Yopa raises £20 million - so what?

This article appeared in yesterday's Times...

...and we expect estate agents to have all sorts of opinions as to the impact that funding will have in the marketplace, but here at HelpHound we were drawn to a single comment made by a Times reader...

We won't make any subjective judgements, but we will comment on the numbers quoted - which appear to be pretty accurate. 

Yopa on Trustpilot...

Yopa on Google...

...and Yopa on Reviews.io (which currently comes first in an organic search for 'Yopa reviews'...

...so we make the exact figures (a day later, admittedly) as follows...

• Trustpilot: scoring 9.2/10 to give a 'dissatisfaction rate' of 8%
• Google: scoring 4.2/5 to give a 'dissatisfaction rate' of 16%
• Reviews.io: 'recommended' by only 29% of reviewers

Now - why do we mention all this? Because, yet again, it is an example of a high-value service business using a reviews site designed for products. We are fully aware of the mechanisms that some estate agents use to 'manipulate' such reviews systems in their favour, but Yopa, far from indulging in such tactics, would appear to be actively using a system that discriminates against them.

How?

Estate agency is a complex business. It involves many more stakeholders than just the buyer, seller and estate agent (solicitors, banks, other lenders, surveyors, mortgage brokers and so on, usually multiplied by two!) and the potential for misunderstanding - and a resulting misleading review - is vast. You only have to read lines like...

"I am considering involving solicitor in this as I feel tricked!"

"After we accepted an offer...we were then passed to post sales support who are just a bunch of people who have no idea of what they are doing."

"They completely ripped off my elderly mum."

...to realise that there needs to be some way for the business and the customer to communicate before the review is published. Not to prevent the business from receiving negative reviews - but to ensure that future customers are presented with, as far as possible, accurate and informed opinions of the business.

How it works at HelpHound

First - and most important of all - all reviews are moderated. This means that any review that has the potential to mislead, contains factual inaccuracies or is otherwise contentious is first put into what we call Resolution™ - where both parties are invited to 'resolve' whatever issues our moderators have identified, pre-publication. 

In order to maintain compliance with CMA regulations, we ensure that the reviewer always has the option of publicly posting their review during this process, from beginning to end.

The results: are overwhelmingly positive - for the consumer: they end up posting an accurate review, and are thankful for that; for the business: the reality of their service is presented. Every stakeholder in the process is happy.

A familiar story

Last week we spoke to two businesses, both clients of two separate reviews sites - and this is what they had to say...

• Business one: "We adopted [this solution] because we were told that we could selectively invite customers to post reviews and that customers could only post a review at our express invitation."

• Business two: "We adopted [this solution] because we were told that, due to the sensitivity of our profession [legal] we would be able to have negative reviews suspended pending confirmation from the client that they had indeed conducted business with us."

So why were they speaking to HelpHound? both had come to realise that the solution they had adopted, combined with the way they had been advised to use it, was in contravention of the CMAs regulations.

Let us take each in turn...

"We adopted [this solution] because we were told that we could selectively invite customers to post reviews and that customers could only post a review at our express invitation."

The superficial attraction? Very simple - no business wants to attract negative reviews, so being able to restrict invitations to 'happy' customers looks great, until you check on compliance with the CMA regulations. Likewise customers being able to write a review by invitation only - which flies in the face of the CMA regulation that stipulates that any customer must be able to write a review at a time of their own choosing.

And...

"We adopted [this solution] because we were told that, due to the sensitivity of our profession [legal] we would be able to have negative reviews suspended pending confirmation from the client that they had indeed conducted business with us."

On the face of it? Eminently sensible; after all, what business - or potential client - wants reviews from people that have not experienced, first hand, the service under review? In theory, at least, this is a runner. But not in practice. The minute the business uses a mechanism that removes the right of the consumer - any consumer - to have their review, whatever its content - published, without unreasonable delay, and especially where the business has any influence over the duration of that delay, the business becomes non-compliant.

The conundrum - and its resolution...

The conundrum is simple: businesses want to look good, compliantly. The regulators, on the other hand, insist that the consumer always retains the right to have their review, whatever its content, published.

The solution is also simple: and it's called moderation. Every review at HelpHound is moderated - by a person, not an algorithm - and any that have the potential to mislead or misinform are immediately (or as close to 'immediately' as humanly possible) served to both the business and the reviewer, the rule being: the reviewer always retains the right to have their review, whether the original or a modified version, published at any time during that process.

The real-world outcome?

Look at any HelpHound client, and - with very few exceptions - what will you see? You will see a well-run consumer-focussed business represented by a very high proportion of positive reviews. What you are unlikely to see are two things...

1. A 'perfect' business, scoring 5 out of 5
2. Misleading or factually inaccurate reviews - at least in any volume

What you definitely won't see...

...is a review saying 'I was prevented from writing my review by HelpHound (or by a HelpHound client)' or 'the mechanism X business uses prevented me from having my review published'.

A typical HelpHound client - scoring 4.8 on their own website (with 123 reviews - four of which are negative) and 4.9 on Google (with two negative reviews out of 85). Every reviewer who has posted to the business's own site has been invited to copy their review to Google.

  The 'Rating' (4.8 and the stars, along with the number of reviews - 123) showing under their organic listing is taken by Google from the reviews hosted on the business's own website

And in local search? None too shoddy - and fully compliant.

In other words: the best of both worlds.

Further reading...

• The CMA regulations - a detailed analysis. A 'must read' for everyone
• Moderation - more on this important topic
• Resolution™ - the name we give to our moderation process

'Falling to Four' - the inevitable consequence of unmoderated review management

As regular readers will now, at HelpHound we like to coin a phrase ('resolution', 'deflection',  'review management' - we think we may even have invented 'moderation' in the sense that it relates to reviews), well here's another one to add to the list.

'Falling to Four'

'Falling to Four' is what happens when a great, well-managed and consumer-engaged business becomes proactive in the reviews space.

It means that no matter how hard the business tries to keep its score where it needs to be - as near to a perfect 5 as possible - its score, on Google or any other site will fall towards, and often past, the Google filter at 4.0.

Why? 

Because of human nature. When a business decides to become proactive with reviews (as all business should be) and therefore invites all its customers to post a review (as the rules state it must), roughly twenty per cent of those reviews will be negative - scoring the business one or two stars. The reason that so many reviews (remember we are discussing good businesses here) will be negative is simple: a dissatisfied customer is about fifteen times more likely to write a review than a satisfied one.

Let's look at some numbers - and then some examples. Let's say the business - over a period - invites a thousand customers to write a review (all they do is send an email, no incentive, no follow-up). What do we think the response rate might be? About 3% perhaps? That's thirty reviews.

Let's look at the motivation behind those thirty reviews - it will be one of two things...

• the business did a great job
• the business, in the opinion of the customer, did a bad job

But then we need to apply our multiplier ( x 15 remember?). If the business has managed to satisfy 97 out of 100 of its thousand customers that leaves a pool of 970 happy customers and 30 unhappy customers.

To reduce the business's score from 5.0 (assuming their very first review scores them 5 stars) to 4.0 only six of those thirty need respond. And they will!

In this example nine out of the thirty-nine reviews posted are negative...

...and here they are again on an independent site...

...'Falling to 4' again.

There is only one solution that we know of...

...and it's not 'cherry-picking' (selecting happy customers to write reviews - against the CMA regulations - see Point 4 here).

We call it Resolution™.

There's a very detailed explanation here - it is essentially an advanced form of moderation. It is not designed to filter out negative reviews or to give the business any unfair advantages. What it is is a mechanism designed to add value for all concerned...

• value for the consumer, by improving the accuracy of the reviews
• value for the business, for the same reason
• value for Google, for the same reason

...by enabling the business and their customer to engage if the review contains any potentially inaccurate or misleading statements.

No one benefits from inaccurate reviews - and we see them every day. When we first introduced Resolution™, some years ago now, we wondered how consumers/reviewers would react - the numbers continue to amaze us: over 95% of reviewers welcome the opportunity to address the issues Resolution™ brings to their attention - partly because, under the HelpHound system, they know that they always retain the right to have whatever review they wish published, even if it is at odds with the facts (remember, businesses have the right to respond).

In addition, our system - which automatically invites everyone who posts a review to copy it to the business's Google page - is blind to the content or score of that review.*

*We know of at least on reviews site that has a superficially similar mechanism, minus the invitation to post to Google, but when the review is finally published it is published as of the date it was originally written; this benefits the business in question because it can often result in the review being pushed down onto page two. HelpHound reviews are always posted to the date of final publication.

Why break the rules - when there's no need?

The whole point of reviews is that they provide a reliable guide for consumers, but to see what some businesses do with them you would think that they were expressly designed to be manipulated so businesses could 'fool all of the people...'.

Without credibility these are worth less than nothing - they actually harm a business's brand.

We have written about this before - here, amongst others. But we have found more glaring breaches since that article. We are writing again because what started out as a gentle trickle has now morphed into an epidemic. Almost every business we look at is manipulating reviews, either intentionally or unintentionally - and always in breach of the Competition & Markets Authority's regulations.

Let us pose a question...

• Do businesses think that they have a right to manipulate reviews? Because if they don't, then there are far too many out there doing just that.

For example...

• The business (UK-wide, multiple locations) that thinks it is fine that their management and staff post Google reviews - how do we know? Because they have done it using their real names; not only have they posted five star reviews, they have responded to those reviews, thanking the 'reviewer'!

• The business - a Plc - that thinks it is a good idea to get their customers to write reviews to an obscure reviews site and then have their staff cherrypick the five star reviews and call up the authors and encourage them to copy their reviews to Google

• The business - another Plc - that thinks its a great idea (presumably for the business) to use a reviews site that does not allow its customers to write a review unless invited by the business. Let's make it plain - the business a) chooses which customers to invite and then b) chooses the timing of that invitation

• The business that thinks it is a good idea to offer incentives for customers to write a review. This would probably be questionable under any circumstances, but in this case the reward is conditional upon a positive review. How do we know - because one of their customers thanked them in the body of their review and another complained about not receiving their reward, again, in their review

• The business that uses a (multi-national) reviews site that allows them to have negative reviews suspended 

• The business - with branches across London - that employs a member of staff to write its own reviews

Then there are the 'unwitting' ones (businesses that claim they didn't know that what they were doing was in breach of the CMA regulations)...

• The cherry-pickers: choosing which customers you invite to write reviews, whether to Google or a reviews site, is in breach - of course it is. Just think for a minute - if you were the regulator - would you condone this? Of course not.

• The users of 'closed sites' - where the customer can only invite a review if they are expressly invited to by the business. Again - of course this is a breach, because the regulations explicitly state that a customer must be able to write a review at a time of their own choosing. Do you want to know if a brand new pair of shoes is fit-for-purpose? Yes. But might you also want to know if that pair of shoes is still in one piece six months after purchase? 

• The 'incentivisers': businesses that reward customers for writing positive reviews - we have seen Amazon vouchers, M&S vouchers and just plain ordinary cash

And then there are the reviews sites themselves...

These sites had a nice little earner all to themselves until Google entered the fray - they were the only way a business could get reviews onto the web. With the advent of Google reviews these sites found themselves in a pickle - what had they to offer that Google did not - for free? The answer is 'virtually nothing' - especially since Google introduced their free product reviews widget. So they now face an uphill struggle to add value, and, in doing so, some of them are crossing over the regulatory line. This gives businesses an added problem - they cannot take it for granted that a commercially available reviews solution complies with the CMA rules. We see examples of the following...

• Sites that offer 'invitation only' solutions

• Sites that offer the business the right to challenge - and even suspend - any negative reviews

• Sites that allow businesses to attribute star ratings gained in one product or service area to another product or service

• Sites that allow reviews and ratings gained in one location to be attributed to another location

None of these is compliant, and the onus for compliance lands fairly-and-squarely at the door of the business using the reviews site - it is they, the business, that will be on the receiving end of any disciplinary action.


Why break the rules?

There's one simple answer to that, and it goes something like this (we know, because so many businesses like this have told us)...

• "We have to have reviews - because we know that without them we will lose business to our competitors. But we are afraid to ask [all] our [genuine] customers to write them because, human nature being what it is, we know our happy customers won't and our unhappy customers will"

So these businesses willingly put their reputations in harms way. They know that people know they are 'up to no good' and they know that there's a significant risk that one day, sooner or later, a (ex)member of staff will blow the whistle and the game will be up. but still, such are the potential rewards, they continue to do it - because they fear giving up the short-term rewards of looking great in reviews.

There are many reasons that we publish on this subject again. To warn businesses that they have far more to worry about than the odd whistle-blower. They need to know that the CMA is actively taking an interest in just the very practices that we have outlined above. We also need businesses to know that there is another way.

Another way?

This all pre-supposes that the business in question is committed to high levels of customer care. Given that, then the only thing such a business would require is access to a mechanism that would ensure, as far as is reasonably possible, that reviews containing inaccuracies - of fact or opinion - could be addressed before publication.

Such a mechanism - as HelpHound clients already know - does exist. And its name is Resolution™. Resolution enables our clients to look just as good as they are. It does not prevent a reviewer from publishing an inaccurate or misleading review (and it certainly does not prevent a reviewer from writing a negative review) but it does mean that such a reviewer will know, pre-publication, that their review - if potentially misleading or factually inaccurate - will be subject to challenge by the business if it is published. 

There's no need - there is another way - and it's called HelpHound.

Further reading...

• The Competition & Markets Authority's rules relating to reviews - and an analysis
• Resolution™ - an owner's manual
• Trust is everything - where reviews are concerned. An article from 2016

Reviews and the Law - an important update

One of our most important roles as review managers is to make sure our clients comply with the law as it relates to reviews - in letter and in spirit.

The law?

Most businesses, when we first meet them, are unaware that reviews are governed by legislation. But, just as with almost every aspect of business life these days, they are. On 1 April 2014 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) took over many of the functions of the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading.

This is an extract of a letter from the CMA to businesses - the full letter, and our notes on it, is available here

Under CMA rules - which are enforceable in law -  it is illegal for a business (or their agents) to:

• post fake reviews of their own business
• post fake reviews of another business
• not publish negative reviews
• offer inducement - money or gifts - in exchange for reviews

In addition, it is illegal to do anything to intentionally mislead the public (consumers). This may include:

• describing testimonials (selectively invited customer opinions) as reviews
• selectively inviting customers to write reviews (what regular readers of this blog know we describe as 'cherry-picking')

Common practices that flout the letter or the spirit of the CMA rules

We see examples like the ones below nearly every day. They are mostly innocent, resulting from ignorance of the rules. Just as important, they do the business no favours in the eyes of the sophisticated consumer (or competitor).

This is a screenshot from an estate agent's website. We cannot be absolutely sure that they are contravening the CMA code, but the fact that the 'reviews' themselves are not independently verified and that all twenty-one of the reviews displayed were written on the same day over six months ago might lead to understandable suspicion

• inviting testimonials from customers and displaying them as reviews
• selecting 'happy' customers to write reviews, and, by definition, positively excluding 'unhappy' ones - whether to the business's own website or to an external site

HelpHound's standpoint

Our systems are expressly designed to comply with the CMA rules, in word and spirit. This is why Resolution incorporates the 'promise to publish' and why our clients incorporate a 'Write a Review' button into their websites, offering anyone the opportunity to write a review, whenever they choose to do so (and as often as they wish). 

It is also why the invitation to copy the review to Google (or the nominated external site) is automatic - not at HelpHound's or our client business's discretion.

Your questions answered

Can you expand on HelpHound's 'promise to publish'?

Anyone - and we mean absolutely anyone - has the ability to write a review to a HelpHound client's website. They don't have to wait to be invited - and they will always be invited to publish their review. 

While this may seem a little nerve-wracking for the business - potentially opening it up to unfair criticism (and even 'fake' reviews) please read on - there are very good reasons why our clients have succeeded with reviews. Perhaps most important of all, it means the business does not make the common mistake of inadvertently driving its unhappy customers to write potentially inaccurate or misleading reviews elsewhere - commonly on Google.

How does that work in the context of Resolution™?

Here's a detailed overview of Resolution. Resolution is designed to fulfill two purposes:

• to make sure our clients' reviews portray as accurate a picture of their business as possible, for the benefit of future customers
• to show to potential customers of the business in question that they will be able to write a review - and have that review published - at any time during (or after) their relationship with that business

So a customer can write an intentionally misleading review of our business and have that review published?

In theory - yes. It's the price paid for complete transparency (and the credibility that flows from that transparency). In practice it very seldom happens - and if it does happen the business always has the right-of-reply. 

Resolution is designed to minimise the chances of an inaccurate or misleading review being published by allowing the business and the reviewer to engage pre-publication. But the reviewer will always be invited to post their review. In the many years of experience we have of operating Resolution (and the many thousands of reviews that we process on behalf of reviews and our client businesses) we can count the instances of a reviewer persisting in publishing a review containing an error of fact on the fingers of one hand. Inaccurate or misleading reviews benefit no-one - and that's the reason for having Resolution in the first place.

Are there any more safeguards?

We will do our best to establish that the reviewer has (or has had) a relationship with the business. If we can establish that the reviewer has purely malicious intent we will revert to the reviewer and ask them for more particulars of their relationship with the business. No-one - not HelpHound, nor our clients, nor - most important of all - the consumer benefits from the kind of reviews that have got sites like Yelp a name for publishing false and malicious reviews. 

In summary

This as much about compliance with the law as about being - and being seen to be - open and honest. Our advice can be summed up with two 'Don'ts' and two 'Do's':

• Don't confuse testimonials with reviews - a business cannot, by definition, publish its own reviews without verification by an outside agency
• Don't select - 'cherry-pick' - those customers who you invite to write reviews
• Do allow all your customers to write a review
• Do allow them to write that review at any time they wish

This client got to look like this on Google...  

 ...and this on their own website...

...by doing everything we describe above - in compliance with the regulations.

If you follow these simple guidelines you will find that your business is rewarded by those consumers who appreciate openness and honesty.

If you have any more questions - about what we do here at HelpHound or what you are currently doing with regard to reviews - please do not hesitate to speak to us.

Resolution™ - managing inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews

One of the prime concerns we hear from every single potential client is "What can we do about negative reviews?"

And often we sense that the immediate response they would most welcome would be something along the lines of "we have a mechanism that will prevent them being published, either on your own website or anywhere else."

But that's not our response. Our response is guided by two things:

• sensible business practice
• the CMA regulations governing reviews

Let's look at both of these:

Sensible business practice

Just let's suppose, for argument's sake, we did have a system that magically filtered out negative reviews; what would the real-world impact of such a system be? 

We don't have to look far for our answer, as there are plenty of independent review sites that operate systems that favour the business, either by denying the reviewer the right to post a review unless specifically invited or by having a mechanism that allows the business to impose conditions on the publication of negative reviews.

Both these systems have the same medium to long-term effect. They drive dissatisfied customers to post to Google - the one site a business needs to look at its very best on. We see examples all the time. Here is just one...

 The same business - on an independent review site (L) and on Google (R). An increasingly common disconnect, almost always caused by the business inviting 'happy' customers to post to the reviews site, leaving 'unhappy' customers no option but to post to an open site - Google being the obvious choice

Sensible business practice dictates that whatever system a business adopts it must positively welcome all kinds of reviews from everyone and anyone. After all, Google does. 

What happens next is important. At HelpHound we value our own reputation as a force for good in the somewhat murky world of reviews, and to maintain that reputation means treating both sides of the review equation equally - we have to be seen to be fair and credible to both business and consumer, and we need to be seen to be adding value in both directions. That means that the business should be fairly and accurately represented through its reviews and that the consumer should be able to rely on those reviews as an aid to their purchasing decision.

Inaccurate reviews - in this case pricing - help neither business nor consumer

Fake reviews, of any kind, help no-one. Inaccurate or misleading reviews ditto.

HelpHound's Resolution™ to the rescue - for both parties

The full process is detailed in this article. To summarise, Resolution™ is designed to minimise the chances of fake, inaccurate or misleading reviews being published, as none of these benefits anyone.

Here's an example. This review was posted recently:

Under the terms of Resolution™ - understood by both business and their customer - the review is first submitted to the business for comment. In this case there had been misunderstandings between the two parties concerned, as well as miscommunication (there were language issues). Resolution™ allowed for private communication between both parties and, again, as of right, the customer is invited to post a review after that communication (which can be their original review, but seldom is). This is what they did post:

Some might say that it would be helpful for both reviews to be published (and there is nothing to stop the reviewer doing so) but that would be to assume we inhabit a perfect world in which everyone communicates in both directions every time. Far too often a consumer will post an inaccurate or misleading review - often straight to Google - leaving the business nothing to do but post its own response. But that harms the business's reputation unfairly, especially through Google's scoring system - an unfair or misleading 1* review, even responded to by the business, remains to impact the business's score - a shorthand guideline increasingly used by consumers to winnow out a shortlist (and by Google itself through its filter).

The CMA regulations

A full analysis can be found here. Two of the core principles of the CMA regulations (which have the force of law in the UK) are:

• that the reviewer should be able to write a review at any time of their own choosing
• that the business must do nothing to prevent that review being published

At HelpHound our clients incorporate a button like this on their websites so absolutely anyone* may write a review at any time...

And we promise to publish any genuine review. And this means that the reviewer can have an inaccurate or misleading review published. The fact that they seldom do is down to Resolution™.

And one final point: always remember that, whatever review system you employ, your competitors will often attempt to undermine it. If it favours the business at the expense of the consumer, or if it is seen to be non-compliant, that hands a significant weapon to them.


*This surprises some businesses t first, until it is pointed out to them that they often have many more stakeholders than they have customer email addresses: husband/wife/partner/neighbour/employee/potential customer/'friend' of customer/professional advisor of customer and so on...any of whom can write a review of the business to Google at the click of a mouse, and often do - unless they are given a more attractive alternative.

HelpHound for hotels - Resolution™ working for everyone

This is a very simple - but extremely common - example of Resolution™ in action. A regular guest says nothing, either in hotel or at checkout. But this review is received:

 The scores say it all - we don't need to show you the accompanying review!

HelpHound moderators place it in Resolution™ - simultaneously emailing the reviewer and the hotel, inviting the hotel to respond, privately, to the reviewer, which they do. This paragraph from the hotel's much longer response is key:

And that's exactly what this guest did. Leaving this review of their most recent stay today:
 

Four words that say it all. A happy guest and a regular customer retained. 

This is an example of Resolution™ working for everyone concerned. not all guests want to raise their concerns face-to-face, for a multitude of reasons. For those guests this aspect of HelpHound's service enables them to resolve whatever issue might otherwise occasion them to look elsewhere for accommodation next time and the hotel retains the guest's loyalty and custom.

Google ramps up review visibility - again!

Just when we thought Google could not make reviews more visible - they do it again! Both kinds too - yours and theirs.

Let's take the mobile journey (estimates vary, but most agree that about 70% of all search is on mobile or tablet now):

Initial search: [business name + location]:

This gives the potential customer many options: map, address, opening hours etc. but we will stay with reviews for now. First there is the rating (numerical - 4.8 in this example) and stars (five) as well as the number of reviews - a click there takes the user straight to the business's Google reviews (see the third of the four screengrabs). 

Underneath that is 'Reviews from the web' - again showing a score and number of reviews, but this time taken from the business's own reviews hosted on their own site. 

In addition you can see two links to the business's website - centre right of the Google knowledge panel and right at the bottom - top of natural listings (as you might expect). Clicking on both of these will lead to reviews prominently displayed on the business's mobile site.

But perhaps most important of all - the change that Google has made - the 'Reviews' tab at the top - taking your potential customers direct to your reviews - again, both your own and Google's - without having to hit the arrow in the blue circle at the bottom of the knowledge panel:

There are three important routes to reviews here:

1. The three rich snippets - the first opinions a potential customer will see. They - as long as they are positive - should whet the customer's appetite for more. They then have a choice... 

2. Read some of the 129 reviews - highlighted under 'Reviews from the web' - a click on which takes them straight to your website and the reviews you host there...

Three things here: a scrolling feed of verified reviews, a link to enable anyone to read all the business's reviews and a link to an explanation of HelpHound's role in the process.

3. Read your Google reviews by simply scrolling down:

And guess which tab in the drop-down menu most consumers choose? That is why it is so important to have a mechanism like Resolution™ that enables you to address inaccurate or misleading reviews pre-publication.

Don't miss the overall message!

Google has not made this change on a whim: by devoting more and more of the search experience to reviews Google is telling businesses that your potential customers want to read reviews. 


P.S.

It is slightly off-topic for this article, but we know many of you will be asking 'how does the business look in a generic search [business type + location]?'...

Answer? Top of the Google three-pack and top of organic search.

 

Review scores: you must strive for the perfect 10 (or 5!)

It never fails to surprise us just how tolerant of negative reviews some businesses are. There appears to be a syndrome doing the rounds that says something along the lines of "4 out of 5 is great" or "9 out of 10 is amazing".

The issue at stake here is that consumers have become more savvy than most businesses where reviews are concerned. They scan reviews very quickly, and if the business in question has any negative reviews the business will experience a fall-off - in business or traffic - through the web.

Look at this typical example of a business scoring four out of five:

Do you think that single negative review is:

a. damaging?
b. unhelpful?
c. harmless?

The answer, from years of experience and listening to client feedback on a daily basis is somewhere between a and b, depending on who happens to be reading the review. Also remember that however harmless the review itself, the one star rating has affected, and will continue to affect, the business's overall score, making the answer, strictly speaking, 'a' in every case.

The score matters?

Consumers are increasingly 'score aware'. They consciously and subconsciously look for businesses that score well. More than that, Google recognise this behaviour and give their users filters in search: 'Top Rated' and 'by Rating'. 

Top Rated 

 Only the six Top Rated agents in this area - out of over twenty - show in this window

by Rating 

Top: who would enable the filter at anything below 4? Bottom: the same effect as 'Top rated' Note: Logic would dictate that Google will eventually get round to programming their algorithm to produce these businesses ranked by score - i.e. the highest score at the top.

Again - this time a hotel scoring nearly 9 out of 10:

Here are their ratings:

And here's an example of a typical low-scoring review (of which they have over 250):

This is exactly the kind of review that deflects custom - and having hundreds of them will definitely be impacting on bookings. The hotel should be doing everything in its power to minimise the likelihood of such reviews appearing - anywhere - and that includes joining HelpHound.


So: the lessons

1. Do everything you can to ensure your customers have the absolute minimum of reasons to post a negative review
2. Give those 'less than happy' customers an easy way to express their dissatisfaction direct to you - don't make leaving a Google review their easiest option
3. Aim to get so many great reviews that when - and it's almost certainly going to be a case of 'when' given that no business is perfect and there are some pretty unpredictable consumers out there - you do get a negative review it doesn't impact your score and you can respond by referencing all your great reviews
4. Set your sights high - aim for a score of 4.8/9.5 plus 
5. Don't say 'That is a big ask' - with HelpHound on board - and providing the businesses in question have the right attitude to customer service - we would confidently predict scores like this for both these businesses