Deflection can hurt - if you are using a review site

What, exactly, is 'deflection'? In short, it is when a business uses a flawed review management system that impacts its Google score, and therefore its image in search.

We all know Openreach. Here they are, using Trustpilot...

And here's their Trustpilot listing...

And here they are on Google...

Why the marked difference? And does it matter?

It's human nature. A consumer has a great experience and the business asks them to write a review to its chosen location, in the case Trustpilot, and so they do. We all generally cooperate with those with whom our experience has been positive. But when it has been negative? Many people will take on board the idea of writing a review but will expressly seek out the arena that will be seen by the most potential customers: and that's Google. The review has been deflected away from the business's choice to the place where it will have maximum impact. Hence the term we use in the title of this article.

This is precisely what has happened to Openreach. But does it matter? Part of the reason we have chosen Openreach to illustrate this point is that, almost uniquely in the business world, Openreach is using reviews primarily to monitor staff performance. It is certainly a valid use, but not the principal objective of most businesses when they look to mobilise the power of reviews. Openreach has no competitors (it is an effective monopoly) - the rest of the business world does. The rest of the business world uses reviews to drive business through the door.

So the strategy has to be reversed: Google reviews must be the business's first objective.

But - before rushing headlong, if your business is in the professional or service sector (as opposed to online retail, for instance) you will need to score as close to the perfect 5.0 as possible while maintaining compliance with the UK law. The way to ensure this is to collect reviews via your website. Here's a good example...

 ...so an independent moderator - HelpHound in this instance - can resolve any errors of fact or misunderstandings before the review is made live. Then to Google...

Left: the business's search on mobile. Right: then the first tab Google offers? That's right, it's 'Reviews'

Where the business's own reviews (see red arrow below) - not Google's (a surprise to many) - show in organic search and boost the business's SEO...

This shows just how successful a business - a single branch of Winkworth Plc* - can be if they address reviews in the correct way: independently moderated then onto their own website and then Google. Job done!

*so successful that they now have two branches.

Further reading

• Results - the proof that great review management feeds directly through to the bottom line

Repairing the damage: a case history

The problem with being 'sold' a solution, as opposed to 'buying' a solution, is often that the 'sold' solution will have done your business harm long before you notice that any damage. 

This was the case with a client of ours when we first met last year. They had taken a reviews site on board and - as far as they were concerned - everything was going swimmingly. But was it? Luckily a well-respected industry figure suggested they speak to HelpHound.

What did we find? Whenever we meet a prospective client for the first time we conduct a full audit. This covers...

• The business's current exposure to Google reviews - or lack of it in many cases
• The business's current exposure to reviews sites - this will be exhaustive, covering  general sites (sites that host reviews of any kind of business) such as Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo and Facebook and industry-specific sites (in the case of estate agents this would be allAgents and GetAgent, in the case of hotels, Tripadvisor and the like)
• Compliance - almost every business we meet has compliance issues. It is increasingly important for businesses to take professional advice to ensure that they comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law regarding reviews 

In the case of this estate agency - a group with twenty plus locations - we found the following:

1.  Their individual locations looked good on the reviews site they had been sold...

...but they should have better. Why? Because the reviews on this site are not moderated - and why should they be? After all, the site is designed for reviews of shirts and shoes - products, not sophisticated services. Without a reviews solution that incorporates moderation (see the end of this article for a full explanation) the business is always going to leave itself open to unfair criticism, and that leads to a misleading impression being created in the eyes of potential customers. 

2.  They were creating a universally negative impression across almost all their locations on Google...

...thanks to deflection. Deflection is where the business invites customers to post a review to the site of its choosing and its happy customers do as they are asked, but unhappy customers say 'No, I'll post it where it will hurt them most - by being the most visible - and that's on Google'.  For a full explanation see 'Further reading' below.

3.  They had compliance issues as a direct result of the reviews site they had adopted. The CMA's regulations specifically state that if a business invites any of its customers to write a review it must enable all of its customers to do so - at a time of their choosing. The following is an extract from the letter to businesses sent by the CMA back in August 2016...

Feefo is a closed site - that means that the business controls the timing of the invitation to write the review and therefore the timing of the review. That is non-compliant with the CMA regulations. More than that it is 

Our conclusion

The business had been sold the wrong solution - in this case, a solution designed expressly to meet the needs of online retailers, not high-value and complex transactional service businesses such as estate agency. It needed a solution that was expressly tailored to its own needs. 

Our advice

Our advice was simple: 

1. Adopt a compliant solution
2. Adopt a moderated solution 
3. Focus on Google and the business's own website - get reviews to both

CMA compliance is a given in every piece of advice we ever give; moderation is essential if the reviews are going to be accurate and therefore helpful for potential clients; the business - and all its locations - needed to look good on Google, not on an independent site, simply because its prospective customers are all looking at Google; it needed reviews on its own website, not only in order to facilitate moderation but also to engage visitors to its site and to supply a vital SEO 'kicker' to help its locations up the local search ranks.


The results

The business's locations are now scoring an average well above 4 on Google. They look great on their own websites -and are providing the SEO kicker Google want there - and their reviews are accurate on both platforms. 

Further reading...

• Adopting a reviews site - the unintended consequences
• Moderation - how it works
• Deflection - how it hurts businesses
• CMA regs - a full explanation

2019 - the year reviews finally matured?

It will be interesting to see. One thing is for certain - businesses that adopt a defined reviews strategy in 2019 will prosper. It will take anyone between twenty and thirty minutes to read this article and the four in the links at the bottom - and we promise you that will be a half hour well spent.

First: let's take a look at why reviews exist and then look at the current situation.


Why reviews matter

Reviews exist for two reasons...

• to enable consumers to make the right choice of product or service
• to enable businesses to demonstrate that their product or service is the one for the consumer to choose

The current situation...

Consumers are faced with an array of reviews whenever they search the web, and businesses are faced with multiple so-called solutions...

• the reviews sites - Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo - and the list goes on
• the sites that incorporate reviews as major part of their offering - for example TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Trivago and all the other travel sites
• Google

And what businesses are doing to address it...

Aside from those that are ignoring reviews altogether (a sizeable minority) businesses are adopting one of the following three strategies...

1. They are inviting customers to post reviews to Google
2. They are inviting customers to post reviews to one of the many independent reviews sites, some of which we have mentioned above
3. They are doing a combination of the above

...and there are serious issues with each of these.

1.  Posting reviews direct to Google

Issue: if a business invites a single customer to post a review to Google it must, by law, enable all its customers to do so. We meet or speak to dozens of businesses each week, and almost all are ignorant of this aspect of the law or, if they are aware of it, are consciously flouting it. There's more on the law here.

2.  Using a reviews site

Issue: most businesses join a reviews site for one of to reasons: they are sold it (most reviews sites have abundant venture capital, much of which is expended on their sales-forces as well as 'free trials') or they see their competitors using it. Reviews sites invariably have an unintended consequence that harms their businesses - they drive the business's unhappy customers to post to Google instead . This inevitably results in the business looking great - or at least OK - on the reviews site (that is then seen by few of its potential customers) and bad on Google (which is seen by all of them). We call this 'deflection' and there's an article showing its impact - with examples - here.

Note: here we stress that at HelpHound are concerned with service reviews only. Many of the reviews sites focus on products, from clothes to cameras, and they may have a role (the businesses certainly seem to like them) but the more we see of them the more we are inclined to rely on professional reviews - the likes of Which? and the multitude of qualified bloggers a simple web-search away if you want a properly qualified opinion on a toaster or a bicycles (seriously - would you take your in-law's advice on which laptop to buy, because that's what your are effectively doing by trusting product reviews: relying on thousands of other people's in-law's to be qualified to judge, and that's when they are reviewing the actual product not the delivery!).

3.  Combining the two

Issue: We occasionally come across 'clever' businesses that invite reviews to a reviews site first and then invite [happy] customers to post to Google afterwards. This would be fine if all their customers were invited to post in both places, but we have yet to see a business where this is the case. Google hate business manipulating their reviews - more on that here - and the CMA will take an equally dim view.

Where all businesses need to be by the end of 2019

There is only one solution - we are assuming that your business a) wishes to comply with the law* and b) protect its reputation against unfair or inaccurate reviews - by engaging in proper professional review management. This involves...

• inviting, moderating and displaying reviews on your own website
• inviting customers that have posted there to copy their review to Google

For some businesses, this will involve exposing themselves to fair criticism, so they won't be able to do it - until they have addressed whatever internal issues are causing their CRM to break. They will doubtless remain in denial about reviews (leaving the field clear for their unhappy customers to post damaging reviews to Google) or with the reviews site, flouting the CMA regulations and 'hoping they get away with it'.

On the other hand, if you provide a great service for you customers you need to get on board the review management train. Your business can only benefit.

*A business can comply with the law - for free - by embedding a Google widget on its website. This appears an elegant solution at first, until the business is subject to its first factually inaccurate or misleading review. Moderation is a core function of professional review management - and benefits both the business (by protecting it, as far as is possible, from such reviews) and the business's potential customers, who may otherwise have been misled.

The downside to adopting professional review management

There's only one: cost. Proper professional review management doesn't come free, or with a 'free trial', or for next to nothing - and that's because it is - and does - what it says on the tin, it's full-time and proactive, it will involve interaction between your business and the review manager, in the same way that you interact with your other professional advisers, and it will expect to be judged on results, just as they all do.

But those fees can be as low as £30 a month - depending on your business model and the amount of input needed at our end. One thing is for sure: it will pay for itself. You can see that by looking at case histories, like this one...

see how Curchods saw clicks and calls jump as soon as they joined

..or by speaking to any of our clients. Proper professional review management will drive business your way.

Oh - and by the way - again, just like your other professional advisers, we won't be asking you to sign a contract, so, if by some freak of circumstance HelpHound doesn't work for you, you can walk away at any time.

Further reading...

• Results - and more results - and it will even work for an oven cleaning business
• What some of our clients say
• The CMA regulations explained
• Deflection - the harm caused by using a reviews site

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.

Is your business's marketing and review management joined up?

Let's see what we mean by joined up. Here are two advertisements run in the Times this weekend. One is a single page (rate card £27,000) and the other a double page spread (rate card £42,000)...

Now, suppose you were attracted by one of these advertisements, what do we suppose might be your next action*. Perhaps one of these...

• call the business? 
• email the business? 
• visit the business's website?

* as readers will know, there are two kinds of advertising: 'above the line' (often known as 'brand' advertising) designed to enhance the reader's 'feel' for the brand in question and 'below the line' designed specifically to generate a hard - quantifiable - response (leads). Both of the above advertisements might reasonably be considered to fulfil both functions, but as they both include 'calls to action' in the form of web-links we feel justified in judging them on a below-the-line basis.

So - in order to either call, email or visit the business's website their potential customers have two options...

1. follow the url in the advertisement
2. google the business

For the purpose of this article we will assume it's about half-and-half. So let's see what happens when we google these two businesses (on our phone, because that's what most people have to hand when they are reading a paper). First Irwin Mitchell...

...with 'Reviews' front-and-centre, one click away...

And now Invesco...

We are not going to comment at this stage. We will now simply show you a HelpHound client's brand advertising...

...and in print...

...and then show you what happens if a potential customer googles their local branch...

...and - as an added bonus - if the potential customer were to go direct to their website...

...or even search for them on desktop...

So: Our message...

Get your review management sorted and the response to all your other advertising and marketing must rise*, it's as simple as that.

Note re: Irwin Mitchell and reviews sites

The more eagle-eyed of you may notice that Irwin Mitchell have employed both Feefo and Trustpilot. Their experience with these sites is one of the most pronounced cases of deflection that we have ever seen ('deflection': the negative impact on a business's Google score of inviting customers to write reviews to reviews sites - more here).

*Must rise? 

Here are some numbers - from Google My Business - for a single location for one of our clients...

...for more read this.

Is a reviews site strangling your business?

We wrote about this back in May ('Deflection - is it becoming an epidemic?') but since then the evidence has been piling up at such a rate that we need to revisit this important subject. 

What is 'deflection'?

It is the unintended consequence of focussing review efforts on a reviews site rather than Google. It results in the business looking good on the reviews site and less good - often a whole lot less good - on Google.

Why?

Because consumers have got wise to Google - and its power to influence their fellows. So when a business invites them to write a review to the reviews site of the business's choice they do write a review, but to Google instead - especially if they are unhappy with the service they have been given.

Examples

Here's a business on a reviews site...

...and here's the same business on Google...

This is exactly what we term 'deflection' - the business's happy customers doing as they are asked (writing a review to the business's reviews site) and a significant proportion of the unhappy customers - invited or not - writing their review to Google.


The harm being done

Ask any consumer these days 'whose reviews do you read?' and the answer will inevitably be 'Google's'. Unsurprisingly, because they are the reviews we are all shown in every search we ever make...

This business has been actively harmed* by adopting the independent reviews site. How can we/you tell? Well, no-one is walking into the business and saying 'I was going to instruct you to sell/let my house until I saw your reviews on Google' but we can be absolutely sure that is happening. How can we be sure? Because Google don't dedicate such large amounts of search real-estate to reviews for them to be ignored by their users - and just look at the 'likes' the reviews receive...

...and, unlike Facebook, where personal friends will 'like' a comment or review simply because of that friendship, with Google the 'liker' will almost certainly be a potential customer of the business under review.
*An exception to the rule is the 'clever' business that invites customers to post reviews to a reviews site and then only invites those that rated it five stars to copy their review to Google. Not only is that against the T&Cs of both the reviews site and Google - it is against the law (if you need to brush up on the law relating to reviews there's a link at the bottom of this article).

It need not be...

No reviews site here - just professional review management from HelpHound. Try this search yourself - and then 'estate agent Kennington' to see the local search results.

The good news - for businesses in this situation and for businesses new to the world of reviews - is that the solution to everything the reviews sites have promised and failed to deliver is right here at HelpHound. We will get you those stars in search - but the right stars: your own and Google's. We will also ensure that you are not breaking the law and are protected from inaccurate and potentially misleading reviews.



Further reading...

• Stars in search - the right ones!
• Understanding the difference - between reviews sites and review management
• Don't incentivise customers - to write reviews
• The rules - and how to comply with them
• The good news - calls up, clicks up, leads up - business up