Why pay commission - when there is a better way?

  

So many websites exist with their core premise being to deliver leads to businesses of all sorts, from accountants to zoos, from hotels to estate agents, but they all contain one significant flaw: they are terrible value for money when compared with professional review management

Consumers think they are great - the aggregator/lead generator websites - but businesses are not quite so fond of them - for good reason: they soak up money.

Whatever business you are in, from hospitality to hairdressing, there is a site selling you customers. Needless to say, that's not quite what they tell their (your) customers. If you are relying on one of those sites to drive business we think you should be at the very least testing an alternative - professional review management.

We know you know, but just so we all start from the same point...

How these sites work
  
They promote themselves to the general public and then sell that consumer to you - usually for a commission (rates usually vary from 10% - 35% of the value of the service provided).

They claim to 'add value' in various ways - and some do. TripAdvisor's reviews are useful, and so is their forum, for instance. They may provide your business with useful software (for bookings or appointments, for example). And they will deliver custom (because their business model depends on that, at least). But all this comes at a price, and while it may sometimes be a price you are willing to pay, just like any marketing, if there is a less costly alternative, you will want to know about it.

The 'less costly alternative'

Professional review management delivers most of what your potential customers want from these sites: reassurance that they are choosing the right hotel/hairdresser/estate agent/plumber - and it delivers the customers to you with an important difference, and that difference is mostly in the way the business pays.

The commission model goes right out of the window - so you don't end up paying more and more for every customer. Your business is rewarded for success, not the introducing website.

Putting these numbers in context...

 We know some of these commission figures are lower than you may be currently paying, but we don't want to be accused of exaggerating

Now - compare these with HelpHound membership...

How much does your business need to earn to pay back our fee? Put simply: if HelpHound membership generates a single customer a month more it has paid for itself - any more than that - and the business is in clover.

Look at the numbers for these heating engineers...

And this estate agency...

Both these screenshots were taken directly from the respective business's own Google My Business report. Every business is sent this every month - so any uplift is immediately apparent. In both these cases the only variation in the business's marketing plan was the adoption of HelpHound (that, perhaps unsurprisingly, is why they have shared these reports with us).

So: whatever your business, join HelpHound and have us working alongside any other solution you currently have in place and see for yourself the value we can add - and there's no minimum contract period, that's how confident we are that you will be glad your business joined.

Local Heroes? Maybe there is a better solution?

Many of your will have come across Local Heroes (they have a big campaign on TV at the moment). The business model is simple - the tradesmen sign up to local heroes and Local Heroes give them leads, for which they deduct 20% from the invoice they send on the tradespeople's behalf.

An alternative?

Take just a fraction of that 20% and get your business looking like this on its own website...

Like this on Google...

Note the search term used here is not their business name, but the kind of search anyone living in Sussex might be reasonably expected to use - and it returns our client's Knowledge Panel!

...with reviews like these...

And this on Facebook...

...with reviews like these...

Our conclusion?

We think that tradespeople would be well advised to take a leaf out of Sussex Oven Cleaning's book and get professional review management working for them before contemplating giving away twenty per cent of their earnings.

Finding a reliable Garage - 2016 style

Prompted by this in the Sunday Times, we examine how consumers behave, and how businesses should react, in 2016.  

  

This is 2014's solution: spend an age googling review sites until you find on that suits your current need, one for plumbers today, one for getting your car MOT'd tomorrow, a hairdresser the week after. 

 Relying on consumers to make the extra effort find to sites like these when they have Google reviews a click away is no solution for any business in 2016

Today's consumer expects (but does not always get - no fault of anyone but the businesses concerned) a simpler solution: and its called Google.

But do the businesses recognise this? We think the answer is currently "Not a lot" because, if they did, they would look a whole lot better in Google search:

MOT - independent - search 'MOT':

 London MOT centre shines in this search, mostly because the remaining five businesses have only three reviews between them. London MOT is only one negative review away from falling foul of the Google Filter. We're guessing most MOT specialists have a put-through of at least one customer per hour - that's 2500 potential reviews a year - they don't need a high percentage of their customers to write reviews

Service - brand specific:

 Truly shocking - these businesses are allowing their unhappy customers to dominate the impression given in search (unless they really are as bad as they look - which we seriously doubt). One click away - if anyone makes it past Battersea Volkswagen's 2.1 score - is this:

Unfortunately the impression given is just awful, and the responses are transmitting the message - unwittingly, we are sure - that: "We won't address your experience here, where all our future customers are looking" when we would advise our clients to address the issue raised in detail, head on. But that is coming from a business that lives and breathes review management 24 hours a day

Hairdresser:

 No reputation at all or "Let's let a tiny minority dictate what we look like to the world at large." Again - how many potential reviewers a day are being shown out of their salons without so much as a nod towards reviews?

Plumber:

 

Does 'My Plumber Man' know that just one more review will give them a Google score? Maybe with one of the four being like this they are hoping they will never get one:

The message - our message - is loud and clear. ENGAGE. 

But we do understand that it's a minefield out there. That's why HelpHound exists: to provide professional advice and navigate our clients through that minefield. So they look great where it matters most - on their own websites and on Google.