HelpHound - AI and reviews - an important update

There have been two seismic shifts in the world of reviews this year...

• Google's Introduction of AI search (Gemini) 

and...

• The CMA's warning that it is introducing AI to establish which businesses are contravening its core regulations relating to reviews (see below)

Regulation 

We asked Google's AI a simple question: 'Is there anything suspicious about [XYZ]'s reviews?' This is what it returned:

This was the very first business we asked Google's Gemini AI to interrogate - it was the first law firm 'near me' in search, so no cherry-picking for our example. You can be sure that if we can do this using proprietary AI, then the CMA's bespoke system will work even more effectively - and in numbers; this, again from a Google AI search...

What does the CMA mean by 'suspicious activity'? It is simple, really: any activity that tilts the review gathering and posting process in favour of the business (and, therefore, by definition, against the interests of the consumer). At the risk of repeating ourselves, here are the most obvious examples...

1. Cherry-picking. Every business that invites reviews is either tempted down this road or actively does it. Why is it illegal? Because the CMA has said so! Seriously though. Take a minute to think about it; hand-picking 'happy' customers to invite to write a review must work in the business's favour.
2. Gating. The act of pre-qualifying the above-mentioned customers. There are many mechanisms - the obvious one being an e-questionnaire. Not only against UK and EU law but expressly against Google's terms of service (risking deletion of the entirety of a business's Google reviews and red-flagging).

This issue with both of the above, post-AI, is that the regulators have gone, overnight, from relying on whistleblowers and exhaustive, time-consuming and expensive follow-up investigations to a click of a mouse and bingo! - a comprehensive list of those flouting the law, along with comprehensive proof*.

We frequently hear businesses dismiss regulation (and at least half the businesses we meet for the first time are in breach of one or more of the CMA's core regulations). It will either be a case of 'Why would they - in this case, the CMA - bother?' or 'If they bothered, what is the likelihood of [our business] being sanctioned?'*

But now the CMA are introducing sophisticated AI, it is time to stop 'parking on the double yellow lines.' It's not as if parking legally, in the context of reviews, is going to cost businesses either - professional review management has proved itself to be a profit centre time and again (in fact, so comprehensively that we now guarantee results or your money back).

*Again, there are those who doubt us. The key here is that a) a sanction by the CMA will not be viewed as a victimless crime by consumers, the press and social media - you can probably write the headines yourself - and b) every business in breach will have a positive treasure trove of evidence for the CMA's AI to pick up - from the reviews themselves (and the posting pattern), to the emails/texts inviting them (or not inviting them, as the case may be).

4.9 is the new 4.5

We all remember the days, not long past, when we would use a business provided it scored over 4.0. No longer. To feature in a competitive search, and to attract custom wherever it may appear in search, a business now needs three things more than ever before...

• Great SEO

• A Google score of 4.8 or better

• A feed of its reviews on its own website - that, in turn, feeds through to Google searches

In the case of the latter, the feed can be of Google reviews or its own reviews. The advantages of the latter being...

• that the individual reviews themselves can be moderated, with factually inaccurate or potentially misleading (and damaging) reviews being resolved pre-publication anywhere (on the business's own website and/or on Google). We estimate, based on over a decade's experience and the statistics behind it, that our moderation adds between 0.2 and 0.5 to a business's overall Google score. Of course, it is not only the score that is important;  almost, sometimes more than the score, is the elimination or correction of a potentially* damaging review at the top of the business's Google feed (now almost certainly referenced by any AI search as well).

• that the business owns its own reviews, rather than donating the data they contain exclusively to Google

*We struck out 'potentially' as all negative reviews are damaging. The business may know that the reviewer is being unreasonable or even factually inaccurate, but the reader does not, and almost everyone searching for a high-value business will take the trouble to read any 1* reviews a business may have. Moderation is a vital safety net for any service or professional business.

SEO

You will have spotted the HelpHound client. But do you know where that '4.9 from 129 reviews' and its accompanying 5 gold stars come from? Most consumers will bet their last penny that they are from Google, but they are not. They are taken directly from the client's own reviews, moderated by HelpHound, and hosted on their website for all to see...

Why host your own reviews on your own website? There are many reasons, not least of which is the marketing boost they provide. Ammunition for advertising and PR, your website, your social media and print materials. But it's not entirely accidental that HelpHound clients tend to a) score higher - by definition, a moderated system must outscore the equivalent unmoderated system, even if it only enables the business to avoid having a single inaccurrate or misleading review a year (we have clients who recieve one a month - and they are invariably resolved before publication), and b) feature more prominently in all the vital searches - local/map etc.

Artificial Intelligence

Our article from the day of Google's launch of Gemini AI for search

Two here: first, the boon that AI provides for the basic day-to-day management of reviews, helping draft responses is a major one for our clients. Second: the warning from the CMA that it is going to be using sophisticated AI to identify businesses that flout its core regulations (see above). 

Getting great reviews

Convincing? You bet. We have purposely chosen a client in one of the most sensitive areas to show that a) people using extremely 'private' services will write reviews. If patients of a women's health clinic will write a review, albeit in less volume, so will clients of a lawyer or a financial adviser. 

More and more evidence points to three factors that override all others;

1. Warn the individual - face to face if at all possible - that it is now standard practice for your business to invite all its customers to write a review, and stress how helpful that is a) to other people in their position and b) for you personally
2. Invite the review by email, not SMS. This has been shown to produce better quality reviews, consistently. Fewer 'They were great' and more of the kind you see above.
3. Follow up with a one-minute phone call. Businesses that do so - and we have plenty of evidence of this - often convert over fifty per cent of the invitations they send out.

Results

These bear repetition, in the context of our fees and all of the above. Detailed numbers lifted from an industry forum (in this case estate agency) and collated by someone totally unconnected with HelpHound. Again, we repeat: these are guaranteed, and have been for over 18 months now. 

To summarise

• Don't wait any longer to become compliant with the CMA regulations; the CMA will not warn anyone before they act. The benefits of compliance (see 'Results' above) so far outweigh the cost, from the point of view of both time and £. And sanction by the CMA will hurt - both the fine and the attendant publicity

• Get a compliant reviews feed embedded into your website

• Aim to achieve a score of 4.9 for your business as soon as possible

• Get the SEO kicker of reviews working for your business, again, as soon as possible