Incentivising for reviews - your questions answered

This topic is being brought up by clients with increasing frequency - mostly because there is just so much misunderstanding and uncertainty surrounding it. Lurking behind the question is the reality that, without the business in question taking some action or other, no one - no one at all, unless, of course, they have an agenda - will write a review. Why should they? Unless, that is, they are in some way connected to the business. 

Think we are exaggerating? According to Wikipedia, Aviva has 33 million customers. Looks like .0000004 per cent of them have written a review (actually, if you look at the reviews themselves - all of them ratings - we reckon most have been done by members of staff)!

So, the first point that we all need to agree on: your business needs to take action to get reviews written.

Next, for a sizeable minority of businesses, the obvious solution seems to be to select those customers most likely to write a glowing - and that means five star - review, and ask them. This is illegal. It is known as cherry-picking (even by the regulators) and if your business is considering doing it now is the time to look for - legal - alternatives.

A subset of that strategy is also illegal: paying customers to write reviews. Besides being illegal it contravenes Google's terms and conditions, so you risk Google taking down all your reviews.

So, before we go on to tell you what you can do, let's summarise the 'don'ts'...

• Don't selectively invite customers to write reviews - it's illegal
• Don't use a system that locks out categories of reviewers - it's illegal
• Don't use a system that only allows customers to write a review when you invite them - it's illegal
• Don't offer incentives - cash, Amazon vouchers, discounts, we've seen them all - to people to write reviews, to Google or anywhere else - it's illegal

The solution

That red 'write a review' button - the key to compliance

First and foremost: you must have a mechanism on your website that allows anyone to write a review - to you - at any time they choose. Some businesses initially object to both 'anyone' and 'any time' until it is pointed out to them that not allowing both of these is simply forcing the person set on writing the review to write it direct to Google. And those who are most motivated to write a review? Those with a negative opinion to express.

The next - and we strongly recommend this, especially for high value service businesses - independent moderation. Where complex transactions are involved (legal, accountancy, financial, medical, estate agency etc.) we estimate that at least fifty per cent of all negative reviews written contain factual inaccuracies or potentially misleading comments, and these benefit neither the potential customer or the business under review. 

Getting positive reviews

Now to the nub of this article: you have already enabled all your customers to write a review, so your business is compliant. Now you need to get the reviews rolling in. 

N.B. The following advice is not guesswork, it is the result of many years' tried-and-tested experience. 

First: what will not work...

• emailing customers - response rates to stand-alone emails are very low
• texting customers - the quality of 'reviews' is very low, often one word or an emoticon
• sending cards/letters to customers - save the planet!

...unless your business will be happy with a response rate of plus/minus one per cent.

So: our standard advice to new clients...

...and see what happens. The above strategy will work for most businesses, providing it is scrupulously followed - and that means picking up the telephone.

So what about incentivising?

Clients have seen great results by adopting the following strategies, over and above those already discussed...

• competitions amongst staff - often involving team rewards
• individual rewards - financial or otherwise - per review written

There is nothing in the CMA regulations, or Google's T&Cs, that prohibits incentivising staff (did you realise that Richer Sounds, a business built firmly on its excellent CRM, pays showroom staff for every feedback form returned by customers?). 

Points to bear in mind: 

• ensure the incentive is accurately targeted - to reward the specific member of staff that gets the review (we have seen instances when sales staff were rewarded but admin staff were responsible for getting the reviews!)
• competitions can result in a run-away winner - and can therefore have a demoralising effect on 'losers', so be careful when designing yours
• it is tempting to attempt to 'build Rome in a day' and then be disappointed when it's not - set yourself reasonable targets for both reviews to your own site and reviews to Google/Facebook etc. Remember that two reviews a month will results in twenty-four in a year and sixty in three years. We advise our clients to work hard to achieve the first hundred reviews on their own website and fifty to Google for the simple reason that their score will not then be adversely impacted by a single negative review

Like this (an example of a client that has adopted our 'standard advice' - i.e. not incentivised staff)...

...on their own site, and this, in search (drawn from the reviews on their site)...

...and this, on Google

...and this, in local search...

...and again, in mobile local search...

Here's a instance where we know staff have been rewarded...

...and on their own site?

Reviews - the future - and some questions for Google (and Facebook)

So much of business's planning in relation to reviews currently ignores 'future-proofing'. Understandably businesses want to see quick results (and this will happen) but all too often the wrong long-term strategy is adopted, resulting in unwelcome changes of direction. In this article we will shine a light into the future by making some predictions based on our experience and professional knowledge, combined with little common [business] sense. On top of that we will highlight flaws in current reviews mechanisms, so you will be able to approach crucial decisions about review management for your business with 'eyes wide open'.

But before we go on to do that we will establish just where we are now...

Reviews in 2018

There are three main forces in the world of reviews today...

• the reviews websites: Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yell, Trustpilot, Feefo and so on
• Google - as in 'Google reviews'
• Facebook - as in 'Facebook reviews'

We intentionally avoided numbering this list 1, 2 and 3. Read on and you will see why.

So - going forwards?

The reviews websites will wither and die, not all of a sudden - they have far too much capital behind them (Yelp currently has a market capitalisation of over $3bn, but just look at the trajectory of its share price since Google entered the reviews market: Trading at under half its all-time-high of $100 back in 2014) - just like Yellow Pages, steam trains and canals before them, they will be gradually replaced by more efficient alternatives. 

They are already being replaced by Google - consumers don't want to visit a different site for each and every discreet need - they just want to 'google', and there is a very good reason 'to google' is an established verb in every language on the planet and 'to yelp' or to 'trustpilot' in not.

Those alternatives? Currently it is impossible to see past Google and Facebook. Why? It is simple really: [almost] everyone visits Google multiple times a day (and Facebook, to a greater or lesser extent). How many times did you visit Yelp, the biggest 'general' reviews site on the planet, to find a business last month? Exactly. At present you are many times more likely to visit Google to find a business than you are Facebook, but, depending on just how nimble Facebook is, that may change in future.

But Google will not - and must not - stand still

What does everyone see when they search? Google reviews - and that's why it is so important that they can be relied upon.

Consumers rely - more with every day that passes - on Google reviews. So Google must make those reviews as reliable as it can.

There are still many issues to be addressed with reviews in general and Google reviews in particular. We have tracked every detail of Google's evolution with reviews over the last eight years and they have come a long way, but here is our shopping list of things they will need to address if they are to maintain the lead they currently have...

 Consumers increasingly simply refer to a business's Google score - a healthy 4.7 here - before deciding to make contact with a business, so it is critically important that this score fairly reflects the business under consideration - and that it has not been manipulated in either direction by the business or other agencies (a competitor, for example)

• Attribution and verification: there are good reasons why some reviewers should be able to maintain anonymity, both from the business they are reviewing and from the reading public, but that does not mean that anyone and everyone should be able to post a review of a business with impunity. At HelpHound we hope that Google will introduce a 'verified' category of review as soon as possible - whilst at the same time identifying unverified reviews and excluding their scores from any algorithm designed to produce the Google score.

This review was published on Google. It's impact? The hotel's bookings dried up completely. Luckily HelpHound spotted the story in the national press and stepped in to help the business appeal the review with Google, successfully. But think how you would feel is your business received a review like this. Read the full story here. 

• A fair appeals mechanism. Currently any Google review that remains un-flagged will stand - doing harm to the business under review, perhaps unfairly. We think it would benefit all concerned, the business, the reviewer, the potential customer reading the review and Google, if they refined their appeals procedure to, at the very least, insist on some form of proof that a reviewer had used the product or service under review before a potentially fraudulent or inaccurate review is allowed to stand (and its score impact the business's overall score).

  But what is this business like today?

• Time limits: Businesses change, for better or for worse, so reviews mechanisms should accommodate that. A business that has built up a great score over the years should only be allowed to maintain that score if it is reflected in its recent reviews. Conversely, a business that has improved its customer service over the recent past should not be held back by an outdated low score. By all means let the individual reviews stand, but we suggest that any reviews over 18 months old are archived for the purposes of the algorithm that calculates the business's headline score.

This review - strictly a 'rating' (but a rating currently has an equivalent impact on a business's Google score) - currently contravenes none of Google's T&Cs. Despite the fact that it has been written by someone hiding behind a pseudonym and an avatar, it carries the same weight as one like this...

...written by someone who has written over 200 reviews of other business and has used their 'real' name and a photograph of themselves. On top of that they are a Google Local Guide. But their review has been neutralises, for the purposes of the business's Google score, by Vintage Bluenote's rating. The business? An ophthalmic surgeon - would you want reviews of a surgeon you were considering using to be held to higher standards than those of a pair of shoes? Currently they are not. It goes without saying that at HelpHound we think they should be.

• Differentiation between products and services. Product reviews are all well and good - they certainly help shift product! - but service reviews, especially those for 'high-value' services, need special treatment. We have come across so many abuses where both business (and sometimes consumers) 'work the system' to their advantage. The business that requests the review 'before the paint is dry' to improve its chances of a positive review is just one endemic example. There should be a higher 'standard of proof' incumbent on the reviewer of say, an oncologist, than someone reviewing a toaster.

• Google to be more proactive in ensuring opinions have not changed over time. "You wrote a 5* review of ABC plc twelve months ago, has your opinion changed?" This would address the issue of businesses that only invite reviews when the product or service is 'straight out of the box' and vastly increase the value of Google reviews at the same time.

• Don't 'partner' with reviews sites that contravene either the CMA rules or the laws of natural justice. If a reviews site favours its paying business customers over its reviewers Google should not be awarding them some kind of 'seal of approval' (Google partnership) or favouring their results in either organic search or 'Reviews from the web'. Reviews shown a Google search, in whatever way, should achieve the same stringent criteria Google sets, or will set in future, for its own reviews.

This function - 'Rating greater than [4.5]' is available to opt-in on desktop search. We believe it should be the default for any Google search.

• Ranking in search should reflect a business's Google reviews score. Who wants 'any plumber' (or even a random list of plumbers - even if that list is based on a defined geographical radius)? And you certainly don't search for 'any lawyer' or 'any cardiologist'. Give people the results they want. And those results? The best, in the opinion of their own customers. Google already has the tools to do this, and offers them to users on mobile devices, but we think this should be Google's default.

Notes on Facebook

This may be fine for individual users or Facebook but is unhelpful for businesses (and therefore for consumers)

In theory Facebook, with its overwhelming dominance in the social sphere (Google+ comes nowhere near its penetration), should be a major force in reviews. After all, who are consumers most likely to trust? A random selection of reviews by people they don't know or reviews by their friends?

But Facebook has a long way to go to become even as business-friendly as Google where reviews are concerned. The issue stems, we suspect, from a twofold issue...

1. It sees itself as a 'community' and that mind-set, maybe rightly, drives it to come down hard on the side of its individual users, not its business users
2. It is a west-coast US business, and US law - especially law in the state of California - fiercely defends the right to freedom of speech - almost any speech

What does this mean for business users of Facebook?

They have two options - enabling the reviews function or not. If the business is subject to what it considers to be an unfairly damaging review on Facebook they have (with a few exceptions) very little remedy aside from simply disabling the Facebook reviews function, thereby losing all their Facebook reviews. This is not a decision that should be taken lightly, as it may well be noticed by competitors and means losing not only all the business's past positive reviews, but all future ones as well.

What does Facebook need to do?

It should review its review appeals procedure. It should allow businesses to make a case for inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews to be challenged. It should acknowledge the fact that most of its users also work for businesses, and those businesses are being unfairly harmed every day of the year by inaccurate, unfair and plain fraudulent reviews. 

In summary...

Google reviews are undoubtedly the most trusted reviews on the planet today, by such a large margin over reviews from the reviews sites we sometimes wonder why the latter persist, but - and this is a big 'BUT', Google need to take steps to protect that position, along the lines we have detailed in this article. Trust is critical if consumers are not to be misled - and lose confidence that once lost will be very hard to regain, and Google has it within its power to enhance that trust considerably. Watch this space for developments.

Trump's gold toilet - come on Facebook...

...if Yelp can do it, so can you.

When President Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum for a Van Gogh, they offered him a Gold Toilet; but that's not the reason the story made the jump from mainstream media to the HelpHound blog. We are interested in reviews (surprise!) and, more importantly, reliable reviews that accurately reflect the business or institution under review. 

So how does this story fit in? Well, the keyboard warriors from both sides of the American political divide weighed in, on social media of all kinds and on reviews sites. 

We were interested to see how the sites reacted. Here's Yelp:

And the one review that slipped through their net...

They have not always been consistent in applying such good judgement - read this. But in this case - we say 'good for Yelp'.

How about Facebook?

Not so good...

30k 1* reviews from pro-Trumpers, and goodness knows how many of the 16k 5* reviews are anti-Trumpers kicking back ? Are these useful to anyone? We tend to side with Emma Puente (see her review above) on this one. Reviews sites should be for reviews, if they become vehicles for political views, of any colour or stripe, then their core value is diminished.

Interestingly there is only one 'pro-Trumper' on TripAdvisor (perhaps reflecting that site's decreasing reach) and none on Google (almost certainly reflecting that fact that people are reluctant to have their 'private' rants exposed through such a visible channel).

Your business - Billy the Kid or Wyatt Earp?

Regular readers will know that we sometimes compare the world of reviews with the old Wild West - and just like in those far flung days there are 'goodies' and there are 'baddies' - and amongst the baddies there are snake oil salesmen too!

In this article we hope to help the uninitiated reach the right conclusion as to the correct solution for their business - for now and for the foreseeable future.

   If someone is recommending a reviews solution that seems to good to be true and is not backed up with solid real-world test cases then you need to be asking 'is this, just maybe, snake oil?'!

If you recognise anything that follows we strongly suggest you speak to us; we will advise you - professionally - how to extract your business and set it on the road to successful - and legally compliant - review management.


Successful?

Successful review management will enable your business to shine in search and impress on your own website. Those two features will drive more enquiries and more business your way. 


Legally compliant? 

Many businesses we meet have yet to understand that the onus is on them - the business - not the reviews solution or the reviews site, to comply with the law. If you are not completely familiar with the Competition and Markets Authority's rules - read this article and then call us.


Doing it (wrong) yourself:

The first temptation - especially if your business has recently been subject to a negative review - is to do one of the following:

• hand-pick customers you think will be virtually certain to write a five star review
• hand-pick customers who have already written you a five star review of your business somewhere else and ask them to copy it to the website that currently concerns you

This business, by their own admission, went from a handful of reviews on Google and a score of less than 2 out of 5, to this in a matter of days. How? By choosing every client that had written a five star review on a specialist independent site over the previous three years and asking them to copy it across to Google. Ingenious, but of doubtful legality.

Stop! The government regulations clearly state that what ever reviews solution you choose you must invite all your customers to write a review and they must be able to do it at a time of their own choosing. 

That's good news, because it gives your reviews credibility, and anyway: what business wants to have to confess to a savvy customer that their reviews are only written by their happy customers? 


Employing a 'reputation manager':

 If you see the word 'reputation' in any review solution's marketing you should question whether you are addressing the symptoms rather than the cause. better to get your own customer relationship management house in order than pay an outside agency to paper over the cracks.

There are many businesses out these that promise to 'repair your business's reputation' and they are not all selling snake oil, but many of them will take tens of £thousands and spend it on relatively ineffective or short-lived SEO when what they should really be recommending is the business clean up its own customer-facing act and then engage a professional review manager.


Employing an independent reviews site

Here is a screenshot of a review - by an employee - of an independent reviews site written on the employer/employee reviews site Glassdoor in the last week:

Ever so slightly undermined by a) the bad English and b) this, from a negative review of the same business:

 

And here is a sample of reviews of the self-same business on another reviews site:

Is it just us, or should we all begin to question the kind of operation - the review site this employee purports to work for and the review site that is hosting those negative reviews?

And just how many reviews sites are there out there?

We have counted nearly 700 in the English language alone!

We have also been in the reviews business for over ten years now and we reckon any business will reach over 90% of its market by focusing on just two...

...and will be nearly as effective if they focus simply on Google and then the site most often neglected:

   

It is only a review if it is independently verified - anything else is a testimonial 

Their own!

Of course some specialist review sites - like those in hospitality such as TripAdvisor and Booking.com - should be not be ignored (and we will advise accordingly), but just one glance at some of the publicly listed review sites' share prices will give you an indication of where they are headed.


But 'we want to be able to protect ourselves against unfair or inaccurate reviews' we hear you say...

Quite right. You need a system that allows you and your customer to interact before such a review is posted (we hear some say: 'but we have right-of-reply' -  and that is correct, but it ignores the fact that the original - damaging - score stands and impacts your business's overall score). 

Something like this.


In summary...

You need a reviews solution that:

• will work for you irrespective of changes in the reviews landscape in future
• is compliant
• allows you to do your best to ensure inaccurate or misleading reviews - that are helpful to no-one - are posted

In eight words: your business needs to adopt professional review management.

The world of Reviews and Review Management

The web has accelerated the rate of change in the business world to an extent that would have been unthinkable just twenty years ago. Companies that took decades to grow have withered and died. Businesses that no-one had heard of a generation ago now bestride the world.

  For all of time 'personal recommendation' has been the gold standard - the most effective business driver of all. This chart shows just how much reviews have caught up, as they have proliferated and as consumers have learned to trust them. The most significant number is the massive percentage drop - from 33% to 13% - in those who would not trust reviews. Alongside this the importance of authenticity has risen: reviews are now seen as good by themselves but verified reviews are what consumers want most.

And the world of reviews is no exception - ten years ago they hardly existed, now there's barely a business on the planet that hasn't been reviewed somewhere on the web. Here we bring you right up-to-date with what is happening and what strategies your business will need to adopt to stay abreast of all matters review related for the foreseeable future.

Review websites - yesterday's solution
 
Mostly founded in the last ten years, these sites are already becoming last years' news. From Yelp to Feefo, from TripAdvisor to AllAgents, changes in the way your customers consume information on the web have changed to leave these sites wallowing - mostly - in Google's wake.

It's all about mobile...

Just stop reading this for a moment and search for your own business on your phone. That's how 70% of your customers are finding you. So how you look - and what appears there when you search - are critical.

 The choice is yours: to look like the business on the left or the one on the right - and, indeed, the ones in the 'People also search for' boxes to the right of our client's under the Houghton Estates search. Note the prominence Google are giving to reviews in search now, with reviews taking second billing to the business name along with the score and the rich snippets (the three quotes taken from the business's reviews in the Greene & Co example).

And it's there that you should be looking great. In every way you can. And that means reviews:

• reviews on your site

...and Google

•  reviews on Google - in the Google box and in natural listings

 Ratings in natural listings, Facebook score showing and rating and rich snippets in the Google box - it does not (and cannot) happen by accident. It is the result of professional review management - by the business and by HelpHound.

There's no point in looking great on a website that does not appear in these two searches:

1. A search on your business name [XYZ estate agents]
2. A local search on your business type [estate agents in 'location']

Some will say "But we look great on - [insert name of independent review site]

But what's the point - when all that shows are Google reviews - and Google ratings? 

Once your business looks great on Google, you should turn your attention to Facebook - simply because people trust recommendations from friends. Do the numbers: if all 208 Facebook members have 500 friends each: that's over 100,000 people who have been told this business is great by a personal friend.

So it's our own website and Google - and Facebook once we have cracked Google -  that matter?

Exactly!  

The consumer journey is so simple now: 

1. Google the business - or type of business - and read reviews
2. Be impressed by those reviews enough to go on to visit the business's own website
3. See more great reviews - make contact 

So where does Review Management come in?

Review management in its simplest form enables you to:

• display independently verified reviews on your website

 It is critical that whatever mechanism you use is demonstrably independent of your own business - and enables consumers to read and post reviews whenever they like. It is important that you understand that these reviews should belong to you, to display as - and importantly where - you wish. You should not be using a service that invites your customers to follow a link away to reviews held on any other site but your own. You should certainly avoid any service that provides easy access to reviews of your competitors.

Without independent verification your reviews revert to the status of testimonials - and lose that crucial credibility in the eyes of consumers.

And?

A professional review management system should allow you the opportunity of addressing potentially inaccurate or misleading reviews before they are published.

And?

It should incorporate a mechanism to make it easy for your customers to go on to copy their review across to any third-party website (currently Google, of course*).

*Google is the third-party site of choice for the overwhelming majority of our clients - simply because Google reviews currently have higher visibility than any others. In some instances - hospitality is a good example in the case of TripAdvisor - there are high profile sites where clients should have exposure; we work with other clients to get reviews to Facebook.

And?

Professional review managers should provide advice, training and assistance in:

• drafting responses to negative reviews - on your own site and anywhere else - Google or TripAdvisor, for instance
• drafting responses to positive reviews - essential if you are to impress potential customers
• managing your G+ page(s) and account(s)
• managing accounts with other review mechanisms - TripAdvisor, Facebook or Yelp for example
• appealing negative reviews on Google - including having a thorough knowledge of Google T&Cs and communication channels. Drafting the appeal and managing it through to conclusion
• appealing negative reviews on other platforms, such as TripAdvisor and Facebook
• monitoring external review sites for future relevance
• monitoring Google for changes in their algorithm*

*Did you spot the introduction of the Google review filter - enabling users to filter businesses with fewer than 5 reviews or with scores of less than 4.0 out of search altogether? We did, on the day it was introduced.

HelpHound?

HelpHound incorporates all the above - and more.  HelpHound are the Review Management professionals: if it relates to reviews and how to use them in generating business HelpHound is here to help and advise.

HelpHound in 2016

In 2016 we provide our clients with an ever more comprehensive solution to reviews and review management.

Note: whilst we have used estate agency for the examples that follow, they apply equally to any and every business, from accountancy to zoos.

Taking our clients from this (on their own websites)...

To this...

And this...

From this (on Google)...

To this...

And this...

And this (on mobile)... 

And this (on Facebook)...

From this (in organic search)...

To this...

There is only one way your business can tick all of these boxes...

• Your own independently verified reviews on your own website
• Great Google reviews
• Star Ratings in organic search

...and that is by being a member of HelpHound

Notes:

1. Google reviews: In theory a business can do one of the above three functions for itself: it can invite customers to write reviews to Google. But even in this respect, HelpHound adds value: our clients get reviews to their own websites before they ask their customers to copy them to Google. In doing so they give themselves, and their customers, a crucial opportunity to correct inaccuracies and misapprehensions: providing prospective customers with an even more accurate picture - on their own websites and on Google
2. The customer journey: it is important to understand how your potential customers consume reviews. In non-specific (e.g. 'business' in 'locality') search it goes: 'Google the type of business combined with the location - read the Google reviews - be impressed - visit the business's own website - be impressed again - contact the business or make the purchase
3. Negative reviews: While HelpHound membership will not work unless a business is committed to high standards of customer service, we recognise that no business is perfect - and that some customers are less than perfect as well! - so all negative reviews are first offered to the business for comment. By joining HelpHound the business commits to responding in 100% of cases, benefiting both business and consumer. The reviewer always has the option to post their review after the business has responded - currently just under 3% do so
4. Time and effort: Sometimes prospective clients assume that results like these are a result of a considerable amount of time-consuming effort. You should be reassured  that any well-managed business should be able to incorporate review management quickly and effectively - with results coming just as swiftly. For a detailed example see this case history
5. Review Management: It's a relatively recent discipline. Before review management a business's only option was DIY. But that meant hours of research and the difficult choice of 'which review site to commit to?' With HelpHound we do all the research and you retain ownership of your reviews. We are your professional advisers in the same way as your lawyers or accountant. If we think there is a review site that's important for you - such as TripAdvisor for our hotel clients - we will be the first to advise you
6. And finally: Our service to you: one of the aspects of membership that is often commented upon is the backup we provide for our clients. This email from Paul Grover of Winkworth sums this up far better than we could ourselves:

If you have any more questions just call - 020 7100-2233 - or email Karen Hutchings - karen.hutchings@helphound.com or Fiona Christie - fiona.christie@helphound.com - and they will answer them.