Review denial - why?

We first wrote about this syndrome back in 2014 - who would have thought that there are still some corners of the marketing world where it persists in 2021?

This kind of Google entry is increasingly rare, simply because businesses cannot actively prevent anyone from leaving a Google review; more common are completely unmanaged listings such as the one below (this example is of a substantial London law firm, but it is reprsentative of many others)...

Now, we could fill this post with many more examples of businesses and professions that have yet to engage with Google reviews, but, since this article is aimed fairly and squarely at them it would probably be counter-productive. After all, they almost certainly know who they are.

So, let's first mine our decade-plus of experience and see if we can work out just what is holding them back.

Reasons we are given for not engaging with Google reviews

1.  We don't need any more business

2.  Our clients/patients will not want to be asked to write a publicly visible review

3.  The nature of our business - confidentialitysensitivity - precludes us from inviting our clients/patients for a review

4.  We are concerned that some reviewers - given the highly technical nature of our business - will write factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews

5.  None of our competitors have engaged with reviews

6.  We don't have the resources - human 

7.  We don't have the resources - financial

8.  We will go it alone 

9.  We have engaged - with a reviews site

10. We're not sure just how much value a professional review management strategy will add

Let's deal with these in order (you can skip to your favourite if you like):

1. 'Don't need any [more] business...'

Rare, admittedly, but we have encountered it. The kind of business that doesn't even have a website; after all, if a business is prepared to invest in having a website and the associated hosting fees, surely they must have done so with the intention of generating more business? And then - as reviews are proven beyond all doubt to produce more business - we have to conclude that any business with a website needs review management.

2.  'Client/patient will not want to write a review...'

Completely understandable. Until you look at similar businesses in 'sensitive' areas that have succeeded in engaging their clients or patients - how much more sensitive and confidential than womens' health can a service be? Yes, they will write reviews such as this one...

 

Remember that you will not be forcing or in any way coercing anyone into writing a review; in this context, the wording of the invitation email is essential (and we have years of experience in advising on this and seeing the positive real-world results).

3.  'Confidentiality precludes...'

This applies to so many essential services: legal, financial and medical are just the tip of a very large iceberg. Again, no one, least of all the business asking for the review, will be asking anyone to divulge any confidential information* - even their real name (avatars are acceptable - only Google/HelpHound will hold their email address); and you won't be pathfinding on behalf of your profession, the concept of reviews has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, in every sphere of business.

*every single review written through HelpHound is moderated for factual inaccuracy, potentially misleading statements and disclosure of potentially confidential information before it is published on the business's website, let alone to Google.

4.  'Factually inaccurate or potentially misleading...'

This is the one single factor that most often prevents professional businesses from enaging with reviews. Either that or they take the chance that the CMA won't descend on them for cherry-picking happy customers to write reviews (see 'CMA core regulations' link under 8. below). 

These kinds of review benefit no one - the business under review, the potential client relying on the review or the reviewer themselves, and that's one of the main reasons why businesses engage HelpHound: every review HelpHound publishes on a business's website is moderated beforehand: checked for factual inaccuracies and potentially misleading statements. Only then is the reviewer invited to copy their review to Google.

5.  'None of our competitors...'

Highly unlikely, but in the event that you operate in such a rarified environment wouldn't it be a great idea to be the first?

6/7.  'We don't have the human/financial resources...'

To increase incoming enquiries by 20-30 percent? We positively guarantee that professional review management will more than pay for whatever resources you devote to it. And adding HelpHound to oversee your engagement with Google reviews will cost little more than a decent mobile phone contract per location.

8.  'We will go it alone...'

Fine. Better than doing nothing - perhaps. But, as with any professional adviser, HelpHound expects the rewards for its clients to far and away exceed the cost, always. Just read 'Results with a capital R' and we're sure you will see what we mean.

Oh! and by the way, most businesses that have developed an independent strategy with Google reviews are in breach of one or more of the CMA's core regulations - almost always unwittingly (not that that will influence the CMA's enforcement teams!).

On top of this, the benefits of hosting your own reviews on your own website are now proven beyond all doubt: the obvious being that consumers can read reviews there without resorting to Google where they will be shown reviews of your competiors; the less obvious, but no less important benfit being that hosting your own reviews gives you SEO credit with Google and enables them to be moderated, thereby reducing the chances that an inaccurate or misleading review sees the light of day - on your site or on Google.

9.  'We have engaged a review site...'

This is a tricky one; review sites did have a role to play before Google became so overwhelmingly dominant in the review space, now, with very few exceptions, businesses are better advised to go down the Google route. First, just google your own business and then, for good measure, google a competitor: what do you see? Yes, Google reviews. Then, as if that were not convincing enough, ask yourself, would my business rather have 100 Google reviews or 100 on [ABC review site]? For an even more detailed answer to that question read this article.

10. 'Value added...'

Read this comment made by a client of one of our clients. 

As the lawyers in the example at the top of this article might say: 'We rest our case'.

Google ban Review Gating. Hooray!

  The recent important change to Google's content policy

For years now we have sometimes been frustrated by our inability to convince some businesses that gaming Google was a bad idea. Read the 'Introduction' below and then we will go into some detail on 'Gating' and the other mechanisms both businesses - and some reviews sites - use to bend (more often break) the UK CMA rules and Google's terms of service to their advantage.

Introduction

Reviews exist for one purpose - and one purpose only - to assist consumers when it comes to making an informed choice as to which business or service to buy or use. 

The expression 'informed choice' is critically important here: for reviews to be effective they must be trustworthy, not 'a bit trustworthy' or 'mostly trustworthy' - just trustworthy. That does not mean to say that every reviews system must be perfect, but to deliver it must do its very best to ensure...

• accuracy - the reviewer should only review a business or product they have personal first-hand experience of
• transparency - anyone should be able to post a review at a time of their own choosing
• lack of bias - the reviews system should not favour the business or product being reviewed

and there are rules in place to enforce that, the UK CMA regulations (again!) and now Google have added anti-gating to their term of service.

Why? And what were/are they doing?

Service businesses (as opposed to online retailers - which can live with a Google score as low as 4 out of 5 stars*) realised some time go that just one well-written Google review had - and increasingly has - the ability to 'stop the phones ringing'. Often they then adopted one of the following four strategies described below...

*while a score of 4 out of 5 may look alright, even good - at first glance - it will deflect customers from making contact with service businesses. Why? Because a business scoring that 4.0 with 100 reviews will have up to 20 one star reviews, and those will be read by prospective customers, and will put a significant number off taking the next step: contacting the business.

1.  Denial

  

Here's a typical local search - the kind most people seeking a business make every time. What have the three business's listed in the Google knowledge panel (the holy grail of SEO) done to say 'come to us, we're great at what we do'? Little or nothing - classic cases of 'Denial'.

Denial was definitely the simplest solution - and was adopted, consciously or unconsciously, by many. It involves ignoring Google reviews altogether. They just did not engage - and hoped that their customers would not write [negative] reviews to Google.

   No reviews until three months ago and then...a Google score of 1.0 (and failing the Google filter). Not helped by the fact that the review is written by a Local Guide (their reviews are given more weight, both by Google and by users)

Consequences: Initially - no Google reviews to encourage those searching for a 'consumer qualified' business to click through a search to that business. Ultimately - two things: first, the business's first review is highly likely to be a negative one (simply because human nature dictates that a dissatisfied customer has so much more motivation to write a review), starting their Google score at 1.0 out of 5, second: the business will increasingly stand out against its 'engaged' competitors, some of whom will be doing 2, 3 or 4 below.

2.  Cherry-picking

This (score and number of reviews) is, of itself, no proof of cherry-picking. But when you know the business and its staff, both current and previous, its competitors and ultimately the regulators (especially if a complaint is made) take an interest, and then combine this with the pattern of reviews, then there is cause for concern.

This is the next obvious step on from denial (and by far the most popular - especially when the business has received a negative review and is in 'panic mode'): simply ask only proven 'happy' customers to write reviews.

Consequences: Initially: the business looks great - of course it does. But this practice was outlawed by the UK Competitions and Markets Authority in 2015. Read their regulations - which apply to all UK businesses - here.

3.  Independent reviews sites

Use an independent reviews site that offers some kind of filtering mechanism, either restricting consumers' ability to write a review: allowing the business to determine to whom and when the review invitation is sent/locking out anyone else or incorporating a mechanism that would lessen the impact of that negative review: allowing the business to challenge it and then insisting on 'proof of purchase' before publishing the review - forcing the [negative] reviews down the reviews timeline (who reads page 2?). 

Consequences: this drives disgruntled customers to post to a site that does allow them to post a negative review, a syndrome that we call 'Deflection' (a 'must read'). Which site? Maybe Yelp, maybe TripAdvisor (in the case of hospitality) but the overwhelming site of choice in 2018? Google. This results in the business looking good on the reviews site but much less good on Google - in other words, it is not only contravening the regulations, it is also backfiring on the business in the worst possible way.

4.  Gating

Put simply: use a mechanism to establish which of the businesses customers' were most likely to write a 5* review and then invite all of that subset to post a review to Google. Very common with apps, where good reviews scores are everything, and increasingly common with all other kinds of business.

When a business has few reviews (with mixed results) on Google for an extended period, but many on another reviews site and then suddenly acquires a flood of great Google reviews, it raises suspicions of gating. We have obscured anything that could identify the business in question because that would be unfair, but it would be easy for the regulators to conduct an audit and equally easy for Google to spot if such behaviour had been happening.

This is done in one of two ways...

• send out a private email survey asking customers to report their experience to the business, then ask only those that respond positively to write a review to Google

• use an [innocent] and relatively invisible - in terms of its Google profile - reviews site, gather all the reviews there and then only invite those that post a 5* review on the reviews site to copy that review to Google

Consequences: until now - few. If a competitor noticed then they might use that against the business: 'Of course their Google rating is excellent - you do know they are only inviting happy customers to post reviews?' - and also a form of cherry-picking (see 2 above).

an example of a TripAdvisor 'red flag'

Now: Google will delete the suspect reviews. And we don't know yet what other sanctions Google will apply (TripAdvisor and Yelp 'red flag' businesses in similar circumstances) but it is possible that Google will deem that all the reviews of the business in question - and their vital reviews score - have been acquired by gating. 

   

One version of a Yelp 'red flag'

On top of this, gating contravenes the CMA regulations, which are expressly written to ensure consumers get a full and fair impression of the business in question.

In summary

We have a great deal of sympathy for businesses that have adopted one of the above means of protecting their reputations from what they, mostly quite justifiably, see as unwarranted or unfair attack on the most important platform on the web - Google, as long as they have done so in all innocence.

Some readers - certainly regular readers - may be surprised at this statement, but we can assure you that we meet such businesses on a daily basis. They genuinely did not know that they were doing anything wrong. And they certainly did not know that there was a solution that would achieve the following legitimately...

• great flows of independently moderated reviews to their own website
• onward flows of reviews to their Google listing - to show in all searches

Welcome to HelpHound.

Further reading

• The CMA rules - explained
• Deflection - the unintended consequence of employing an independent reviews site
• Why scoring 4 on Google is not enough - for high-value service businesses
• Cherry-picking - a detailed analysis
• How a single well-written negative review can seriously damage a business - a case history
• There's no need to break the rules - results like these are achieved without adopting any of the strategies outlined in 1-4 above
• The three simple reasons businesses join HelpHound

A sorry P.S.

We thought the world had moved on from this, but still some businesses persist in misnaming testimonials (selected customer opinions) as reviews...

...just to be absolutely clear, reviews, by definition, must be independently moderated, otherwise consumers are being misled. Some businesses are confused by the likes of...

...online retailers (John Lewis here) that host 'their own' reviews. In reality, of course, these reviews are not 'of John Lewis', they are 'of the product', manufactured by someone else (and in reality they are hugely helpful for the retailer - as well as the consumer - which will simply drop any line that scores badly). 

Not yet engaged with Google reviews? Here's what will happen...

Still - in 2017 - we meet businesses that have not engaged with Google reviews. Why?

For a variety of reasons, but three main ones which we will explore here, along with their consequences...


1.  Denial - 'We don't see the need to'
   

It took years for Google reviews to gain traction - and during that time some businesses were lulled into thinking they did not/would not matter. But now they do - and how.  

Consequences:

• unhappy consumers write reviews - in rapidly growing numbers. Just look at these three businesses that had just six Google reviews between them two years ago...

 

• competitors that do find a way to engage will succeed, at the expense of those businesses that do not...

  Three clients of ours that had less than a dozen Google reviews between them when they joined

Answer: Engage with reviews, on Google and on your own website - with HelpHound's advice and support


2.  Fear - 'We are afraid to ask our customers to write reviews'*

HelpHound - and professional review management - will help you overcome the fear - we promise!

Completely understandable. What business would willingly risk its reputation? How can a business know, or at least be as confident as possible, that its customers will not write inaccurate or misleading reviews?

*there is a subset here: businesses that genuinely don't provide a good service or value for money - the kind we see every week on BBC's Watchdog - and thank goodness for Google reviews in their case. Three years ago they would have got away with it, now there's a good likelihood that a significant number of their customers will find their way to Google and write a review there. The rule for consumers in the second decade of the 21st century? Don't use a business that has no reviews on Google - and be wary of businesses that promote their reputations on independent reviews sites instead.



Consequences:

• unhappy customers will write reviews - in rapidly growing numbers. See the examples under 'We don't need to' above.
• competitors that do engage will succeed, by having significant numbers of great reviews, in absolute terms and relative to their competitors - reviews win business
• your business will stand out - but not in a good way (especially when Google begins to rank business by review score in search)

Answer: overcome the fear - engage, with HelpHound


3.  Reviews sites - 'We reckon we have it covered already' 

 The web has evolved so fast - look at all these review sites (and they are only the tip of the iceberg) - all supplanted in recent years by Google

Businesses that have committed to independent reviews sites over the last few years suddenly realise they have the wrong solution - Google is all.

Consequences:

• consumers won't see your reviews, relatively speaking - just compare the visibility of Google reviews and reviews from any independent site, from the world's biggest like Yelp and TripAdvisor to the relative minnows like TrustPilot and Feefo - and credibility? - there's no contest
• consumers will question why you have reviews on an independent site (if they see them) - why wouldn't you have them on Google?

Answer: get on board with a solution that is credible and future-proof: HelpHound - oh, and if an independent reviews site pitches for your business ask them the following questions...

• will my reviews show under my listing in organic search?
• will my reviews show in 'Reviews from the web'
• do you have a CMA compliant* system that minimises the chances that an inaccurate or misleading review will be posted?
• do I own my own reviews?
• can a customer post a review of my business at a time of their choosing?
• why should I choose to get my customers' reviews to your site and not Google?

 *it continues to amaze us that there remain reviews sites out there in the marketplace whose systems fly in the face of the Competition & Markets Authority's rules. If are unfamiliar with these we recommend you spend ten minutes reading this article - compliance is the individual business's responsibility and has the force of law.


Further reading:

• Resolution™ 'Taking the fear our of Reviews' - the system built in to HelpHound, protecting businesses and consumers from misleading and inaccurate reviews - and 'the Fear Factor' - more on overcoming the understandable reluctance to ask consumers for reviews
• 'Doctors: what happens if you ignore Google reviews?' - a salutary case-history for any business that has yet to engage with Google reviews
• 'The Red Carnation Story' - how one business showed the way by deciding to embrace reviews
• 'Visits up 27% thanks to HelpHound' - the immediate impact of professional review management