is the sort of thing we define as a 'review'...

It's on the most important site by far - Google - and it adds value for both business and consumer. It has also (April 2019) been viewed 172 times.

We realise that this article is turning into a pretty good guide on how to game the system to get a great Google score and ultimately mislead prospective customers into using your business (or at least contacting it). That would be so, were it not for the presence, in the UK at least, of the government sponsored regulator (the aforementioned Competition and Markets authority) which is specifically directed to sanction those businesses abusing reviews for their own ends, whether cherry-picking or gating or adopting even more sophisticated methods to improve their image for any given search.


Moderation - managing out the fear

The reason so many businesses are breaking the law is fear. Interestingly, they are not afraid that customers will write fully-justified and accurate criticism - unless they have bad customer relations - they are concerned that reviews may contain factual inaccuracies and/or misleading statements that will deflect future business. And they are right to be, as a single well-crafted review can - and has - stopped the phones ringing.

The solution to this - for the benefit of future consumers just as much as for the business under review - is moderation. When a HelpHound client business invites and receives a review, that review is read by a moderator before it is published anywhere. Only when our moderator is reassured that the review is accurate will it be published on the business's website and the reviewer invited to copy it to Google. This process may take mere seconds (as it does in the overwhelming majority of cases) or will involve an exchange between us, the reviewer and the business under review. Whatever the case, moderation benefits all stakeholders...

• the reviewer has posted an accurate review
• the business has received an accurate review 
• Google has received an accurate review
• consumers have reviews they can reliably base purchasing decisions upon

Your competitors

We are increasingly meeting businesses that are fully aware that their competitors are in breach of the CMA regulations in one way or another. Often we are asked 'if they are getting away with [cherry-picking/gating etc.] why shouldn't we?' Our answer is as follows...

• the CMA will use their powers

• the CMA, in common with other government agencies such as HMRC, relies heavily on whistle-blowers and should a customer, competitor or ex-employee 'blow the whistle' by informing the CMA that a business is in breach, it is bound to investigate

• the business that is non-compliant is handing a very effective stick to its competitors for them to beat it with. How? Because the kind of business referred to above, the one that understands the regulations, only has to tactfully enquire as to whether their prospective customer 'wishes to appoint a business that contrives to unfairly burnish its reputation' and the pendulum swings away from the business manipulating reviews

In Summary

As you can see from reading this and other articles posted here, there is no need to game the system or break the rules (one and the same thing). Getting proper professional review management working for your business has so many benefits besides enabling you to sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that your business won't be getting a knock on the door from the regulators (or be being undermined by your competitors) that it puts any decent business in a win/win position.


Further reading...

• Compliance - a guide to the CMA regulations
• Reviews for 'sensitive' professions - including some examples of the kind of reviews HelpHound clients receive
• The implications of inviting customers to write reviews direct to Google - without moderation
• Cancel all your marketing until you score 4.5 on Google
• HelpHound for your business - why now?

Review Rescue - a new service from HelpHound

You are reading this article because your business currently scores 4.4 or less on Google, like this...

or this...

or this...

or even this...

...and you know you need to take action. The only issue is 'what kind of action'? Please read on...

Here are two questions...

First: What is your reaction when you see businesses that score like these on Google?

Is it...

a)  'Avoid them like the plague', or...

b)  'Ignore them (the scores) and carry on', or...

c)  'Feel sorry that the image of the business may have been unfairly tarnished by a tiny minority of highly-motivated dissatisfied customers'?

Second: do you use the Google filter when searching for businesses?

a)  'Yes', or...

b)  'No', or... 

c)  'Never heard of it'*

*We use the word 'heard' here advisedly - you will have 'seen' the filter but may not have 'noticed' it or been conscious of it. Google introduced it into map search first and then, when it proved popular (Google never do anything by accident) they migrated it to mobile - where over 70% of searches now take place. This means that savvy searchers are now filtering any business that scores less then 4.5 out of their searches completely. There's more on the Google filter here.


Anyone who has answered 'b' to both these questions is probably so cynical they will be impossible to convince that reviews, Google or otherwise, matter at all. For the rest of us - and academic research suggests we are in the overwhelming majority - let's proceed to the next step. 

In the real world a business that scores under 4.5 out of 5 on Google will fall into one of two categories...

a)  Deserving of such a rating - couldn't-care-less, sloppy customer service, unreliable (in fact, all the things that are said about them in their negative reviews, or...

b)  Generally great at what they do, with effective customer relations strategies in place and staff committed to delivering a high standard of service but as yet to engage with Google reviews**

**Important note (1): there are currently many businesses that think they have a viable solution to Google reviews: they simply hand-pick customers they they have a very good reason to think will post a five star review. This is, for reasons which I am sure you will appreciate after some thought, against the law in the UK. It also runs the risk of the business being sanctioned by Google for what they call 'gating'. For more on the UK government regulations relating to this, please read this article.

At HelpHound we are - self-evidently - only interested in helping businesses that fall fairly-and-squarely into the second category. Why? Because our service only works for businesses in that category - we cannot (and would not) work to enable a shoddy business to look good.

The issue we are addressing is straightforward - by now almost every business on the planet is receiving Google reviews. But thanks to the element of human nature already alluded to often perfectly good businesses are finding their image is being unfairly tarnished. If your business is showing signs of any of the following...

• An unfairly low Google score 

• A low Google score by comparison with your competitors, which, again you feel to be undeserved

• Feedback from customers*** referring to reviews that you consider to be unfair, inaccurate or misleading

***Important note (2):You won't necessarily know your business is being hurt - potential customers don't walk into your premises and say 'I'm not using you because I've read your reviews' but that is exactly what happens. You are much more likely to get the flip side of this when you have great scores and reviews: 'I chose your business first because you look great by comparison with your competitors in search.'

You will know when reviews are working for you though - business will pick up by a marked - and measurable - extent. Just look at these results...

...and read the full story here.

The solution

We call it 'HelpHound intensive'. For a period - usually not exceeding six months - we will place your business and its review management processes into an intensive care programme which, providing your business fulfils the criteria mentioned above, will achieve the following...

1. A score in excess of 4.5 on your own website
2. A score in excess of 4.5 on Google
3. A minimum of fifty reviews on your own website
4. A minimum of twenty-five reviews on Google

...but you won't need to wait six months to see the benefits - the Google My Business report for Curchods you see above was sent to them within weeks of joining (and they had started from scratch).

No smoke and mirrors

Everything we advise you to do will be in compliance with the CMA regulations. Everything we advise you to do will be 'best advice' for your business - no one-size-fits-all widgets, just pure professional advice. 

A note about reviews sites

These sites - certainly for high-value professional and transactional service businesses - have been dealt a death-blow by Google. Since Google reviews became the vehicle of choice for those wanting to 'get back' at businesses that they see - rightly or wrongly - have done them a disservice, we have noticed a very common, and harmful, syndrome that has now reached epidemic proportions: it's called 'deflection' and it means that happy customers are writing to the business's reviews site of choice and unhappy customers are writing to Google, meaning that the business looks much worse than it should on Google. If you suspect that your business has fallen - or may fall - victim to this, please read this article carefully.

And finally...

Like any other professional adviser, we stand or fall on the value of our ongoing service to you, our client - so we don't tie you into any kind of contract.

Back to basics - is your Google score hurting your business?

The reason for this article is that there is an 'urban myth' doing the rounds of some businesses that runs something like this...

'A score of 4 out of 5 on Google is OK'

...and another that goes...

'Having no Google reviews is OK'

...not to mention the one that says...

'Looking awful on Google is OK'

...and they are all damaging businesses.


How - and, just as importantly - why?

The 'how' is simple. Let's use some examples:

If looking really, really good on Google, like this...

...and this...

...is a 'good' thing (and we meet few marketeers these days that don't agree that it is), then all logic tells us that looking like this (we have used real-life US examples to protect innocent UK businesses)...

...and this...

...must be a 'bad' thing (or at least 'not such a good thing').

And like this?

...or even this?

...and this...

Must transmit the wrong message entirely.


Let's look at those last two in more detail...

No reviews

Having no Google reviews has the potential to harm your business in any - or all - of the following ways...

• it looks insignificant
• it looks as if you are behind the times
• it looks poor by comparison with competitors
• it fails the Google Filter (as does any business that scores less than 4.5)

Scoring between 4.0 and 4.5

If it were an A level everyone would be happy, but this is the harsh world of business. A business with just thirty Google reviews that scores 4.0 will have up to seven one and two star reviews. And these will be read by potential customers.

Bear in mind that all one and two star reviews say the same thing, no matter how they are worded, and that is: 'Don't use this business'. 

And they are read and they are believed and they are trusted. So they will deflect business.

And the business will be failing the Google reviews filter.

Scoring less than 4.0

We will be blunt here: no-one who sees that a business is scoring under 4.0 - be that 3.9 or 1.6 - is going to contact that business (if you doubt this, ask yourself a simple question: "I need a plumber, would I call one where over twenty per cent of their customers said "Don't use them"'? If you have any lingering doubts replace 'plumber' with 'heart surgeon' in that question). 

If you have sufficient business coming in through avenues other than the web, OK. Otherwise serious remedial action is needed.

Important note: if your business is scoring 4.5 or better but is achieving that by selectively inviting customers to write a review (or denying customers the opportunity to write a review unless expressly invited) you are currently in breach of one or more of the CMA's core regulations. Speak to someone here at HelpHound and we will advise you on your business's options.

Are all businesses that score below 4.0 rubbish at their jobs?

No, they are not. How do we know? Because we work for lots of businesses that scored well below 4.0 when they first joined HelpHound. What they did all have in common is that they had let the very small minority of their dissatisfied customers control the image they were presenting in search.

How will we know that scoring 4.5 and over will result in more business?

There's only one way - achieve a good - great - score and then see the results for yourselves...

• your click-throughs will increase
• your inbound enquiries will increase
• your customer facing staff will tell you
• Google will tell you - like this...

This is a HelpHound client's Google My Business report. Your business gets one every month, just wait until your Google score gets north of 4.5 - as it has in this case (see Google's 'congrats' above the stars) - and then look at the numbers in green.

And finally - why use HelpHound?

Three main reasons...

1.  We will take the fear out of inviting reviews. Most businesses initially shy away from inviting reviews because they are, quite sensibly, concerned that some of their customers will write inaccurate or misleading reviews. HelpHound's moderation process reduces the chances of that happening buy well over ninety per cent.

2.  We will enable you to display independently verified reviews on your own website. Not only will these increase inbounds through your site, they will be picked up by Google to show in all searches and in 'Reviews from the web' in the Google knowledge panel. Here is how the client at the top of this article looks...

...in search, in local search...

...and in the knowledge panel...

3.  You will be compliant with the law. The legal authority in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority, forbids any practice that puts consumers at a disadvantage. The core of its regulations say that any business inviting reviews must enable their customer to write a review at any time of their choosing and that all their customers must be given the opportunity to write a review. This rules out practices such as selecting customers to write reviews (known as 'cherry-picking', probably the most common contravention of the CMA regulations - for more see here).

So: if you have persevered and read this far, you only have one more step to take, call us and we will conduct a thorough review of your business's current exposure to reviews and then make recommendations to bring your business as close to the holy grail of 5.0 as you deserve.*

*please note: there are no 'smoke and mirrors' involved - no 'filtering' of negative reviews. If your business has existing CRM issues these will need to be addressed before you adopt a review management strategy. HelpHound cannot 'make' a business with inadequate customer care practices look good. What we can do is make a business that truly cares look great.

Why would a business use Bark instead of Google?

We received this email today...

...from a company called Bark. It got us thinking - just why would a consumer, or a business for that matter, use such a business?

Their pitch

As far as we can establish, Bark's pitch is as follows...

• for consumers: tell us what kind of service you require - architect, personal trainer, bookkeeper and so on - and we'll have them contact you to quote
• for businesses: we'll get you leads

But doesn't this business model ring a bell? Is that bell by any chance called Google?

And isn't there a big difference? There sure is - while customers who contact you via Google cost you nothing (unless they come via PPC) any leads you decide to accept via Bark (and other similar lead generation businesses - Checkatrade, Local Heros and so on) will cost your business money. We have no issue with that - similar business models have existed sine the dawn of time - but we were interested to see that Bark's charging was pretty opaque...

There's more on this here

...and that they use Trustpilot, where many of their customers (both consumers and businesses) are far from happy, scoring Bark a lowly 7.7/10...

Our advice to businesses

Look great on Google - that's where consumers are looking.

Our advice to consumers

Look for a highly-rated business or service on Google - and implement the Google filter before you search - then you will only see the very best businesses (those that score 4.5 or more).

The Google Reviews Filter raises the bar again

For longer than we care to think we have been banging the drum about just how vitally important it is to score well on Google; now Google have turned the screw by adding '4.5 and up' to their filter (the maximum score a user could choose was 4.0 until recently)...

...this means that any business scoring 4.4 or less will now not be shown - at all - to searchers that enable this filter (who - you and we might well ask - will select any other filter?).


Why have Google done this?

 direct from the horses mouth...

They are reacting to the significant upswing in the use of the qualifier 'best' in search strings ('best' plumber, 'best' estate agent) reported here last year. Google have realised that their users don't just want businesses that score 4 out of 5 - understanding, as they increasingly do, that this is likely to deliver a business that score 1 or 2 stars from up to 20% of its reviewers.


Look at the difference it makes - this time for estate agents...

...it is far from perfect (you might reasonably expect Chestertons to feature in the filtered search, for example), and we would like Google to think about factoring the number of reviews into their algorithm to add value (a single one star review next, and Imperial get filtered under this system - under a system that required a minimum number of reviews - say thirty* - few of these businesses would pass the filter, but the ones that did would have taken reviews seriously).


What more do I need to know?

This new benchmark - 4.5 - confirms what HelpHound has been saying for quite some time now: a business has to score in the high 4's to succeed. But still we meet business people that treat Google scores like an exam - '3 out of 5 is a pass' - no, it emphatically is not, and nor is 4. 4.5 is the new bar - and businesses must do everything in their power to clear that bar, staff training, effective CRM and - wait for it - professional review management.

This filter applies to all sectors and verticals now. Take action now.

*And a note on why we chose the number 'thirty' for reviews - it's at about that point that a savvy consumer begins to trust a business. Below that and the feeling that 'any business can get ten or fifteen friends and family to write a review' prevails.


Further reading

• Google introduce the Reviews Filter - over two years ago now
• 'Falling to 4' - the inevitable consequence of unmoderated reviews management