Yelp CEO inadvertently makes the case for Google reviews

 

Here's the Guardian's take

Our take?

As you would expect, we adopt the consumer's point-of-view; not for reasons of altruism, but simply because what works best for consumers works best for HelpHound and our clients. 

Jeremy Stoppleman, CEO of Yelp, understandably thinks that Yelp results (links to reviews) should feature higher in Google searches. Google appears to be perfectly happy with the status quo. 

The relevant (for us) part US case focussed heavily on the way Google monetises its offering to businesses: with Google Ads being its principal revenue generator. We all know what this looks like, but for complete clarity here is an example...

Yes. All these are 'Sponsored' PPC advertisements. Generating lots of lovely cash for Google.

And on Yelp?

Effectively the same. Any sympathy we might have had for Yelp begins to ebb. What other factors do consumers take into account when they are looking for independent validation of a business? Let's see. How about...

• Quality reviews - written by people who have a) used the business and b) have some life experience to back up their opinions
• Credible reviews - as above, plus the backing of a credible platform
• A broad community of qualified reviewers
• Scores they can trust to lead them in the right direction

Other factors

• Sales - is there a link between Google and Yelp sales and reviews?
• Is the reviews function monetised?

And here we have issues with both platforms, but more so with Yelp:

• Quality: the more you can be sure a review is written by a real person, unconnected with the business under review and qualified to comment on the product and/or service provided by the business the better. Yelp relies heavily on its 'Elite' users to provide a steady flow of content. This cohort is rewarded with social and tangible benefits (meet-ups and hosted events in the main). Our research shows, contrary to the image presented in the shot of three mid-lifers in the article linked to above (with the attendant life experience) that most Yelp Elites are college-age. This explains the heavy review weightings towards the likes of fast food outlets and away from professional services, leading to some interesting search results (the 'top' 'restaurant' in 'Mayfair' in London is a fish and chip shop, for instance). Google reviews have no such proactive reviewer recruitment unless you count Local Guides who tend to be much less concentrated towards one single demographic or age range. There is also the added comfort with Google that it knows exactly who the reviewer is - as a result of their search history and membership of one or more of Google's services, even if their username is MickeyMouse 123. So: in terms of quality and credibility we would suggest that Google wins hands down. So should they be returning Yelp (and other review sites - there are literally hundreds) results as prominently as their own reviews? Well, our simple answer is 'No'. After all, if consumers actively want reviews from other sources through Google they can always search for them. 

• Scores? It is relatively easy for any business to gather a dozen or so 5* reviews without being overly proactive. It is certainly the case that, in the UK at least (before Yelp withdrew their business sales operations from the UK and EU), Yelp Elite would 'blitz' venues and a restaurant or bar (Yelp Elites didn't appear so keen to be reviewing law firms or accountancy practices) would suddenly go from a handful of reviews to over a hundred. To get over a hundred Google reviews a business has to be proactive in inviting its customers to write those reviews. This has led, in the UK at least, to endemic cherry-picking and gating, both of which are against the law (the latter against Google's ToS as well - Google will delete all reviews if it finds evidence of gating). Whilst there are solutions to this the fact that many businesses would appear to be happy to flout the law to achieve respectable scores (4.8+ is the benchmark in 2024) and critical mass in terms of number of reviews (100+, soon to be 1000+) just shows the power of Google reviews to drive business (if the score is good) and deflect business (if the score is substandard - less than 4.2 these days and in most service sectors the business will find itself in the bottom quartile of Google scores).

Above: a common enough search. You can see the paid advertisement (for GetAgent) under 'Sponsored' at the top, but you also see individual businesses and their Google scores - and links to their Google reviews prominently displayed. At the bottom of the screenshot, you see the top result in organic search with the star rating and score from its own reviews - all 660 of them, hosted on its own website, which we think is pretty fair of Google

• Sales/monetisation: There is no charge for businesses to use Google reviews, and anyone can write one (OK, strictly speaking, you have to have used one of Google's products to do so, but just about anyone not living under a rock has. But we still run into businesses that think someone needs a Gmail account to post a review). Yelp earns its core fees by offering to promote a business up its listing for a monthly fee (you can see Sweet James Accident Attorneys paying to come top in the example above, some might say somewhat misleadingly, given they are listed just under the heading 'Top 10 best lawyers in San Francisco...' and 'Recommended' - they score a woeful 2.8). Google does roughly the same, but at least it allows businesses to shine in natural search through effective SEO and proper schema use. 

Conclusion

We will continue to advise almost every business we meet that moderated Google reviews are by far the best long-term solution for their businesses. Not review sites (although these increasingly appear to be used by some businesses to bury their reviews). 

The moderation (see below) will enable them to confidently and effectively invite reviews to their own websites and to Google without the fear of unfair, inaccurate or plain misleading reviews that currently drive some - many? - businesses to cherry-pick and gate. 

Further reading

• Moderation - the professional solution to review management

• Results - more enquiries and better quality business, a proven win/win 

• Compliance - boring but essential. Non-compliance hands a valuable weapon to the competition

Be aware of this little Google person

 

This innocuous little badge - showing someone wearing a Google Local T-shirt and carrying a smartphone and a camera, is 'awarded' to Google Local Guides.

So what is a Google Local Guide? (If you are a Local Guide, or you are familiar with the concept, you can skip to the next paragraph.) They are simply a more committed Google reviewer; the sort of person that actively reviews just about every business they come into contact with. They have absolutely no qualifications - anyone can volunteer to be one. There's more on them here.

Why mention them at all?

For two reasons...

1. They are far more likely to write a review - whether asked to do so or on their own initiative
2. Their reviews carry a disproportionate influence with consumers - for no rational reason

Look at these two reviews...

Which do you think is the most credible? Their content is similar and their score for the business is identical. The only thing that separates the two reviewers is that one is a Local Guide and the other is not. With what you know now you may justifiably be cynical about the Local Guide's review, but we can assure you that Joe Public gives their reviews more credence.

So: if someone mentions that they are a Google Local Guide you can be pretty sure they will review your business. That's all. We don't recommend you quiz your customers to establish if they are a Local Guide or not, but just be aware that such people - millions of them - do exist.

Time for review stars to go?

. 

Stars - they're great shorthand when you're looking for a business, no? Would you like a simple answer? Here it is: YES. For businesses. 

But - and this is a big BUT, we're afraid our experience over the last ten or so years means we are going to have to dig a bit deeper in order to come to a helpful conclusion for consumers.

Why stars in the first place?

A 'five-star' experience - a 'five-star' dinner - a 'five-star' hotel - where did they originate? Well, the first recorded rating system - using exclamation marks - was invented by Englishwoman Mariana Starke for her travel guides in the 1820s, but stars? Probably Baedeker in around 1850 and then Michelin in 1926. We had to wait until the 1960s and Craig Claiborne in the NY Times for stars to be applied to a restaurant review. Interestingly, while stars - and even tomatoes, rotten and otherwise - have been routinely applied to films, theatre producers have mostly resisted using stars on publicity material, sticking with quotes.

But one of the best drivers of a star system we have found quoted in the media is the move by the Scotsman using stars for shows on the Edinburgh Fringe, when it had grown to more than 1500 shows. The Scotsman introduced stars as a convenient short-cut for readers. And herein lies a clue as to our growing disquiet about stars when applied to high-value service businesses. Fine - maybe - for a night out, but as a way of choosing a medical practitioner or a financial adviser?

The numbers game

One of the main issues arises when we see businesses playing the numbers game to keep their star rating up: got a lot of negative reviews? Just get more positives, almost any way you can.

Engagement v. non-engagement (what we call 'review denial')

Savvy businesses have learnt that they can up their ratings simply by engaging with their customers. Look at this quote about Trustpilot:

Paid for or free?

Why would a business pay for a reviews site when Google reviews are free - not just free, but more visible and more credible (after all, it is far harder to create a fake account on Google than it is on a review site to write a review)?

There are only two credible answers to this (aside from the business falling for a sales pitch by the review site):

• the review site is being used by the business to gate reviews to Google ('gating' means pre-qualifying customers so the business is as sure as it possibly can be that is only inviting those most likely to write a positive review to do so; so it may invite all its customers to post to say Trustpilot and then only invite those who rate them 5 stars to go on the post their review to Google. It can also be done by using the tried-and-tested 'customer survey' route.)

Thanks Yell and Trustpilot - and thanks to Richman SEO: read their full piece here

• the review site offers the business 'advantages' that Google does not. Trustpilot, for instance, allows businesses to challenge reviews and then insists the reviewer provide 'proof of purchase' for instance, otherwise their review is taken down. While a great idea on the surface, this has the real-world effect of making sure the absolute minimum of negative reviews are published.

Yell 'flags' 109 reviews in the last 12 months - 101 of which are negative - and only 27 of those remain on the site.

• other review sites may allow businesses to cherry-pick those they invite to write reviews. Feefo, for instance, is an 'invitation only' review site. And what business is going to wilfully invite known unhappy customers to post a review? Such a solution may be fine for online retail, but for life-and-death (medical) or financially crucial (investment managers, estate agents) services?

All of the above only serves to undermine consumer confidence in reviews in general. And a near five-star rating on any of these sites should be viewed with a high degree of scepticism. Indeed, the day is fast approaching when consumers should assume the worst when faced with a business that employs a review site rather than simply inviting its customer to post to Google.

Out-of-date reviews

Must be archived - at least as regards the business's score. Why? Because businesses evolve, and not always in a good way. Take an obvious example: online retail. The business has established a reputation for quality and its backers think it's about time they made some serious money. What do they do? They change from a high-quality supplier to a sweat-shop. Same shirt, inferior fabric, inferior machining. And thousands of out-of-date five-star reviews keeping the sales coming in. Another: takeovers. Business A buys business B and replaces all their great staff. But keeps all their great five-star reviews. We have a file full of such examples.

The solution?

The problem, you will see, is not with the review score - be it five, four, three, two or one stars, it's with the market and its regulation and the enforcement of those regulations.

For consumers

Slow down. Don't just go by the score. By all means use it as a basic guide but then read the reviews. And the business's responses to those reviews.

For the regulators

Insist that the rules are followed. Cherry-picking and gating are both illegal, at least in the UK, but they're currently at epidemic levels. So enforce the rules. Fine those that breach them - businesses and review sites. Publish your action.

For Google 

Archive all reviews over a certain age. Two years? Since a major business reorganisation? Reward businesses that respond to reviews. 

For the review sites

Guys, you're running canals. The railway has arrived. Find something else to do. It's Google all the way now. At least until you find some value that you can add over and above Google reviews that doesn't involve 'helping' businesses to look better than they really are.

For businesses

Stop buying the latest flavour of the month. Stop giving away your incredibly valuable customer data. Find a reliable review manager. One that incorporates professional moderation into its basic offering and focusses on reviews to your own website - reviews that you own - and to Google. 

A case history

Here's a local search...and the first two results: 

You will notice that one business has a star rating, a score (4.8) and the number of reviews that have been counted towards that rating (240) just under its listing. They're taken, by Google, direct from the business's own reviews on its own website. 

But the important thing here, in the context of this article, is that every single person who ever has had any contact with the first business can simply visit its website and write a review...

...by clicking the 'Write a review' link above. Once that review has been moderated to ensure, as far as is possible, that it contains no errors of fact or statements likely to mislead the reader (who may be relying on it to choose an important and costly service) it will be published on the business's website.

240 reviews, which the reader can filter at will...

The reviewer will then receive an automatic request to copy their review to Google. Every reviewer. Whatever the content of their review or star rating...

So there is a system that works equally well for the business and their prospective customer. That is virtually impossible to game. That gives consumers a reliable resource to rely on when choosing high-value services.

So the answer to the question we pose at the top of this article 'Time for review stars to go?'

No, but time for businesses, review sites, Google and the regulators to act to ensure that, as far as reasonably possible, consumers - especially consumers of high-value services - can rely on those stars.

Reputation.com - it has a role

We occasionally come across a potential client that is either a client of - or is considering using - Reputation.com. In this article we analyse just what kind of business benefits most from this kind of solution.

So, first, what do we know of Reputation.com?

The business was founded as ReputationDefender in 2006 which specialised in 'correcting' search engine results for individuals. In 2011 its name and business model changed to Reputation.com and it began providing B2B services.

Since then Reputation.com has developed a suite of business tools to enable businesses to invite and monitor online reviews and their search engine listing on a variety of platforms, from Google to Facebook to the various review sites and other social media.

Who are its clients?

Its clients, in the US at least, where over 95% of its business is transacted, are almost exclusively large corporations with multiple hundreds of outlets.

There is a good reason for this demographic forming not just the core, but the overwhelming majority, of Reputation.com's clients: it is a business sector that, while looking 'good' in terms of reviews is essential, looking 'great' is viewed as a definite bonus. Why? No-one expects car dealerships or telecoms companies to have near-perfect track records. 

Let us explain:

There are several types of business from the point-of-view of reviews, and it's important for every business to understand exactly where it falls on the spectrum before establishing what kind of review solution best suits it.

We categorise every businesses and/or service as one of the following:

Let's look at the very different needs of each category of business, along with an example of each, so we can see what type of reviews solution, if any, might suit them.

Category 1 - Businesses that don't care about reviews

As close as any entity can come to being impervious to reviews. Does anyone think JobCentrePlus ever look at their reviews, let alone cares?

Category 2 - Businesses that sell products, irrespective of the service alongside that product

This McDonalds has received more than 1500 reviews on Google. Do they bother to respond? No. Do they care? Almost certainly not. If they did they would respond - it's free, after all.

The plain fact of the matter is that no-one reads a review to decide whether or not they want a Big Mac. The reviews are overwhelmingly written by three categories of customer;

1. Happy customers who use a review as a way to thank staff for good service (see the one from the bottom above)
2. Unhappy customers, for whatever reason (see the first and second reviews)
3. Google Local Guides who will often review every single business they ever come across 

We also suspect franchisees and regional management also glance at reviews occasionally from an HR perspective. But that's about it.

Category 3 - businesses that customers are bound to use

Most consumers know what to expect from Sainsbury's - and every other supermarket. So, yet again, we see businesses that see little profit in engaging with reviews, so long as they don't identify any systemic faults.

And their reviews all say mostly the same things. 

Category 4 - businesses that are vulnerable to reviews

Now we are getting somewhere. While restaurants and hotels provide a product - food and rooms respectively - they also incorporate a substantial element of service. This can give one business in any given location an edge if they look particularly great when potential customers are searching the web. The hotel above is notoriously committed to reviews and proactively manages every guest touch-point with the ultimate review the guest will write in mind. The result? All the hotels in the group score way above average for their category, guest facilities and location. The resulting knock-on in terms of occupancy and room rates is measurable.

Category 5 - businesses in competitive and often sophisticated marketplaces

No we are moving on to more complex and sophisticated - and often B2B - offerings. Business buyers do far more research pre-purchase than most consumers but they are just as influenced by reviews, even if they may think otherwise! Why? Because they will not only be taking personal responsibility for whatever choice they make, they will be answering to management or the board - or even shareholders - as well. 

And this, perversely, is where we get into areas where businesses would appear to do their level best to avoid attracting reviews altogether - see the recruitment consultants above. Why? Because this type of business knows that just a single well-written criticism of their services can herald the death-knell of new business through the web. 

Any system that simply invites every client to post a review direct to Google - remembering that it is illegal to pick and choose those to invite - is never going to appeal to such businesses.

Category 6 - service businesses

The top tier: businesses that provide the kind of service that anyone considering them - whether B2B or B2C - will want to reference as much as is humanly possible. If you put yourself in the position of someone...

• requiring urgent medical care - cardiology or oncology, for instance
• needing a home for their life savings or pension
• having a complex legal problem
• needing a reliable letting agency for a portfolio of properties

The point about all of these is that health and/or wealth is at risk. The business owes it to its customers - clients/patients - to provide reviews, but has yet to find a mechanism that it can safely use without exposing itself to unfair public criticism.

How else can the absence of reviews on businesses such as these be explained?

And this is where professional review management - and HelpHound - comes in

At HelpHound we leave categories 1-4 to Google - and, if a business sees a cast-iron reason for using a review site such as Feefo or Trustpilot, to them or to a business like Reputation.com (although we would be wary of using the offshoot of a US business in the UK as they have a habit of 'doing a Yelp' and giving up on the UK/EU market as Yelp did in 2016, leaving thousands of businesses and their reviews stranded).

One of the main drawbacks of the Reputation.com offering for Cat 5/6 businesses is their review display widget; businesses like the one below, being extremely vulnerable to single well-written (and therefore credible) negative reviews - the kind we christened 'killer reviews' - do not want to be importing the latest one-star Google reviews into their own websites...

So they have now got around that by simply selecting the reviews they want to show to potential customers, in this case at least, with a link to all their reviews on Google...

...and this client of theirs, illustrating how the quest for volume is trumping quality - is this review helpful?

...and not even providing:

• a link to their Google reviews

• or any way for the visitor to their website to actually write a review of their own (at least in the first example the savvy visitor stands a chance of finding their way to Google)

Apart from these 'work arounds' being highly questionable from a legal and compliance point-of-view, these businesses are fooling themselves if they think potential customers won't just shrug their shoulders and find their way to reading their Google reviews anyway (we call this 'deflection' - more on that here).

And, furthermore, given that there is a fully compliant way of being completely transparent, why not adopt it? Look at this...

What do we find on the right? A star rating, a link to all of the reviews of the business, a link enabling anyone to write a review straight away, a sample review and a full explanation of the process.

Everything anyone looking for reviews could want.

Leading to this...

And/or this...

And then this on Google...

Leading to this in local search; the score of 4.8 and stars in the Google '3-pack' at the top are taken directly from the business's Google reviews, the stars, score and number of 'votes' in organic search are taken from the business's own reviews hosted on its own site.

And the disadvantages of a review harvest system focussed on volume as opposed to quality has other undesirable impacts for high-value service businesses: imagine, for a minute, you are looking for an estate agent to sell your home, your main asset (as we are always being reminded) or any of the other Category 6 services listed above. This agent has loads of reviews and a good overall score...

And so does this one...

Which, on the balance of probabilities, gets your call? 

The key difference:

Is moderation. At HelpHound we moderate all our clients' reviews. We politely request that the reviewer rewrite any that we consider to be...

• legally questionable
• offensive - in language or tone
• factually inaccurate
• potentially misleading

And we don't allow ratings (reviews that only contain scores). On top of that, we correct bad English. This can impact volume* - but what business wants volume over accuracy? And what consumer wants or needs to read one, two or three-word reviews?

*But there are plenty of ways to counteract that, just ask us.

How to measure success?

We have three yardsticks...

The first is simple - it's the business's Google score. We will not rest until it is as close to 5.0 as it possibly can be. If this means addressing the whole of a client's CRM, or even their core business model, then so be it. We are 'review managers' not just a reviews platform. And that means that we work with our client businesses to identify any issues that may conceivably cause customers to rate them at anything but five stars.

The second? How our client looks - and ranks - in Google search...

So many businesses have yet to understand just how important hosting your own reviews on your own website is when it comes to Google scoring it for ranking in organic search...

The third?

The raw material of new business in the 21st century: inbound calls and clicks. Great scores and great underlying review content drives new business. It's this that proves the worth of professional review management above all else.

Conclusion

If you want volumes of reviews, irrespective of their content, then a solution such as Reputation.com just may be the right one for your business (but bear in mind you can always embed a free widget to import Google reviews to your website, so you need to be asking 'Just how much value is Reputation.com adding?').

If, on the other hand, you want accurate and consistently helpful reviews - to your own website and to Google - then we humbly suggest your business and your customers will be rewarded by becoming part of the HelpHound experience.

Further reading 

If having read all the above you still feel that a direct import of Google reviews into your site is a viable solution for your business - you don't need moderation (inaccurate and/or misleading reviews aren't going to harm your particular business) or the SEO kicker hosting your own reviews gives your business in local search (you don't care where your business ranks in search), watch this video and then import them to your website - no charge - no contract. Completely free.

How to choose a wealth manager

This was the title of the lead article in this week's Sunday Times Raconteur section:

In 2020 you might expect some reference to researching using the net. But there is none. So we will pick up where this article left off. 

The article references 'the damaging closure of high-profile Woodford Investment Management' so we will just add another three 'high-profile' names that have featured in the press recently to start a list of our own: St James's Place, Hargreaves Lansdown and Lindsell Train; we will then go on to examine the online presences of all the firms quoted in that article, after all, won't every investor looking for a new home for their portfolio be searching online as a first step - even if only to find contact details?

And right next to those contact details, in every single search? 

That's right, the firm's Google score - in lights - and a link to their own clients' opinions of them. If you were searching for someone to manage your life savings, even if you have had the firm strongly recommended by a friend or colleague, or you know an existing client who thinks they are the bee's knees, wouldn't you want to read what their other clients have to say? We would. So let's take a look, shall we?

Woodford

St James's Place (head office)

St James's Place (a typical office):

Hargreaves Lansdown

Linsell Train

Chase de Vere

Mattioli Woods

Brooks Macdonald

Quilter Cheviot

Barnett Waddingham

Brewin Dolphin

Last line of the article? 'It pays to do your homework'. All we can say is 'good luck' researching these businesses online, you'll get plenty on past performance (and we know what everyone, including the regulators, says about that) but next to nothing from their hundreds of thousands of existing clients about service levels. Even those that score well - see Brewin Dolphin above, where none of their three reviews appear to have been written by a 'real' client and Barnet Waddingham with a score of 4.9 from seven reviews, ditto (five being worthless ratings, four of which have been written by points-seeking local guides) have made no effort to harness the power of online reviews for the benefit of potential clients.

The article contained this survey:

We're going out on a limb here, but surely those who value 'personal attention' and 'quality and reputation' might also place a high value on a business that went to the trouble to invite and display customer opinions like this:

And this...

And this...

Surely the most cynical investment manager is going to acknowledge that at least some of their potential clients might be reassured by seeing that in excess of 100 of their existing clients were prepared to put 'pen to paper' to voice their approval of their service?

So why don't they?

We did the obvious thing. We asked some. They responded candidly (having been reassured their responses would be published anonymously). Here they are...

• "We expect the responses - and ratings - to correlate with clients' subjective experience of the performance of their portfolios."
• "We expect that our unhappy investors will be much more likely to post - therefore unfairly skewing our image."
• "Many of our clients are simply not financially savvy enough to make a reasoned judgment."
• "Our clients will object to being asked to publicly express an opinion of our services."

And, more than once...

• "None of our competitors have engaged with Google reviews."

We mined further down. Why not? The answer, when pressed, was invariably fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing control. So here's our answer to that 'fear'.

Fear that clients will focus on performance

Performance is one - important - aspect of any investment management service. But remember that clients do not need the business's permission to post a review on Google. One surefire way to ensure a negative online impression over the long term is to leave the field clear for unhappy clients. Remember that the business can always respond to the review, and use that response to educate their potential clients as well as address the contents of the individual review. 

Fear that only those with an axe to grind will post reviews

This has been proven to be a 'false fear'; there is no evidence at all, across a range of high-value services where the business has proactively engaged. And that is the key: ignore consumers and the most disgruntle will post reviews, engage and happy loyal clients will way outnumber them.

Fear that clients don't understand financial services well enough to post an accurate review

This is where a service like HelpHound comes in. Our clients invariably invite their clients to write their review to them in the first place, this gives HelpHound the opportunity to moderate the review before publication. What is moderation? It is the act of checking a review for factual inaccuracies before it is published. Reviewers welcome it as much as our client businesses - after all, most reasonable people don't actively want to post an inaccurate or misleading review, they actually want to help their fellows make the right decision.

Fear that clients will resent being asked to write a publicly visible review

If anyone thinks that financial services are so sensitive as to be exempt from reviews then we would ask them to consider this client of ours, a Harley Street feminine health and wellbeing clinic.

There are perfectly reasonable grounds for this objection, after all, finance is a private matter. Our answer, based on extensive experience with similarly sensitive businesses, is that a - perhaps surprising - number of people are prepared, willing even, to share their experience for the benefit of their fellows. Remember that no one is forced to write a review, all that it takes is careful wording of the invitation (such experience we have in spades) making it quite clear to the recipient that their review is designed to help others and is entirely voluntary. 

No other financial services business has engaged with reviews

We hope we have made a strong case for reviews in the context of investment management and financial services. We are confident that the first financial services businesses that engage will see immediate benefits, in much the same way that estate agents (hardly the most popular businesses!) have done - here is the monthly report Google sends every business (we recommend you seek out whoever in your business receives it, the data it contains is invaluable):

Aside from your business's Google score which anyone can easily find by simply googling your business, it contains vital information on...

• how many people found your business in Google searches in the previous month (2,653 in this client's case)
• how many calls you received directly through Google (73)
• how many visits to your website came as a direct result of finding you in a Google search (90)

...and, perhaps most important of all, any uplift in these numbers (important because the uplift, in this case, was as a direct result of joining HelpHound).

Further reading...

• Thousands could lose their life savings - why reviews matter (this article was written well before the Woodford storm broke, but would have been just as relevant in that context)
• Estate agents were - understandably - wary about adopting a proactive stance with reviews; see what five of them say here
• Unfair, fake, misleading or just plain inaccurate reviews do no-one any good, and they can seriously impact a business. Here's the happy ending for a case involving a client of ours.