Pinnacles restaurant responds to reviews - and how!

Here's an example:

...and here is their listing on TripAdvisor. When you have finished laughing (or crying, depending on your take) there are serious lessons to be learned.

Lessons?

The first is that if a fish and chip shop can make the time and take the effort, so can any business. It is now accepted fact that consumers will choose a business that responds to review over one that does not.

The second is the quality of response. Compare this from the Ritz...

...we are not for one moment suggesting that the Ritz take a leaf out of Pinnacles' book as to tone, but content? Certainly - Pinnacles' responses address the issues raised by their reviewers, and this impresses readers. Mostly the Ritz, when addressing negative reviews, adopts the all-too-common approach of 'we have dealt with this privately' or 'please contact us/we will contact you' which leaves the reader of the review none-the-wiser.

The third? Pinnacles' is not perfect - In common with a huge swathe of the hospitality industry - from hotels to restaurants to B&Bs, Pinnacles' focus is on TripAdvisor. Google has been neglected...

...with a low score and reviews left unanswered. Hospitality would do well to remember that Google reviews are seen first, especially mobile, and give them just as much attention as those on TripAdvisor and the OTAs.

If you are in any doubt as to the mechanics of responding to reviews on Google, or any other platform - or if you feel a review is incorrect or unfair and would like advice on appealing it (as did Nearwater in St Mawes in this interesting case) just call us and we will advise you.

Negative reviews - is there any remedy?

This is a question that comes up daily, in fact about half of our inbound calls are prompted by it. Negative reviews of businesses hurt - some more than others. Let us explain...

Businesses on the web break down into three main categories:

1. Businesses with established reviews presences - hundreds of reviews on Google and other sites - Yelp, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot etc.
2. Businesses with few reviews on the web - anywhere
3. Businesses with no reviews at all

Let's look at examples of all three...

1. The 'established' business

2. The business with 'few reviews'

3. The business with 'no reviews' 

Yes - we know that Noble Caledonia have 26 reviews - now. But six months ago they had none. Bear with us (see below).

The point is that all businesses are vulnerable to negative reviews - let's see just how vulnerable:

The Ritz

Just a few months ago the Ritz had a hard-won score of 4.6 on Google - showing in every search. Then they threatened to sue the Ritz Ballroom in Brighouse and some of the Yorkshire locals took to Google to express their discontent - by writing one-star reviews.

The Ritz is possibly one of the very few hotels in London that has built a reputation strong enough to cope with a drop in their score to 4.2; most other hotels, finding themselves in anything like that position would have been forced to cut rate to maintain occupancy. That's how sensitive to review scores the market is.

Nearwater

Last year the Nearwater bed and breakfast in St Mawes received a single one-star review - driving its Google score down from a near-perfect 4.9 to a marginally less impressive 4.7. But worse was to come - because they had few reviews in total that one star stood out like a sore thumb, and bookings dried right up.

A demonstrably malicious review - but it remained on Google until HelpHound intervened (it is actually a review of a TV programme, the reviewer has no personal knowledge of the business whatsoever)

The review had been written by someone who had never stayed, but had seen the Nearwater featured on Channel 4s 'Four in a Bed'. The owner tried everything - contacting Google in the UK and in India - before HelpHound saw the article in the newspapers and volunteered our services. The full story - and its happy ending - is here.

Noble Caledonia

No reviews at all a year ago, a single negative complaining about a wrong phone number eight months ago  - and then one of their cruise ships hits a reef in Indonesia. Result? Twenty four one star reviews. - and a very off-putting score on Google. An example of a business that had not engaged with reviews and will now be rapidly evaluating what is the best proactive policy to pursue.

  The business on the left is one disgruntled customer away from a score of 1.0 like the business on the right

Lessons

• all businesses need a proactive review management policy
• those with many reviews are still vulnerable
• those with few reviews are far more vulnerable
• those with no reviews are the most vulnerable of all

The point?

All three of these businesses are - in a sense - lucky, they have so obviously been the victim of a category of review that Google generally find it pretty easy to delete. If they are approached in the correct manner (more on that later).

But there are more categories of reviews - equally harmful - that are not nearly so clear-cut, at least not from Google's point-of-view...

• the [clever*] disgruntled ex-member of staff
• the [clever*] competitor
• the non-customer with an axe to grind
• the 'friend/relation' of a dissatisfied customer
• the misleading review
• the factually inaccurate review

 *'clever' means someone who covers up their real relationship with the business, usually masquerading - and writing their review -  as a bona-fide customer


The legal position

Any criticism of a business is, under UK law, prima facie, libellous. That means that any business could, in theory, challenge any negative review, its author (the reviewer) and its publisher (the website).

But would it? 'Business bullies customer' is never a great headline, so any business is going to think long and hard before resorting to legal action, and will rightly examine all the alternatives. And sites like Google are going to stand foursquare behind negative reviews - and their reviewers - that they believe to be written with sincere motives.

But there are avenues to follow

Google don't make it easy (you would not expect them to). But if the review that is harming your business has been written with impure motives or with pure motive but in ignorance of pertinent facts - or, importantly, is in contravention of Google's review policies - a properly constructed appeal to Google does have a good chance of success.

HelpHound and appeals

We have been constructing appeals for our clients for nearly four years now. From today we will be offering this appeals service to every business, whether it be a HelpHound client on not. 

 A draft appeal - accuracy and know-how are essential if any degree of success is to be achieved

We will not advise you to tilt at windmills; we will assess every case on its own merits and advise you before any agreement is made. After that we will draft your appeal and forward it to you will detailed step-by-step instructions on how to submit it.

Charges

Our standard fee for clients is £150 per appeal. For non-clients our standard Terms of Engagement will apply.

Unfair negative reviews hurt! The Nearwater story

Some of you may recall the B&B at St Mawes that featured in the national press. Here it is in the Times...

  "In our seven years of operation this has been the worst start to the season we've had. It is terribly damaging to us."

And the Telegraph...

Here's the review on Google....

Google's T&Cs expressly prohibit writing a review of a business where the reviewer has no first-hand knowledge of the business under review. So we drafted an appeal for Nearwater.

Here's their Google listing today (sorted by 'lowest score')...

  The review has gone, and once Google's algorithm catches up, their score will be back up to their previous unblemished 4.9 (or perhaps even 5.0)

The harmful rich snippet - by 'S' - will also disappear when Google's algorithm refreshes

Lessons for everyone:

1. Negative reviews hurt businesses; just read Tim Whitaker's comments to the papers
2. Google would never - corporately - suggest a business 'get friends and family to write reviews' and we have never - and would never - advise a client to do so
3. Google reviews are appealable, but you must go through the correct procedure - ask us and we will advise - and, if needs be, draft your appeal
4. You won't be able to appeal a review if it could reasonably be described as 'fair comment' (however unpalatable)
5. Consult HelpHound immediately. We will use our experience and expertise to advise you on the likelihood of success of any appeal

Update 9 June 2016

This today from the owners: 

And their Google score back where it should be: