Some people don't have the time to read some of the longer posts on here, and we freely admit that Part 1 is quite extensive. So here's a more concise post.
One Google review can kill - or very seriously maim - your business.
Correction - will seriously maim. A well-written negative review won't drive calls and clicks so, by definition, it must do the reverse: put people off making that crucial first contact.
Just look at this review of a legal firm (that has a Google score of 4.4 from 44 reviews):
What do you think? Will it be ignored? No? We agree. The point here is not the score - or the number of reviews (they have two other 1* reviews, both pretty innocuous) but the actual content of the review.
- Is it written by a real person?
- Is it well-written?
- Does it ring true?
- Would you want what happened to the reviewer to happen to you?
Quite. Now bear in mind that...
- that review will remain on Google forever
- readers will invariably click on 'Lowest' when reading business's Google reviews
- well over 90% of all consumers - especially consumers of high-value services - consult Google reviews before making first contact
But, we hear you say, the review we have shown above is demonstrably not 'inaccurate, misleading or just plain unfair'. How do you, or we, know that? We don't. But that's the conclusion most fair-minded consumers will come to when they read it.
If the business had offered their customer the possibility of writing a review - by sending them an email and having a link on their website where they could write their review - maybe they would have taken that route instead? Well, over ten years of experience shows that a large proportion will.
There's only one legal solution: independent moderation.
To read more here's a link to Part 1.
Further reading
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