This article is intended for those businesses who have yet to adopt a review management solution as well as those currently using one of the many independent review sites. Where the points we make may require detailed expansion we have linked to relevant articles.
There is now so much evidence - here Microsoft is putting its name to an article extolling the virtues of engaging with reviews - that the question for businesses is not now 'Should we?' but 'How best can we?' (and not just for SMEs!)
- Reviews drive business. There is no longer any argument amongst marketing professionals on this point. If your business has great reviews it will attract more business than an equivalent business with no - or negative - reviews
- Negative reviews deflect business. Also beyond doubt: a well-written negative review of a product or service - even one - will deflect business as well as impacting on your ranking or score. As the New York Times says "...studies show that consumers overwhelmingly choose businesses based mainly on star ratings..."
- Reviews should be displayed on your website - consumers want to see what your customers think of your business, not what you think of your business!
- Google is - by far and away - the most important place after that - you must find a mechanism to get reviews to Google - safely and reliably, and with complete credibility
- Respond to your reviews: this has three important effects: it impresses those potential customers that the business cares about customer relations, it allows the business to correct errors of fact and it warns any future reviewer that they should state their opinion accurately
- The mechanism you use must comply with the law. Mechanisms that allow your business to select customers to write reviews do not comply
- Your customers should be allowed to write a review at any time - If they cannot your business is a) not complying with the spirit of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) rules and b) giving dissatisfied customers no option but to post their review to Google or another 'open' site
- Google reviews are exploding across the web - businesses that had none this time last year often now have dozens. Consumers are learning to write Google reviews in their millions. The mechanism you choose to get reviews to Google is now more important than ever before, and should be chosen with care
- Service businesses, especially, have been slow to adopt review management - mostly because of understandable concern over the potential reputational damage misleading or inaccurate reviews might do. The rapid growth in Google reviews means that 'review denial' is no longer an option. All businesses will need a review management strategy in place for 2017, otherwise they risk their dissatisfied customers dominating their online reputation
- Independent review sites are now no longer an effective solution - partly because few of their mechanisms pass muster with the CMA, but mostly because they lack visibility in search. There are very good reasons why the biggest independent review site of them all - Yelp - has ceased sales and marketing in the UK and Europe
- Businesses with no review management strategy will increasingly suffer by comparison with those of their competitors that adopt one - It is essential that you look at least as good as your competitors in search and on your website, and it is just as important that the strategy you do adopt is beyond criticism
- Businesses that adopt the wrong review management strategy will suffer in the same way - we often come across businesses that have expended significant resources engaging with reviews, but unfortunately in the wrong direction, resulting in their reviews remaining all but invisible or their mechanism being disparaged by their competitors
Adopt the right strategy - and look like this...
...on your own site - and on Google. With HelpHound.
So much has happened in the world of reviews recently that we felt it only right not to wait until the end of the year before bringing you one of our regular reports.
Google, so dominant in search - 68% worldwide - is introducing changes at such a rate that the contrast between search on 1 January this year and now is as marked as any full year previously.
So - how does this affect our world, the world of professional review management?
The Big One...
Is the demise of review websites. They're not quite dead yet, but they are dying. Don't look at their metrics, look at their share prices: Yelp down from $85 to $25, TripAdvisor down from $95 to $70, Angie's List down from $9 to $5. And the only reason TripAdvisor and Angie's List have not quite taken the hit that Yelp has is their fractionally smaller reliance on Google (for now).
Why?
This is so simple: because Google has ramped up its own review offering. Search for any kind of business and who do you see? Trustpilot reviews? No - Google reviews. Yelp reviews? No - Google reviews.
You own a business and you'd like your Yelp reviews to show in your Google ads? They did last year (with a nice star rating). This year? Google reviews.
Reviews may be small beer for Google, but with the number of Google users and their positioning in search it will be Googlers, not Yelpers, who dictate inward business flows for you from now on.
The impact for your business
If you have committed resources (effort and/or funds) to getting reviews to any specialist review site you should be examining strategies for redirecting that energy. For the forseeable future the there are only two places you are going to need reviews:
- On your own website
- On Google
Just imagine that you accumulate a hundred great reviews on Google and your competitor has only five, ten or fifteen, how great will you feel? And what if that position were reversed?
While we're on that topic (reviews on your own website)...
Retailers were quick to recognise the value of reviews on their own sites; they understood, early on, that consumers would buy with more confidence if they were given credible (independently verified) reviews.
Retailers like John Lewis have been quick to recognise the power of reviews, service providers and the professions less so. This is, in part, due to the understandable 'fear factor': the realisation the power one single negative review may have to deflect business. For more about how HelpHound reduces this 'fear factor' read on here.
But service providers and the professions have been much slower to climb aboard: the old fashioned 'testimonial' still pervades. It is important for businesses to understand that independently verified reviews, hosted on the business's own website, are just as important in driving new business for estate agents, solicitors and financial advisers as they are for electricals and white goods retailers.
With the current dearth of businesses like these hosting independently verified reviews, the opportunity for those in these sectors to steal a march on their competitors is still massive.
Action needed
Lose the fear: and stop treating reviews as an add-on and integrate them into your core marketing plan. Get a professional review manager like HelpHound to work alongside you (you will need them for the crucial independence, if for nothing else).
Make sure that they can cover both bases for you: reviews on your own website and reviews to Google.
Then sit back and watch the results roll in - guaranteed!
