The issue with 'closed' review sites

Let us first describe exactly what we mean by a closed site, and why, initially at least, they seem like a great idea:  A closed review site is one where the public - customer, client or patient - can only write a review at the express invitation of the business.

What's not to like about that? Surely that means that all the reviews on whatever site - Feefo, Doctify and so on - must be from real people? 

The answer to the basic  - and fundamental - question is 'Yes', all the reviews will be from real customers/clients/patients. Now put yourself in the position of a dissatisfied customer of, let's see, a clothing manufacturer, a less-than-thrilled client of a wealth manager or an unhappy patient of a doctor.

In the first example - a classic Feefo situation...

No problem, no issues; customers are happy to leave any kind of review and any rating; the business can see which of its products are popular and which are causing problems. The business won't be harmed by the review (there are many more giving this particular product an overall rating of 4.8). It can respond to the customer, which aids customer retention.  An ideal solution for online retail.

The second, a financial adviser or wealth manager...

Five out of six sites we looked at asked multiple questions before arriving at a similar page to the one above. This one references Trustpilot, where it has accumulated a grand total of 65 reviews over the past 12 years, many of which are for individual advisers, not for the service provided by the aggregator/lead generation site. Reviews on Google? Precisely zero.

There are closed review sites, and then there are closed financial services review sites. There is only one dedicated FS review site in the UK that we can find that will allow you to read reviews of a financial adviser or wealth manager without providing them with your personal details. And when we say 'personal details', we mean not just your email address, your physical address and your phone number(s), but the amount of money you have currently invested, the whereabouts of those investments and the amount of cash you have in the bank. All before they will provide you with any details of a financial adviser whatsoever, let alone any reviews. This kind of site is known, in polite circles, as a lead-generation site. Less politely? A 'squeeze site' (also 'squeeze page' because it /they are designed with the sole intention of extracting -'squeezing' - the maximum amount of information about an individual which they then effectively sell on as a lead). 

The one exception: VouchedFor, a division of Defaqto. Whilst allowing you to see rated advisers, you quickly realise that the advisers all score 5.0 or 4.9 and that VouchedFor has a great mechanism for ensuring they are kept 'hooked' by revealing the number of recent reviews posted - let's face it, you're not going to contact an adviser that hasn't received a review in the last 12 months, are you?

The third, doctors and other medical professionals

Sites such as Doctify will allow you to search for a doctor or other medical specialist, but what do you see when you do so?

Notice any common denominator? How about the great scores? Again. Now, there is one obvious reason for those close to perfect scores: that doctors are highly trained and dedicated people, by their very nature. But many are far from perfect, at least in the view of some of their patients, as even a cursory Google search will reveal.

There is another reason for those near perfect scores: given that the doctor or other medical professional has to initiate the review in the first place, suppose you are not 100% thrilled with your treatment so far, but have no other option but to continue with that person, are you about to write a less-than-glowing review when invited to do so by the practice using a mechanism that will precisely identify you and that they are paying for? 

One might even ask, 'Why bother to consult a review site at all, if every individual or business listed on there is as near to perfect as makes no difference?'

Examples of deflection: both patients and doctors comment on another 'open' site, in this case Trustpilot. 59 of 461 reviews of Doctify hosted there rate it at 1*. Of the remaining 400 reviews, almost all are of a medical practice/practitioner; in other words, they have been posted on the wrong listing (we see this all the time with Trustpilot; surely it would be simple to identify these at the time of posting and redirect the reviewer?). One wonders why a business such as Doctify would not ask Trustpilot to delete these, until one realises that they are the main prop maintaining the business's score at 4.5?!

What happens when a patient wants to comment, but doesn't want their medical professional to see/link them to the comment? They are driven to Google or Trustpilot (something which we named 'Deflection' many years back), open sites that will accept their review, without that review having to be initiated by the business. 

Let us not ignore the legal profession

10,000 - impressive? Not really; there are nearly 216,000 registered solicitors in the UK, with over 177,000 of those in England and Wales alone

One last point

As we can see from the above, unlike Google, which lists just about every single business on the planet, they only list paying businesses and individuals. We checked our local central London GP practice on Doctify; they have five full-time doctors, none of whom are listed.

In conclusion

We will say it again: if the business you are using prefers a review site, of whatever kind, to Google reviews, it is a red flag. It doesn't necessarily indicate that they are a bad business or that they are manipulating reviews, but it does raise the question, 'Why not Google?' 

The CMA's crackdown on review abuses gathers pace - important!

The full text of the BBC report is here. Businesses cannot say they weren't warned. The CMA has been issuing warnings for a long time now, and we have repeated them on this blog, alongside advice on what action businesses should take to ensure compliance.  The 2024 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act gave the CMA massive additional powers to enforce and fine non-compliant businesses.

First of all: why is this 'important'?

Because a large proportion of consumers have come to rely on reviews before making purchases or engaging services. If those reviews are gathered or displayed in ways that in any way favour the business at the expense of the consumer, then the CMA has a legal duty to step in. 

In addition, if consumers lose confidence in online reviews as a resource, then they lose a valuable aid to decision-making when considering such purchases, and the businesses themselves lose valuable social proof.

The CMA Action

Here is a summary of the reasons behind the action being taken by the CMA:

• Feefo and Autotrader are under investigation over whether they denied consumers a "fully rounded" picture online of other people's experiences by not including some bad reviews.

• Just Eat is being probed over whether its rating system inflated certain restaurants' and grocers' star ratings.

• Dignity is being investigated over whether it asked staff to write positive reviews about the firm's cremation services, giving people "a potentially inaccurate picture" of customers' feedback.

• Pasta Evangelists is being looked at to see whether customers were offered discounts on future orders in exchange for leaving 5-star reviews on delivery apps without this being disclosed.

 

Here is the full CMA press release. We suggest you read the full text here, along with our comments, and refer to the original for links.

Comments

1. This action should be seen by any business that is proactively engaged in inviting and/or displaying reviews that the CMA is 'on their case' and that compliance is no longer a 'nice to have' addition to their review management strategy, but core to it.
2. Interestingly, the CMA refers to 'fake reviews' when their action covers, but is not confined to, them. They are also concerned that negative reviews are being suppressed, and that consumers are being prevented from posting their honestly-held opinions at a time of their own choosing.
3. The sanctions - fines - for non-compliance have been massively increased (to 10% of global turnover).
4. This is the first in what we fully expect to be an ongoing campaign by the CMA. More businesses will be investigated in a rolling programme.
5. That programme will be enhanced (and accelerated) by the investment the CMA has made in AI investigative technology. No longer will the CMA be solely reliant on its manual investigations and whistleblowers - although we are certain that both will continue.

And finally...

This article would be incomplete without providing you with a reference to the CMA regulations. If you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to speak to us.

HelpHound - the COMPREHENSIVE solution to reviews for ALL businesses

Regular readers will have seen all the Google AI scrapes posted here in recent months. One theme has been consistent: the comparison of HelpHound with Trustpilot. Here's a typical example...

Not 100% accurate - our reviews are incorporated into your Google listing, not under (or not at all):

Our client leading local search (in a very crowded marketplace) with their stars and rating highlighted (arrow); see Trustpilot anywhere? Quite.  And we should be quite clear: we moderate every single review, but we will only intervene if a review contains factual inaccuracies or has the potential to mislead a future reader, we do not - and cannot, by UK law - intervene simply because the reviewer is 'unhappy'.

And so far, so good. We are delighted to be singled out as the best review management option for high-value professional businesses, because that's exactly what we developed HelpHound to be (not, as some other solutions - no names - as a way of confecting a score of 4.5 to be used in marketing).

But here's the thing: a business doesn't have to choose between HelpHound and the review sites, be that Trustpilot or one of the myriad out there - Feefo, reviews.io, Yelp, Tripadvisor, or one of the industry-specific sites (Trusted Trader and so on) - if we (and our client) decide that they need a profile on one of those sites, then we will manage that as well. 

We have a high-profile client that looked great on Google and on its own site, but noticed that Trustpilot was attracting reviews from those that had - often unfounded or the result of misunderstanding - negative opinions. This was driving the business's score down to a point where competitors were able to weaponise it against the business in question. Unfairly. Funnily enough, the business also had an inbound sales call from Trustpilot offering 'help' too.

What did we do, together?

First, we pointed out the following:

1. The business's Trustscore (Trustpilot's name for the rating) could be improved without having to pay Trustpilot
2. That the business owned their own reviews, and could do whatever they liked with them, and that included asking their customers to copy them across to Trustpilot
3. That their Google score was of paramount importance, notwithstanding Trustpilot's pitch as to visibility in search. Google's own reviews always take pole position in search and Google is the search engine of choice for well over 90 per cent of the UK population, and it commands 98 per cent of UK mobile search

Second, we implemented - jointly - the following strategy:

• We first set up a test: we asked a percentage of customers who had written a review to the business's own site to copy it to Trustpilot
• We measured response, and then we calculated the number of positive reviews that would be needed to restore the business's Trustscore to good health
• We switched the repost request away from Google to Trustpilot for a percentage of customers for a period of weeks

Result?

The business's score on Trustpilot restored to well above 4 ('Great' in Trustpilot terminology). All for no extra cost. Diary note to repeat the procedure at intervals in the future.

So, our objective on behalf of all our clients:

First...

...to enable them to safely - and compliantly - invite reviews to display on their own website and use in their own marketing

Second...

...to get as many of those reviews as possible across to Google, to ensure a really impressive presence in competitive searches there

Third, and it is a distant third if we are honest...

...to look good on the review sites that matter to our client without incurring any extra costs

One more important consideration

Both Google and HelpHound are designed to host reviews and score a business per location. If a business has multiple locations, it is essential that the consumer can discover how the customers of that specific location feel about the service they were provided, and the service they can expect. Trustpilot charges significant fees for multiple listings, which is why it is so rare to see individual branch/office/outlet scores hosted there.

Conclusion

So, we repeat the title of this article: HelpHound works for all kinds of businesses, and it works more effectively and more comprehensively than any other review solution. Think of us as a review broker, in the sense that wherever your business needs reviews, now and in the future (remember Qype or Ciao, anyone?), we will enable you to get them there. If that means to Trustpilot, fine; if that means on Yelp!, so be it. But, just for the foreseeable future, at least, we will almost certainly continue to focus on enabling our clients to positively glow on Google, and in the relevant Google searches.

Google reviews - which category does your business fall under?

This is a 'polished' copy of an internal HelpHound guide. 

Why publish it? Categorising helps us ensure that businesses are given the most appropriate information and advice right at the outset of our relationship. Mainly because there remain so many misconceptions surrounding reviews and review management, even now, fifteen years after the first Google review was written. It similarly helps businesses understand the starting point for our relationship.

Your business will fall under one of the following seven headings - every professional service business does - there is a brief description of the relevant issues for that category and a link to a relevant article for those who wish to mine deeper.

We begin with the simplest category of them all...

1.  No engagement and no reviews

 

'5+ years in business' and not a single review. A rarer beast these days, but by no means exitict

We are the first to acknowledge that this is a completely understandable strategy; we hear so many CEOs and marketing directors say 'We'd prefer to fly under the radar.' And the reason for this is simple: they realise that engaging with reviews, especially Google reviews, involves considerable reputational risk for their business, akin to driving uninsured. To pursue that analogy: you might be the best driver in the world, but the other road users still present a huge risk, so you insure your car. It's exactly the same with reviews: your business and all your staff may be as perfect as makes no difference, but customers will - and do - grab the wrong end of the stick (and will write misinformed reviews as a result).  

Solution: the business will know it is missing a wonderful opportunity to engage with Google reviews as well as exposing itself to unfair damage should one or more unhappy customers find their way to writing a Google review (from no Google score to scoring 1.0 overnight). It needs 'insurance' against factually inaccurate and potentially damaging reviews, and that means adopting a fully moderated system. A moderated system will ensure that most factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews are addressed before they are published anywhere online. 

 

2.  No engagement and few reviews

 

 

As above, but customers - hopefully happy ones - have found the business's Google listing (after all, it comes up whenever they search for your business, even if they're just looking for contact details).  

Solution: they may have had near misses (in this case a heart-stopping 'You have recieved a review' email from Google every time one of those reviews is written). The business needs to engage before it loses its hugely valuable Google score of 4.8 - 5.0. And that means adopting a moderated system to provide the reputational insurance referred to under 1. above.

 

3. No engagement and many reviews

 

Imagine being in a business that can afford to ignore reviews altogether? Few of us are so lucky - or should that read 'Few of us wish to work in/for a business that simply doesn't care enough to even respond to reviews posted by the customers that are its lifeblood'?

There are businesses, though, that find themselves in this situation and remain vulnerable (by 'vulnerable' we mean that Google review scores work in both directions: a Google score of 4.8 or more will attract between 15 and 25 per cent more enquiries through Google - sometimes far more; a score of less than 4.0 will deflect that amount of enquiries, at the very least (and can result in a choking off off inbounds althogether - read this horror story).

As for 1. and 2. above, if the business's current Google score is 4.8 or over, all fine, but action should be taken ASAP. If that score is 4.7 or less there will need to be remedial work undertaken to bring the score back up. 

Solution: We will agree a plan of action with the business to ensure a steady flow of moderated reviews and, in the case of a business scoring less than 4.8, initiate a tried and tested plan of action to remedy that situation and bring the score back up. Reassurance will be swift: as soon as a business's score improives the upsurge in the flow of inbounds will follow.

 

4. Engaged: hand-picking customers to invite to write a review

 

You will understand why we have anonymised this screenshot. How can we be sure that this business is hand-picking clients to write Google reviews? Well, it's a simple case of 'If it walks like a..., if it squawks like a...'. Businesses that don't comply with the law surrounding reviews are remarkably easy to spot, whether that be by looking at the pattern of reviews (a flurry of 5* reviews following a 1* is common) or, in the case of the regulators, examining the mechansism the business uses to invite reviews (text or email - and they both leave a cast-iron paper trail)

 

Here we run into our first legal issue. It is illegal under UK law to hand-pick 'happy' customers and then invite those, and only those, to write a review. The regulators (the CMA) call it 'cherry-picking' and they have an ongoing investigation into it. 

We occasionally meet businesses that say 'our [positive] reviews are so important, and so integral to our marketing, that we are prepared to take a risk'. We liken them to the 18th century traders who saved on the insurance offfered by the men at Mr Lloyd's coffee house: they are taking an unnecessary gamble, but instead of risking the value a shipment of spices from the Orient, they are exposing their business's reputation to a wholly unnecessary risk, especialy given that the cost of compliance is bundled into the cost of the 'insurance' (Here it is - for most businesses less then a BUPA subscription for a single person!)

Solution:  Adopting moderated review management provides the solution to both issues: 'insurance' against inaccurate or misleading reviews and complete compliance with UK law. From day one*. 

*We can provide no cast-iron guarantees, but it is our considered opinion that the UK CMA is highly unlikely to focus regulatory action on cases where the business in question is currently compliant, so the sooner the business becomes compliant, the less likely it is to be caught in the CMA's net.

 

5. Engaged: using email or a questionnaire to establish which customers should be invited to write a review.

 

There is nothing in the CMA regulations (or Google ToS) against sending a questionnaire such as this to customers. Businesses cross the line into illegality when they only invite those who have rated the business 5* to subsequently post a review.

 

 Google's relevant anti-gating rule. More here

 

This is a similar case to 4. above. The regulators - and Google - have a term for it: 'gating'. And it is illegal in the UK - and against Google's Terms of Service worldwide (a full explanation can be found here).

Solution: Stop! Adopt a compliant moderated system immediately. We cannot be absolutely sure, but again we feel it will be highly unlikely that the CMA will take legal action and sanction a business that was once non-compliant but has since taken steps to ensure future compliance. To date, businesses sanctioned by the CMA, for whatever reason, have almost always been currently non-compliant. As for Google: they have been known to delete all of a business's reviews when they find proof of gating. And who supplies that proof? A competitor or a disgruntled ex-employee usually.

 

6. Engaged: using a review site

On the left: the business on its chosen review site, all but invisible in search (actually, it does appear - but on page 3, so way less than 1% of searchers will ever find their way there). On the right: its Google score and reviews are shown in every search of its name.

Feefo? Yelp? Trustpilot? Reviews.io? All these solutions pre-date Google reviews. In the case of product businesses - online retail and similar - the stars they 'sell' the business are probably pretty effective. After all, we buy shirts because we like the look of them. As long as they score 4.0 out of 5 on, say, Feefo, we won't be put off making a purchase. But professional and service businesses must focus on Google reviews, simply because it is Google reviews that all your potential customers/clients/patients are seeing in every single search they perform.

Solution: If businesses such as this had known just how dominant Google reviews would be - no one comes close in seach, and Google are way ahead in terms of credibility and longevity - they would have gone down that route in the first place. It's never too late to change. The business doesn’t have to immediately lose its chosen review site, it just needs run a moderated Google-focussed solution alongside and compare the results. 

 

7. Engaged: Inviting all customers to post a review to Google

Now we're getting there. Google reviews are where it's at for all service and professional businesses. Because they show in every single search, from the initial 'How can I find a reliable doctor/lawyer/school/investment adviser?' to 'How do I contact the one I've been recommended by a friend/colleague?' The issue that has led to businesses adopting solutions 1 - 6 is simple: fear of the harm that can be done by just one factually incorrect Google review.  

Solution: Now all a business needs is the 'insurance' cover that will enable it to be compliant and at the same time collect genuine Google reviews from its customers. It's called moderation. Read about that here. It may well be the most rewarding ten minutes you spend on behalf of your business this year.

Conclusion

There is only one solution that works perfectly - or indeed at all, when compliance is taken into account - for all professional and service businesses, whether they be in the medical, legal, educational or financial spheres (or those directly associated, such as estate agency) and whatever category from 1 - 6 they fall into above, and that is independently moderated review management.

It only remains for your business to choose an entity to provide that independent moderation. We humbly submit that, with over fifteen years of experience dealing directly with reviews and review sites, including - in fact, especially - Google, of all kinds and being the first to alert businesses to the primacy of Google reviews, HelpHound would be a good place to embark on your business's journey.

And finally

This article focuses on the legally compliant solutions to reviews and review management. And without a compliant solution all the other good things that flow from positive engagement with Google reviews are as nothing. To be candid: what is the point of amassing hundreds of reviews by cherry-picking or gating if your competitors know that's what you are doing (and will be alerting any prospective customers they come across)?  

There is, of course, much more on the upside. Here are just a few of the hundreds of articles covering the positive aspects of adopting professional review management.

• Results. We are often asked for proof that inbound enquiries will accelerate once HelpHound is adopted and up and running. Our first objective is to have our clients score 4.8+. once that is achieved on the business's own website and on Google there should be a noticeable and measurable increase in inbound enquiries - calls and clicks - and this article shows real-life examples and case histories. It also shows how the quality of those enquiries rises - markedly, both in terms of conversion and value. 

• If you would like to read what we have to say that is relevant to your own business sector please interrogate the blog - just go to 'Search this Blog' on the right and enter 'medical' or 'education' and so on and you will be shown whatever we have written that is directly relevant. If you still cannot find what you are looking for just email - info@helphound.com - or call us - 0207 100-2233 and we'll give you the answer straight away (HelpHound provides specific tailored advice for each of our clients, we are as far from a 'one size fits all solution' as can be).

• Fees. Here they are. We aim to be a profit centre, not a drain on our clients' resources - see 'Results' above - we have had our fees compared to many things over the years, from 'coffee for the whole office once a week' to 'the same as I pay BUPA every month'. What is certain is that your business will fare far better with HelpHound.

• Compliance. We hear the groan! But, to be serious for a minute, we keep close tabs on what the Competition and Markets Authority is up to, and only two months ago we had confirmation that their investigation into businesses flouting its regulations with regard to reviews remains very much live and ongoing. Given that there are so many advantages in being compliant - and not being seen to be non-compliant - and that compliance comes as standard the day a business joins HelpHound, we would suggest that this aspect of our service is a no-brainer for all businesses.*

*Many businesses we meet labour under the - understandable - misunderstanding that compliance with the CMA regulations means having to proactively invite every single customer/patient/client to write a review. This is categorically not the case; what the regulators do insist on is every single stakeholder having an equal opportunity to post a review. All HelpHound clients' modules [what we call the visible side of our software on your website] contain a button - see red arrow below - that allows exactly that. 

The 'Write a review' button leads directly to a form where your customer writes a review which is then sent directly for moderation pre-publication. The 'What is HelpHound?' link goes straight to a page explaining HelpHound's role 

The advantage of this mechanism is that the client can write a review whenever they wish (it is this function that ensures the business is compliant with the CMA regulations); that review will then be subject to HelpHound's moderation before it is published on the business's website. If the review contains errors of fact or potentially misleading content our moderator will contact the reviewer (and the business if needs be) to resolve the issue. Over 97 per cent of reviewers welcome this engagement and correct their reviews, or they decide not to post a review at all. Only after this are all reviewers asked to copy their reviews to Google. Just to round out the example above, here they are on Google...

This screenshot tells the current position of a business with its Google score (4.9), number of Google reviews (497), score from its own reviews (4.9 again) and number of reviews hosted on its own website (693). The key statistic to be drawn from these numbers - aside from the excellent scores - is the success that the business has had in converting reviews to its own website into Google reviews: over two-thirds have been copied over to Google - 71 per cent to be precise. 

Two more things you may be interested to know about the business above:

• When they joined HelpHound they only had 6 Google reviews
• They recently opened another office

So: decide which category your business falls under (it may have covered more than one in the past!) and then arrange to speak and/or meet one of us. We will answer all your questions and give you a very accurate idea of where your business will be - and what the results for your business will be - going forwards.

Review Management - a Guide for PR, Advertising and Marketing agencies

You know that an outstanding presence in Google reviews is a must-have for all of your clients; you also know that achieving that - a score of 4.8+ and 200+ reviews - is easier said than done, especially while maintaining compliance with the CMA regulations. What follows is a step-by-step guide to achieving this for them without running any risks - of attracting adverse reviews or of breaking the law.

This article is intended as a reference point for agencies to decide how best to advise all of their clients, whatever their current situation.

And if you haven't time to read the whole article, just scroll down to the final paragraph: 'So - after all of the above - are there any other benefits for our agency?' and you will see a precis. But we strongly recommend you follow the 'Bezos principle' (see video above) and read what follows - we promise it will reward the effort.

Note for readers

It is so easy to promote a 'one size fits all solution' to reviews, after all, that's what the review sites do. But businesses differ, not only in the way they market their products and services - see what we did? There are two distinct categories of business already! - but in the way they have historically approached (or avoided approaching) reviews.

In this article we are going to address review management from two distinct perspectives: the type of business and the current situation each business finds itself in. All of your clients - and, indeed, your own business - will be in one of the following 4 categories. For the purposes of this exercise we are going to ignore those in 1, 2b, 3 and 4 (you will understand why as you read on). For those in category 2a we will further break them down by their current status with regard to reviews and follow that with specific relevant advice.

Then it is over to you. Speak to us and we'll arrange a mutually beneficial approach to those of your clients you feel we can help. That will usually mean starting out with an individual review audit* and then progress to providing definitive tailored advice. And it will end with your client scoring 4.8+ with three figures of reviews, a great SEO kicker and in full compliance with UK law. 

As you read this article you will see continuous references to both compliance and moderation, each one hyperlinked to a full explanation. They are the two underlying planks of effective review management, so we make no apolgy for repetition.You can read them now or as you read on, the choice is yours. 

* A review audit - as the name implies, begins with examining every aspect of a business's experience with reviews to date and ending with a summary of advice and recommendations. Covering the likes of existing presence on review sites - Google/Trustpilot/Feefo/Yelp/Reviews.io and so on - and compliance with the UK government (CMA) regulations, as well as providing a roadmap to effective and compliant review management for the future.

First: the 'type of business'...

Almost every one of the UK's 5.5 million businesses falls into one of four categories...

1.  Product-based - retail in the main. Broad-brush we know, but most people will buy a pair of shoes or a dishwasher irrespective of the service element involved in their purchase. Otherwise, such businesses are served by the commercial review sites (oddly, rarely by Google reviews) - just see any online retailer's website or advertising.

2a.  Service-based - the professions and high-value transactional businesses: medical, legal, financial, educational and the like (estate agency is a good example - a service business that is infrequently used but where the consumer is aware that the wrong choice may potentially cost them many thousands of pounds) as well as 2b. Trades - plumbers, electricians, and so on.

3.  A hybrid of the above two categories - car dealerships for example - they 'sell' cars and 'service' them (We know, but we want to make quite sure there are no misunderstandings given what is to come later). 

4.  'Impervious' businesses - utilities and transport companies are two obvious examples: where the consumer either has no choice at all (South West Water or a train from Paddington to Bristol anyone?) or the business is so massive that, often despite protestations to the contrary, it really doesn't care what people are saying online (it's easy to tell: they don't repond to customers' Google reviews, when it's free and easy to do so). 

Now something about HelpHound. In an ideal world, we would welcome clients from any of these four categories, but years of experience have taught us to concentrate all our efforts on Category 2a: the professions and service-based businesses. And there is absolutely no doubt that it is in that sector that HelpHound can add the most value - in pure £££s as well as in many other ways.

Why would HelpHound effectively ignore the other three categories?

We can add value for any business, whatever its nature, but...

Category 1: After all they love reviews, don't they? Yes, they do, and the review sites - Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo, Reviews.io, etc. - have targeted them very effectively. They would do better with professional review management, but we can add more value for other kinds of business.

As long as they score 4.0 they're generally pretty happy.

Category 2b: Trades and  'man+van' businesses, which often don't have dedicated business premises - needed for a Google profile - are covered by the likes of Which? and lead-generator businesses such as Checkatrade and TrustedPeople.

Category 3: Businesses, where the major earner is sales, and service is sometimes even a loss-leader, tend to focus on in-house reporting rather than reviews. They shouldn't, but they do. We'll be here for them when they come around.

Category 4: 'Impervious'. Well, they must be - why otherwise do they make next to no attempt to address - or even respond to - reviews from their customers (we'll repeat it - it's free!)?

So, we are left, happily, with 2a. The professions - medical, legal, educational, and financial as well as the likes of recruitment, estate agency, and so on. Most of these businesses really care about their images online...

\

We make no apology for using a HelpHound client to illustrate this category. When this business adopted HelpHound they had just 2 Google reviews!

• it knew that scoring 4.9 on Google would drive business through its doors

• it knew that a Google score of less than 4.5 would hinder their new business efforts

• it knew that everything else being equal, numbers of reviews matter

• it knew that its work is complex and often misunderstood

• it knew exactly how harmful a well-written but factually inaccurate review can be

• it knew that hosting their own client/patient/customer reviews gives them valuable feedback and data

And - once they understand the CMA regulations...

• it is very pleased that it is in full compliance with UK law

Now to the sub-categories of 2a

You may be surprised to read that there are very few businesses in 2a that have adopted the correct solution. Here we go (you should be able to allocate one of the following descriptions - A to G - to each of your clients)...

A - No reviews

Still regularly encountered. Reason: almost always fear, with a capital 'F'. And that fear is fully justified: if a business provides complex and difficult to comprehend services there will be a proportion of people who will grab the wrong end of the stick with both hands and then be tempted to beat the business with it. And these days that stick - which used to be a relatively harmless 'green ink' letter or an angry phone call - is invariably a 1* Google review. 

The fatal flaw in the 'Don't engage with reviews' strategy is that it put's the business's image way beyond the its control. We used to encounter hotels that had 'no review' contracts for airline staff staying - that didn't last when the same staff realised that all they had to do was create a new Google account and fire away! One day one such unhappy customer will find their way to writing a Google review.  Best have 100 5* reviews there when they do. Even better still, have their review directed to your business where it will benefit from HelpHound's moderation.

It's the very reason we invented moderation. Moderation gives businesses of all kinds the confidence they need to compliantly invite reviews from all their customers. The alternative - crossing fingers and toes in the hope that unhappy consumers don't write reviews - may have worked ten years ago, but it's far too high risk a strategy in 2023.

B - Few reviews - less than 50 - and a high score (4.6 and up)

Often the result of at first engaging and then stalling: the engagement is often prompted by receiving a one-star review - 'let's squash that one!' - or a member of staff driving engagement short-term (we know of one keen young person who stayed late at work once a week for a month and got their business 40 Google reviews, then he left and the business got three reviews for the rest of the year). 

The key here is to embed professional review management into the business in the same way as every other essential discipline. Many businesses do this and then fall at the compliance hurdle: they cherry-pick (invite selected customers to write reviews) or gate (use mechanisms like surveys to pre-qualify 5* reviewers), all understandable until you realise they are both against the law. Our question to prospective clients is 'Why break the law when a) it so quickly becomes obvious to your competitors and b) it is so easy not to?' Needless to say, no agency professional wants to find themselves in a position of advising a client to adopt a non-compliant solution.

C - Few reviews - and an average score (4.0 - 4.5)

Believe it: a score of under 4.6 will result in two things: the business comparing less favourably with its competitors as well as a handful of damaging 1* reviews underlying the score (a score of 4.0 from twenty reviews means at least four harmful 1* reviews). Neither need happen if the business adopts a moderated solution.

D - Few reviews - and a low score (lower than 4.0)

This is a tricky one: we need to establish why the business has attracted negative reviews: it's either a flaw in their CRM - put bluntly: they're not that great at what they do.  Our advice in these circumstances is simple: sort your CRM and we'll speak when you have done so.

Or they have left the field clear for a tiny minority of unhappy customers. More common than one might think: once a business has experienced the power of a negative review to harm enquiry rates - clicks and calls - it is not uncommon for business owners and managers to retreat into 'denial mode'. We hear comments such as 'reviews don't matter' (they do), 'our score doesn't influence the flow of enquiries' (it does) or 'people pay no attention to negative reviews' (they do, in spades). 

Once such businesses have been introduced to our moderation process they quickly shed such denial, which is exposed for what it is - an understandable but mistaken reaction to the fear of attracting more negative reviews.

E - Many reviews - over 50 in most cases - and a high score (4.6+)

Now we must tread carefully.  There are many businesses that have high Google scores by simply being great businesses, but once a business has more than 50 Google reviews and a high score the very numbers generally - not always, but generally - indicate a proactive stance towards reviews. Put plainly: the business is inviting reviews. 

Fine, as long as the business has some mechanism that allows all of its customers to write a review at a time of their own choosing. The CMA's definition of 'all' and 'at a time of their own choosing' is, as one might expect from a government agency, very precise. We have businesses constantly trying to convince us that they comply by various means - 'we include a link in the signature block of every email' or 'we email customers inviting reviews on a regular basis' but the only sure-fire solution is to include the link you will see on every HelpHound client's website. Before you say 'But that is asking for trouble' (we would agree, if it weren't for what follows) bear in mind that the link will invite a review to your own website that will then be moderated. So a 'win/win': compliance and moderation (and credibility) all in one.

F - Many reviews - and an average score (4.0 - 4.5)

There are some businesses that continue to believe that scoring 4.4, or even 4.0, is fine. Good even. But if you are to win business against competitors that have adopted professional review management your business needs to be scoring 4.6+ (in some cases even that score will leave a business languishing by comparison with its competitors). If your business is scoring between 4.0 and 4.5 and is leading the field in search then our advice has to be: take that lead and extend it before one or more of your competitors does. Nothing gives us more satisfaction here at HelpHound than seeing a client's Google score overtake its competitors.

G - Many reviews - and a low score - (less than 4.0)

Very few businesses find themselves in the arguably luxurious position of being able to ignore reviews

Now we are in the territory of 'don't care', which is at the extreme end of the denial syndrome we discussed earlier, or what we term 'review immunity'. Some businesses, often those that have a very high public profile such as fast food multiples: when did you last see a McDonald's franchisee bother to respond to a review? an airline? or a utility (South West Water - see above)? But these businesses are in the minority; most businesses are vulnerable to Google reviews, be that their headline score or the negative reviews underlying it. 

 

 

Note on scores and numbers of reviews: these are, of necessity, subjective but they are based on over ten years of experience and are backed up by hard statistics. In some marketplaces - financial services is an obvious example - it is currently unusual to find a business with double figures of Google reviews, whereas in estate agency any business worth the name probably has north of a hundred Google reviews. Why? HelpHound has to take part of the blame here; when we took on our first high-profile Plc client in estate agency enough of their branch network - of over 100 - took the bull by the horns and trusted us that they wouldn't be swamped with unfair reviews (thanks to our moderation process) and went on to prove us right. That set a fire under the whole sector: if your competitor scores 4.9 with 200 reviews you had better do something to compare with them or you will be losing significant business.

This Harley Street medical clinic client also answers the question we are sometimes asked about confidentiality: 'Do we see resistance from those using sensitive services?' The Harper Clinic specialises in treating menopause symptoms, how much more sensitive could a business be?

The red arrow is pointing at the key to all of our clients' compliance with the CMA regulations, as well as the route to moderation. By clicking on 'Write a review' anyone can write a review whenever they wish, and that review will be moderated to ensure, as far as is compliantly possible, that it contains no errors of fact or statements likely to mislead a reader

This also, by coincidence, provided proof of another kind. When faced with a business that is concerned with allowing all of its stakeholders to post a review whenever they choose - in other words: in compliance with UK law - we don't hesitate to point out that estate agency is hardly the least criticised business sector of all time, so, if we can show it working, for the professional agencies at least, how great a risk would a medical practice or a firm of financial advisers be taking?

So - after all of the above - are there any other benefits for your agency?

There are two answers to this - both of which provide tangible benefits for your business:

1. Your clients will be grateful that you introduced them to HelpHound. There is no downside for them. They will be compliant with the CMA regulations from the day they join and just one look at our 'Results' will show them the potential uplift in enquiries through both Google and their own websites. HelpHound membership will earn them extra revenue over and above our fees, from the outset*. It also has the potential to make them significant savings on the likes of Google Ads, as well as the boost to their SEO.
2. By becoming a HelpHound introducer you will be adding a growing quarterly income stream for your own business

*If you have a client that already has a score of 4.9 and 200+ Google reviews they will be just as glad they joined: aside from a continued compliant flow of reviews to Google, they will be hosting their own reviews - valuable data - on their own website and benefitting from our moderation going forwards. No more cherry-picking or gating and a great SEO kicker too.