For a long time we knew that having great reviews - on Google and on a business's own website - was good news for a business, and certain to lead to more calls and clicks.
But could we - and, most important of all, our clients - prove it? If the CEO asked the CMO for absolute proof - numbers? Well, no, not really. But those days are now well behind us; what follows are three concrete examples of HelpHound's review management directly enabling businesses to win business and win it more profitably in a way no other reviews solution possibly could*.
Calls Up, clicks up - and proven
Proven with the advent of the Google My Business monthly report. Now any business that joins HelpHound will have absolute and definitive proof, in the form of hard monthly statistics.
Just look at the hard numbers in this report after this business adopted HelpHound:
18 percent more calls and 27 percent more clicks through to the business's website post-adoption. It should also be noted that no extra or unusual marketing had taken place over the period and market conditions had not changed (if anything market conditions had taken a turn for the worse - the period under report, the summer holidays, are a notoriously quiet time for estate agency).
Trampling the competition - Winkworth in Putney and Blackheath
The comment below was made on an article on an industry web-forum by a respected third-party commentator comparing actual outturns for competing agencies in two areas of London:
Great reviews and great scores do more than just drive enquiries. They enable businesses to maintain fee levels (see below) as well as winning business against their competitors. Few businesses are more cutthroat than estate agency in this respect. See how Winkworth achieve a marked uplift against Foxtons.
Now - possibly most important of all - a consumer's tale
This wonderful recounting of a single client's experience almost certainly has direct bearing on the success stories of the two Winkworth businesses described above - albeit specifically relating to another business in the Winkworth group. Just read what the client has to say and then extrapolate that accross however many deals - the numbers are astonishing. Astonishingly good.
Perhaps there's no better way to end this article. Except to say that these numbers would apply equally to any professional services business - financial, medical, legal and so on - providing they were committed to great customer service (as all HelpHound clients, by definition, are).
Notes:
* 'no other solution': moderation and owning your own reviews - both of these are unique to HelpHound - and critical for businesses that take their online reputations seriously.
- Owning your own reviews: in this day and age no business should be giving away customer data to any other business - a review site, for instance. If it's worth money to them - and it most certainly is - it's worth money to your business too. The only exception to this rule is Google.
- Moderation: is the act of having an independent agency - in this case HelpHound - moderating (think of it as 'arbitrating') between the reviewer and the reviewed business to ensure that published reviews contain the absolute minimum of factual inaccuracies and/or misleading statements.
This - moderation - should not be confused with some 'business friendly' offerings from the review sites; anything that enables the business to deflect honestly held opinions - insisting on proof of purchase, for instance - is not only illegal in the UK but it simply sends the disgruntled customer straight to Google to post their review there.
If it weren't for moderation then many businesses would be best advised to simply use Google reviews and import them into their websites, but speak to any business that has experienced an unmoderated killer review, as almost all service businesses will at some stage ('killer review' is a definition we came up with many years ago: it's the kind of review that stops the phones ringing) and you will soon understand the value of moderation.
There's more on this vital aspect of our service here.
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