Which business would you trust...

With your health or wealth? 

Take two - to all intents and purposes identical - businesses. Let's assume a friend or colleague has recommended them to you. What is your next logical step? Call them? Look at their website? Well, to do anything like that you're almost bound to resort, at least initially, to searching online. And, here in the UK at least, that search means 'Google'.

And so here they are: 

Business 1

Business 2 

We said that these two businesses were 'virtually identical'. Let's take a closer look...

• They are both estate agencies
• Both locations are a single branch of a business with multiple branches (so no marked difference in transaction rates)
• They both transact a mix of business - sales and lettings
• They both have Google reviews dating back over many years, Business 1 since 2018, Business 2 since 2017
• Both had a Google score in the mid-3s (3.2 and 3.4) in 2019

Now: where do they differ?

Up until 2020, not a lot. Business 1 had 11 reviews and business 2 had 19. But then they begin to diverge. Over the last 4 years...

• Business 1 has averaged 13 reviews a year, 1 a month
• Business 2 has averaged 106 reviews a year, 9 a month

• Business 1's reviews scored them an average of 3.42
• Business 2's reviews scored them an average of 4.96

So what made the difference?

In 2020 Business 2 joined HelpHound. Since then they have...

• asked every stakeholder - vendor, purchaser, landlord and tenant, for a review
• and allowed others, anyone at all, to write a review via their website

Now, the more cynical of our readers will be thinking: that way misery lies. Asking everyone and allowing anyone is tantamount to inviting negative reviews. Our answer would be 'yes', but for one crucial ingredient of the HelpHound mix: moderation (see more on that subject here and below). This is the core offering at HelpHound that gave the second business the confidence to do just that.

In the real world

There's an awful lot of noise on the web surrounding reviewer behaviour (and we're the first to admit we've contributed our fair share) but the results you see above are 'real world' and they are shared by the overwhelming majority of our clients. So let's forget the theoretical for a moment and relate what actually happens.

1.  If you incentivise your staff to gather reviews from your customers they will do so (Both: your staff will get reviews and your customers will willingly post them)

2.  An emailed invitation to post a review, when followed up with a 'Please post, it's important...' phone call, takes response rates from low single figures to above one in two - from 0.5 - 2% to over 50%

3.  Inbound enquiries increase in direct relation to improved score and volume. And its easy to measure, it will happen as soon as the business scores over 4.5 and accelerate when it scores 4.8 of more

4.  Once a business's score has climbed over 4.5 inbound enquiries through search and web rise by between 15 and 25%, measurably. We have at least one client where enquiries more than doubled (as measured by Google)

5. The quality of business transacted improves. Graet scoreas and great individual reviews drive high-value enquiries. Look at these outstanding results 

See that thumbs up at the bottom left? Five years ago a review would be lucky to get one in a year, now one a month is not unusual. Why are these important? Since Google dropped its 'views' statistics (we suspect they were undermining sales of Google advertising - why advertise when your reviews are doing a great job?) they are the only indication a business is going to get that its reviews are being read. We estimate that only about one in a hundred people reading a review can be bothered to click on the thumb, so five thumbs up might easily equate to 500 views of that single review (in this case, over the past twelve months).

Even if this business didn't lead in search, it's leading score of 4.9 from 446 Google reviews would ensure a great flow of enquiries. Having a score of 4.9 from 663 of its own reviews (the reviews it hosts on its own website - invited through and moderated by HelpHound, although many consumers assume they are awardrd by Google somehow) showing right under its listing reinforces the message: Click here! Use us! And just suppose the searcher had been recommended to use one of the other businesses in this search? We're betting they would be giving serious consideration to contacting our client as well.

6. The businesses value their 'stars in organic search' and the reviews on their websites very highly indeed. How do we know? There was a negative/positive just over a year ago when we were moving web servers. Although we had performed all the operations you would think essential for such a move (backups/mirroring) as well as making the move over a weekend, some business's schemas - the mechanism that enables Google to see the business's own reviews hosted on its own website and delivers those stars in search, didn't function for a short period. The howls from those clients were heard across the Atlantic (where our servers are). Clients know that stars in search are highly influential

So many good things flow from this part of the front page of the business's website. First the obvious: the visitor (invariably a potential or existing client, but other stakeholders as well) can see other's opinions of the business - all 663 reviews are a click away. The 'Write a review' button next to the number of reviews takes them straight to the business's review function, where, once the review is written it is read by a HelpHound moderator before being posted back to the business's website (with the reviewer being automatically invited to copy it to Google).

7.  By adopting moderated review management the business is given the confidence to open itself up to reviews, both from stakeholders and from others. We have noticed a distinct fall-off in negative reviews to Google as soon as businesses begin inviting reviews, right across the service business spectrum; we can only assume because consumers have more respect for the kind of business that acts in this way, so are more likely to approach the business with the issue that is concerning them, either by picking up the phone, emailing or going to the business's website and clicking on 'Write a review', in preference to heading straight to Google to write what might be a misconceived, factually inaccurate or just plain unfair, but potentially extremely harmful review there

In conclusion

You will see from a glance at this word cloud that the common denominator of all our clients is the fact that they provide advice; that does not mean that HelpHound won't take on a product-based business, it is a simple fact of life that service-based businesses and their customers/clients/patients rely far more heavily on accurate Google reviews

No well-managed customer-service-focused business needs to be wary of Google reviews. The advantages of proactively engaging through a moderated system, both positive - increased enquiries and lead-flow followed by supported conversion - and defensive: against inaccurate, misleading or plain unfair Google reviews, are proven and achievable over a very short time scale (we took one client from scoring under 3 to 4.6 in less than two months; they now score 4.8).

Our guarantee

We provide new clients with a cast-iron guarantee of success with Google reviews. This does not mean that, unlike some other review solutions, we will promise make any business look great: it means that all our clients are great businesses that strive to provide an exceptional level of service to every single one of their clients or patients and we enable them to look as good as they deserve.

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

Review gating - it's illegal, but why?

We are regularly asked this question (often alongside 'Why shouldn't we cherry-pick?', cherry-picking being the act of selecting which customers to invite to write a review), once the person asking understands exactly what gating is.

Gating - the definition

Gating is the act of using a mechanism (examples below) to pre-determine which customer is most likely to post a 5* review and then asking that sub-set, and only that sub-set, to write a publicly visible review, commonly to Google, but the applies equally to any review acquired in this manner. 

So: what is wrong with gating and why is it illegal in the UK and in contravention of Google's terms of service worldwide? 

Examples of gating mechanisms

Questionnaire 

 

 

How often do we all receive one of these? And many are innocent - the business just wants feedback on its products or services. The legal line is crossed when those who respond positively to the questionnaire - and only those - are then invited to post a review to Google...

 

...and those that score the business less than a perfect 5.0 receive this...

 

Email

 

 

'How did we do?' A sub-set of the questionnaire really. People that respond with '10' (and sometimes even '9') will be invited to write a review.

 

Using a less visible review site

 

 

This is a 'cunning' solution. Take a business that fully understands that Google reviews are by far and away the most important. But it begins by inviting customers to post a review to a review site; only when they have done so are those that have written a 5* review there invited to post a review to Google. 

Oh! And there's one more: handing the customer an iPad at point-of-sale. This - a derivative of cherry-picking - risks a complete deletion of all the business's reviews on Google. There was a famous case of a hotel that climbed to the top of the rankings by doing exactly this. No longer: Google hates multiple reviews being written from the same IP address. 

 

Why do businesses feel the need to gate?

It's simple - and understandable - until one begins to look at the bigger picture. Businesses know that scoring well on Google - 4.8 and over - will drive more enquiries and sales through search (for unequivocal proof see 'Results' at the end of this article). And they will do just about anything to achieve that, and that includes cherry-picking (frequently) and gating (less often).

The bigger picture? 

Reviews exist to enable consumers to pick the most suitable product or business for their needs. That may be something as basic as a mobile phone or an item of clothing, or as vitally important as someone to conduct a legal case, a financial transaction or a medical operation.

Our more regular readers will already be aware of where we are going with this line of argument: so what if you buy the wrong phone or dress? You may be mildly inconvenienced or irritated, you might even lose a small amount of money replacing the item in question - but an oncologist or a family lawyer, an investment manager or an executive search consultant? Get that choice wrong and your whole life could be turned upside down, or worse: put at risk entirely.

So consumers, especially consumers of high-value services and the professions, need to be able to rely on reviews as completely as possible. Gating and cherry-picking are not victimless crimes. That is exactly why the CMA regulates reviews in the UK with the force of law.

And it is also why HelpHound exists: to ensure that our clients' reviews are, as far as they can be, factually accurate and a fair reflection of the interaction between business and consumer. Our clients don't need to cherry-pick or gate. They know they will be protected - by our moderators (see 'Further Reading' below) from the kind of reviews that make other businesses contravene the CMA regulations. 

There's one more thing we hear occasionally: 'How likely is it that the regulators/CMA will sanction our business?' And we cannot answer that; all we do know is that the CMA is on the case - they really don't like consumers being misled into using the wrong business - and the last time they sanctioned a business for something similar they fined it £375,000 and barred its directors from running a limited company for 10 years. 

Gating and cherry-picking are so easy to identify:

• the emails and reviews sites used in gating leave an indelible paper-trail (the ones illustrated above fell into our inbox less than an hour after the article was begun), not just visible to regulators but to other interested parties (competitors are delighted when they can tell prospective cleints or patients that another firm under consideration is effectively breaking the law to enhance its reputation) 

• cherry picking - ditto: a business has 36 reviews over a three year period, but its books show it has transacted business with over 400 people, it is almost certainly cherry-picking

But far more likely is that a competitor business will work out just what the cherry-picking/gating business is up to and use that in competitive pitches: "Did you know that ABC Plc only looks so good because they're breaking the law?" 

Why go to all that trouble - and risk your business's long-term security - when there is an effective alternative?

Further reading 

• Here's how moderation protects businesses from unfair, inaccurate or misleading reviews

• Results? See how moderation enables businesses to increase review flow, and maintain a great Google score at the same time as raising the quality of their applicants

• Guaranteed success? Sure thing, show this and the two articles linked above to your CEO/CMO and CFO

Trustpilot - major investor sells and cuts losses

On the third anniversary of Trustpilot's IPO - at £2.65p - Vitruvian Partners sold 15.5 million shares at £2.00p. Some might say that's not a great return (a loss of nearly 25% over three years), especially against the FTSE which is up 16% over the same period. But we are not here to say whether or not Trustpilot shares are a good investment, but rather whether or not businesses should invest their hard-earned money by employing Trustpilot to enhance their reputations in their various marketplaces.

The question that we return to again and again is a simple one: 'Why pay Trustpilot when Google reviews are free?' and more importantly...

• more visible - by a massive margin (as regular readers will have noted: we have strong suspicions that some businesses are using Trustpilot specifically to channel reviews away from the public eye as Trustpilot reviews of a business rarely appear on 'page 1' of seach)

• more credible - again, by a huge margin (users now understand that anyone can write a Google review and it will stand. Google reviews are now also mostly posted under a 'real' identity)

And the answer we continue to arrive at is...

'If your business is seeking a reviews mechanism to back up its product marketing - we stress 'product', as opposed to 'service' - then a Trustpilot rating may be an effective tool. But if your business provides a professional service - financial, legal, medical, educational, B2B and the like - it has to be Google all the way.'

Just look at these search results...

What reviews - and scores - do we see? Google - every single time. Now let us look at another service sector that has taken review marketing more seriously than most...

For readers saying, quite understandably, 'Our business acquires most of its new clients/patients as a result of word-of-mouth recommendations, referrals or as a result of our advertising and PR efforts' may we say 'Great, but remember what the overwhelming majority of people do when they are recommended a business by a friend or colleague, or see great marketing: they Google the business in question. And what do they see then? They see this...

Compare the search above with a similar one in a different sector...

No Google reviews, no reviews on their own website and no stars in search

And there are two major reasons why HelpHound clients look so great in search (apart from the fact that they self-define as highly consumer-focused)...

1.  Moderation: every reviewer who responds to our clients' invitation to post a review - whether by direct contact or indirectly by using the 'Write a review' button on their website - has their review read by a HelpHound moderator in order to ensure, as far as is possible within the CMA regulations, that the review contains no factual inaccuracies or comments likely to mislead a future reader. 

 

There is no longer any doubt that the star rating drawn from the reviews on the business's own website drives enquiries

2.  'Stars in search': (see specifially points 6 & 8)  the stars, rating and 'votes' you see right underneath the business's natural listing, in both searches (local and specific) - as opposed to in the Google knowledge panel on the right in the second image - are derived from the business's own reviews, hosted on its own website, not from its Google reviews. The fact that most consumers assume they are some sort of Google 'vote of confidence' is not necessarily a bad thing! 

We recommend you conduct your own search on the business above to see them - the stars - 'in action' and how they make the business stand out in searches. We know how highly valued they are by businesses because on the very rare occasions when our feed does not deliver them in search we get very prompt calls asking for it to be reinstated ASAP!

In Summary

We see no contest between Trustpilot or any of its fellow review sites - Yelp, Feefo, Reviews.io and the rest - and Google when it comes to driving business through reviews. A moderated Google solution wins on any criteria a business may have. If, on the other hand, your business sells products and you'd rather its reviews were not delivered in Google searches, then maybe, just maybe, the five green stars are for you.

Make the most of your great reviews

 

There is an understandable tendency for businesses to focus on their review score and the absolute number of reviews they have, in the same way as consumers use these two indicators as a short-hand way to whittle down prospective services into a shortlist.

Your business has great reviews - on your own website and on Google. Of course it does, it's a HelpHound client. But don't just leave it there: use them in all of your marketing...

• print
• conventional media - PR and advertising
• social media - Instagram/TikTok/Facebook
• customer-facing displays

We know we are stating the obvious to some of you but we are still coming across businesses that hide their lights under a bushel. Well, not quite, but they do tend to stop once they have great reviews and great scores in the obvious places. 

If you think we've missed anything that works well for your business or would like us to share ideas that have worked for other clients please just call.

How many people are seeing that 1* review?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that negative Google reviews of your business are either 'not seen' or 'have no impact' (if you want reviews, but don't want them to show up in search there are always the review sites: Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo and so on). For reasons better known to Google, it stopped showing the number of views a review received, like this...

...a while back. There's no point in us even trying to guess Google's rationale, but it definitely enabled those who persist in thinking that the odd negative review 'doesn't matter' or 'won't get seen by many people' (those 'people' being potential customers) to relax in the comfort of their own self-delusion.

There are two lessons we can all learn from this simple screenshot:

1. That hundreds, even thousands, of people will see any negative reviews of your business
2. That if a negative review is 'liked' - the only statistic that Google still shows (the thumbs up at bottom left)...

...you can be absolutely sure that it has been viewed, and read, by a whole lot more - not necessarily in the ratio of 1:1300 indicated by the first review, but the multiple will be considerable.

So: take negative reviews very seriously indeed - do everything in your power to avoid receiving them in the first place (HelpHound's moderated review management?) and then deal with them professionally when they do arise. 

 

 

Moderation - every professional business's key to reviews

With apologies to regular readers, but this subject is so vital - it is at the core of everything we do for our client businesses and their customers. We're going to keep this article brief - but we will include links to more detailed information and analysis for those who want to mine further down into this vital aspect of managing a business's online reputation.

Here goes...

1.  What is moderation?

This is one of the most important questions we are ever asked - and one of the most important services we ever provide, to both our business clients and their customers. So let's look at a real example; here is a review, posted through the business's website and picked up - pre-publication - by our moderator...

We have purposely chosen this review as it is an excellent example of the kind of review that, if posted straight to Google, would remain on the business's Google page for the foreseeable future; there is nothing in the review that would give us cause to think there was any chance of an appeal to Google succeeding as it does not remotely infringe any of Google's terms and conditions.

 

Indeed, on the face of it, the review is an entirely genuine opinion and record of a consumer's - in this case a patient's - interaction with the business - in this case a medical practice. Also, on reading, it is a pretty convincing argument not to use the business. And therefore potentially hugely damaging.

So: what happened during the moderation process? 

Our moderator acknowledged the review by messaging the reviewer to tell them that we would be consulting the business before publishing the review. Simultaneously the review was sent to the business for comment. We make it completely clear to businesses that their response must be with our moderator by close of business the same day (if a business wants to be sure of provoking a review direct to Google, then any delay at this point is a good way of ensuring that happens). 

In this instance the clinic reverted to our moderator the same morning, addressing each point in the review in turn.  This response was forwarded, immediately, to the reviewer who was then invited to do one of three things:

• Amend their original review
• Have their original review posted
• Message the business via our moderator and leave the review unposted

In this case, as happens in so many*, the latter course was chosen by the reviewer...

Not only the right outcome but the fair outcome. The clinic's reputation was protected and the relationship with their patient was restored. Both parties benefitted.

*The overwhelming majority of consumers - especially where there is a professional ongoing relationship or service at stake - are entirely receptive to a full and truthful explanation of the facts of the matter under review. Indeed, they are often grateful in the extreme for our moderator's intercession.

Moderation is the act of 'having a review read and analysed for factual accuracy and/or misleading statements' by a person independent of the business under review. It is the only legal way for businesses in the UK (and the EU) to ensure that, as far as possible, their reviews are an accurate reflection of their business and its services.

2.  If our moderator finds either of those - factual inaccuracies and/or statements with the potential to mislead someone who may rely on the review (a potential client/patient, for instance) what exactly do they do?

They message the reviewer - in private (example above) - and suggest modifications to the review before it is published. They will also correct obvious mistakes in spelling and grammar.

3.  Will our moderator ever involve the business?

Sometimes. Our moderators are experienced and understand our clients' businesses, but if there is something in the review that needs clarification - the 'he said/she said' kind of thing - they will refer to our point-of-contact at the business as well as back to the reviewer (again, see the example above).

4.  Do reviewers ever object to our moderation process?

Very rarely. We always make it clear that the reviewer always has the right - excluding profanities or allegations of illegal behaviour - to have whatever review they wish published (this keeps every party in compliance with the CMA regulations, which specifically prohibit businesses from using any mechanism that prevents the consumer having their say).  On the contrary, we often receive messages from reviewers thanking us for our intervention. Vanishingly few consumers want to have inaccurate reviews published for the world to see (the actual figure, from our own data, is far less than 1% of the 3% of reviews that enter the moderation process).

5.  What should we expect our business to score with moderation?

This is the question we get most of all: before we answer it - and we will give you actual numbers at the end of this section - we should explain that there are two elements in the customer relationship chain that we, at HelpHound, cannot (and should not) control: the first is the behaviour of your staff, which is entirely your responsibility and the second is the behaviour of your customers. We often meet 'perfect' businesses with far-from-perfect Google scores; what we know for sure is that our moderation process will address a great proportion of those mistaken negative reviews. So...

A (near) perfect business with (near) perfect clients? Or a business that has felt the need to selectively invite 'happy' clients to post reviews to Google? Bearing in mind that 186 reviews divided by the six years since their first Google review = 31 reviews a year = just over one fortnight, the available evidence points to the latter. 

If your business currently scores between 4.8 and 5.0 - it will have the very best chance of maintaining that score with HelpHound's moderation (and it will be fully compliant with the CMA regulations - as will all the solutions below)

This business has worked hard to get 300 Google reviews, possibly in order to dilute the 26 one-star and 3 two-star reviews it has received, almost of which would have been effectively managed by our moderation process (a quick scan of their negative reviews shows a mix of misunderstandings - language issues in the main and plain wrong-headed comments). Going forwards they should be looking to raise their percentage of 5* reviews from its current level of 91% to far closer to 99%. This will see their score rise to 4.8/4.9 alongside their most successful competitors.

• If your business currently scores between 4.5 and 4.7 - it will have a great chance of achieving a score of at least 4.8 with HelpHound's moderation

This firm had a clean sheet - scoring the full 5.0 - until a matter of weeks ago. Its experience illustrates just how vital a moderated review management system is for professional businesses. We cannot guarantee that the 3 one-star reviews posted recently would not have been posted, but the firm would have had vastly more than 14 five-star reviews to counterbalance them. This should be its aim going forward: to invite clients to post to Google as a standard practice.

• If your business currently scores between 4.0 and 4.4 - it will have a great chance of achieving a score of at least 4.8 with HelpHound's moderation

We're going to take an educated guess here: someone within the firm began asking their satisfied clients to post reviews four years ago, then a colleague pointed out the CMA anti-cherry-picking regulations and they stopped doing so. Then some unhappy people - not necessarily clients - posted a handful of critical reviews. So their Google score has gradually declined from 4.9 to its current 3.9. Being the lowest-ranked solicitor in its area will not be helping to drive new clients through the door. But all is not lost: a low score from a few reviews is easily rectified, whilst a low score form hundreds - or thousands - takes time (but will still be achieved)

• If your business currently scores less than 4.0 - the only way, as they say, is up! That is, unless our initial audit pinpoints a flaw in your CRM, in which case we will advise accordingly and delay implementation until the flaw is rectified

To reinforce these four assertions we recommend you read these two articles:

1.  Results: two case histories that demonstrate the uplift in Google score, the subsequent increase in new business enquiries and the resultant critical quantum shift in the quality of customers acquired through Google search.

2. Our guarantee of success: see exactly what we absolutely guarantee will happen when you join HelpHound.

Does all of the above mean that HelpHound can make any business look great in search?

We understand, at first glance, this might appear to be the case, but it ignores two significant factors in HelpHound's own business model...

1. We only work with the professions and service businesses, and most, if not all, service businesses can improve their CRM to the stage where HelpHound's review management will work effectively for them. This is not the case with product-based businesses: a substandard product will always be a substandard product, and we leave those businesses to the review sites.
2. We recognise that the reviewer always retains the option to write their review directly to Google or one of the review sites, so we always advise our clients to facilitate the maximum number of reviews through their own CRM and website. If a business ignores that advice they run the very real risk of negative reviews, often factually incorrect or just plain unfair, being written to Google.       

A vital - and hugely valuable - unintended consequence of moderation

Very soon after we introduced moderation we began being asked, by virtually every business we spoke to (especially those that had taken the trouble to understand the CMA regulations - the law)...

'Do we have to ask all our customers to post a review?'

Our initial response was...

'No, you don't, you are compliant with the CMA regulations by dint of the fact that you offer all visitors to your website the ability to post a review.'

Sighs of relief all round! But then we took a long hard look at the individual negative reviews being posted. And we had an epiphany: we realised that clients of relationship-based businesses didn't often 'warn' those businesses that they were dissatisfied with whatever long-term service they were being provided with - they just resigned/left. And, as any such business will tell you, once a client or patient is gone they're almost always 'gone gone'. The chances of clawing them back are as close to nil as makes no difference. 

But our moderators also noticed a distinct pattern emerging: businesses that had invited all - or just about all - their stakeholders to write a review were receiving warnings of the 'about to go' kind. The review of the clinic at the top of this article is a good example. And, as all businesses know, a customer saved is worth a great deal of marketing £s. 

So we revised our advice: proactively invite as many people as possible to write a review; the 5* reviews are gold-dust, but the 1* or 2* review that is resolved in moderation is platinum.

Lastly...

If you interrogate this blog and its 900+ articles you will find plenty that reference moderation.  The first was written on 26 April 2013, eleven years ago now, but here are two more recent ones that will explain everything that this article has left out in the interests of brevity.

• Moderation: the essential ingredient in every professional business's review management strategy
• Review moderation and why it is a 'must have' for businesses that intend to grow