A competitor attempts to undermine your reviews' credibility...

...by attacking any weaknesses in your reviews system. It happens. It's such an obvious target. So let's see how a HelpHound member responds.


Q 1:  'How come your score is so good?'

A:   Because we are good. All of our customers are invited to write a review - look at this button on our website...even people who are not registered with us as customers, in the strictest sense, can write a review...whenever they want...

Q 2:  'Your reviews must be filtered in some way?'

A:  The only process that is applied to reviews is moderation. A HelpHound moderator reads every review and if there appears to be anything in it that might have the potential to mislead another consumer, or be factually incorrect - then reviewer and business are simultaneously contacted by HelpHound so the situation can be resolved (HelpHound call this process Resolution™ - here's more on that)


Q 3:  'HelpHound works for you, not the consumer?'

A:  Someone has to pay! But, seriously, our reputation stands or falls on HelpHound's probity - if HelpHound are seen as favouring businesses our reviews lose all their value; worse: it would be a PR disaster for us both


Q 4:  'Your customers need to be invited to write a review?'

A:  No, our customers, and even non-customers (potential customers, for instance) can write a review whenever they want (see that button again). Reviews from customers and non-customers are treated in exactly the same way
 
 
Q 5:  'It looks as if only positive reviews find their way to Google?'

  If a client of HelpHound's looks this good it is because they are this good - there's nothing at all preventing anyone at all posting a negative review to Google (and not all reviews sites can say that)

A:  If positive reviews are showing on Google then it means we are doing a good job, for two reasons: first, anyone can post a review to Google at any time - more than 20 million people in the UK are now registered to do so, so if our system somehow prevented reviews going there there would be nothing at all stopping a customer writing a negative review direct to Google - and second, HelpHound software automatically invites everyone who has a review posted to our website to write a review to Google as well
 

Q 6:  'No-one has ever heard of HelpHound?'

A:   HelpHound are a business service, not a reviews site. But, to be candid, aside from Google and TripAdvisor (and maybe Yelp) most consumers don't recognise reviews sites either (a recent survey by Rightmove found that: 'Where reviews were read, most (42%) were on Google, followed by [the business's] own website (36%), Trustpilot (11%)...and Feefo (2%).') HelpHound clients don't rely on name awareness - although this is increasing as HelpHound grows - but the self-evident probity of the HelpHound system 


Conclusion?

Review management is the route to take for great businesses - one of our clients even stated that their business had joined because they saw HelpHound as the 'Gold Standard' - and by that they meant that sub-par businesses would be unable to adopt review management, it is simply too open - they will need to seek out other solutions (that will not enable them to satisfactorily answer all the six questions above).


Further reading:

• more on the Rightmove survey
• results - certified by Google
• our latest take on the reviews sites - the End Game

HelpHound - taking the Fear out of reviews

 Not a HelpHound client!

Most businesses, if they are honest, approach the subject of reviews with some trepidation - if they approach it at all - and with good reason.

Let's look at some of the barriers to actively engaging with reviews online:

1. Freedom of speech 

The policy of most review sites, including Google, is predicated on the assumption that the 'reviewer is always right'. This means that anyone can voice their opinion, even if that 'opinion' contains factually incorrect or misleading statements. The fact that any negative opinion of a business in the UK is prima facie libel does not matter as the libel is imputed to the reviewer not the review site - and what business wants to find itself embroiled in a libel suit with one of its own customers?

2. The propensity for consumers to write negative reviews

Dissatisfaction with a business is so much more of a motivation to write a review. And negative reviews do harm businesses - just ask any hotelier. We often meet businesses that have customers running into multiple thousands who have nothing but a handful of negative reviews on Google
 
3. The harm a single negative review can do

We often hear those who have yet to engage with reviews say things like "Surely the odd negative just adds credibility?" Our response: "Ask any business that has been the subject of a well written negative review". Read the sorry tale of Nearwater in St Mawes - just one negative review on Google stopped their business in its tracks. The fact that it was written by someone who had never used the business - and HelpHound proved that to Google - saved the business. 
 
4. Fake reviews 

It is a source of ongoing frustration that most review sites continue to publish reviews from fake reviewers (as distinct from fraudulent - covered below). Google is tightening up its act - and gaining credibility by so doing, but the likes of TripAdvisor and Yelp continue to allow the 'MickieMouse123's of the virtual world to post reviews without providing any more than a Hotmail address when they register.
 
5. Fraudulent reviews

Thanks to the above it is still relatively easy for someone with an impure motive - a competitor, the business itself, or a disgruntled ex-employee - to write fake reviews, both positive and negative. 
 
6. Regulations - the Competition and Markets Authority

We constantly encounter businesses that selectively invite 'happy' customers to write reviews (this practice goes against both the spirit and the content of the CMA regulations) because they are afraid of allowing all of their customers to comment.


And now for the reasons to engage:

1. Having good reviews is proven to influence consumers  

 Looking like this is proven to give a business an edge - in the marketplace in general and specifically against local competitors with no, few or negative reviews

Countless surveys and reports, from the likes of Microsoft and Harvard Business School as well as Google itself put that contention beyond doubt.

2. Businesses with reviews look more established

Two all-but identical businesses in the same location - which one looks the more attractive?

You business may have been around for over a century, but if it has no reviews it is going to look like a start-up to those that don't already know it!


3. Businesses with more reviews look more engaged

  There's no longer any doubt that the business on the left will get more calls than the business on the right

We often encounter businesses that achieve a Google star rating (that's 5+ reviews) and then heave a sigh of relief. In the not-too-distant future there will be businesses of all kinds - not just hotels and restaurants - out there with thousands of reviews.

4. Businesses with reviews are more trusted by consumers

 Google reviews are now commonly attached to a G+ account: this gives them considerably more credibility than anonymous reviews 

 

And its not just the numbers and score - great as they are in this case - but the content of those reviews and the fact that the business has responded. All add up to a very impressive first impression.

5. Businesses that invite reviews to their own websites prosper

There is a massive difference between independently verified reviews and testimonials - and consumers are increasingly wise to that. The three lines above the reviews on this client's website are crucial in establishing that credibility - as is the 'promise to publish'. 

The most powerful incentive to use a business - fellow consumers' opinions? Then why not incorporate these into your website - the very vehicle where first impressions of your business are created. The 'promise to publish' and the 'Write your review' button make this mechanism CMA compliant.

6. There is no reason not to comply with the CMA rules
 

  All our clients' websites incorporate this mechanism. It actively enables them to invite anyone - and they need not necessarily be a customer of the business in the strictest sense - to write a review whenever they want. How impressive is that? 

Concerned that such a policy might do harm? This single branch of one of our clients has nearly 500 reviews on their own website and looks like this on Google:

To save you the trouble, their reviews break down as follows: 5 stars: 269, 4 stars: 8, 3 stars: 1,  2 stars: 1, 1 star: 2. Remember: every client can write a review, whenever they like, and when they do HelpHound always invites them to copy that final review to Google (for a full explanation of the process see the link to Resolution™ below). A bonus is the star rating under the business's main listing in organic search (top left) and the 'Reviews' link there that takes the potential customer straight to that branch's reviews on its own website, as well as the great rich snippets in the Google knowledge panel

A professional review management process will incorporate a mechanism that allows the business to engage with reviewers who may have written an inaccurate or misleading review before that review is published anywhere - on their own website, on Google or on any other site - ours is called Resolution™. This means that your business is able to adopt best practice without risking unfair harm. It is invariably welcomed by the consumer - after all, almost all consumers want a positive outcome when they engage with a business and inaccurate or misleading reviews benefit no-one, business or consumer.

Resolution has another major benefit: it weeds out fake reviews. How? If HelpHound - or our client business - think a review is suspect in any way we will always go back to the reviewer for 'further particulars' of the transaction under review - the address of the property for an estate agent, the number of the room and the date of stay for a hotel.
  
To summarise

Businesses want to engage with reviews, but are rightly concerned that doing so will expose them to unfair criticism. We hope that this explains how and why professional review management - and HelpHound - are able to allay that fear and allow businesses to make the most of this great opportunity. 

 

Another review spat - this time it's Purplebricks

Businesses and review websites keep on missing the point:

    

Read the full EYE article here

 
What point?

That all the time you insist on using a mechanism that is 'invitation only' your reviews are going to lack credibility. 

In this case: of course the reviews on Facebook are going to carry (some) more weight - Facebook is an open platform, whereas we have yet to see an agent embedding a link to a site like Trustpilot on their own site (and very few clients are going to find it of their own accord).

For your reviews be credible:

You must give up control over:

• Who is allowed - invited - to write a review
• When they are allowed to write a review
• Whether their review is published on your website or not

The main reason our clients love their HelpHound modules is that they give their reviews total credibility (as if there is anything in consumers' eye but total credibility!). 

• Anyone can go to our client's module and write a review, at any time, day or night, weekends, when they first become a client or months or even years later

 Here's a standard HelpHound module. The second link - 'write a review' is critical to the credibility of your reviews - and it tells your prospective client that you welcome (and publish) reviews from anyone at any time

Which means our clients can tell their prospective clients:

• That anyone can write a review
• Whenever they choose
• And it will be published

How powerful a message does that convey to your potential client? How much would you like to do business with someone who promised to publish your opinion, whenever you chose to give it?

Those of you who are new to HelpHound will be asking - quite rightly - what about misleading, inaccurate or fraudulent reviews? They are managed through Resolution (click and read) so that concern evaporates.

Resolution™ in action - and some case histories

 Customers - including those who post negative reviews to Google - are not always right

In January 2015 we received a call from a firm of London estate agents. They were concerned that they had received a flurry of negative Google reviews (having had no reviews at all three months previously). Could we help? We visited the business and carried out our usual audit: we interviewed the directors and came to the conclusion that they were a well-managed and professional business (contrary to the impression given by the reviews), so we set to work. 

Dialogue was embedded into their website – including an invitation to their clients to copy their reviews to Google. At the same time we advised them to respond to their existing Google reviews and to appeal those that we felt were contravening Google T&Cs.  

This resulted them embarking on a quest to rebalance their reputation on Google from a very low base of nine negative reviews and a Google score of 1.2. To date they have received over 200 reviews to their HelpHound module, of which over fifty have been copied to Google. Their Google score now stands at 4.1.

This does not mean that the agents in question no longer have any dissatisfied clients (show us the business that can make that claim). They have had nearly thirty 3, 2 or 1 star reviews of one kind or another posted through Dialogue, six of which are now displayed on their module and one of which has been copied to Google. 

So what happened to the negative reviews that did not make it to their module? In every instance their reviewer was able to engage with the business and the business was able to reply to the reviewer, before the reviewer was invited – by HelpHound – to post a final review. We have analysed each and every review; the results of this analysis are illuminating:

All the negative reviews were posted by tenants and they broke down as follows:

·       62% referred to deposits that had not been returned in full

·       the remainder referred to maintenance issues

Here are examples of reviews in each category:

1.  Non-return of deposit

The reviewer: complained that, having spent the entire weekend cleaning the property, with his girlfriend, the agents had instructed professional cleaners and deducted the cost from the tenant’s deposit.

The business: responded by pointing out that the tenant’s contract stipulated professional cleaning and that this had been reinforced to the tenant by email two weeks before they were dues to vacate.

Result: both parties satisfied, no review posted – to HelpHound or to Google

2.  The reviewer: complained that their washing machine had broken down and that the agent had been slow to arrange maintenance (the review mentioned ‘several weeks’). They also complained that they had been asked to bear part of the cost of the replacement.

The business: the agent’s log and contractor’s invoices showed that the fault had been reported on a Friday and the engineer had attended on the following Monday to find that the tenant had accidentally washed an item of clothing containing a steel chain which had damaged the machine beyond repair.

Result: both parties satisfied, no review posted – to HelpHound or to Google

The key is: both the business's Dialogue module and Google now present a full and fair picture of this business to its prospective clients. Reviews stating errors of fact or unsubstantiated assertions help no-one.  The business’s clients are universally happy with the service provided by the business and by HelpHound. Everyone – the business, their customers (existing and prospective) and Google - wins.

A note on Google reviews:

The business has a right-of-reply (and we always recommend that our clients do so). Unfortunately Google have no way of arbitrating between reviewer and reviewed business, so the score attached to a negative review - inevitably one or two stars - stands, irrespective of the business's response.

An extreme example of this was a Google review of a London pub which asserted that the pub 'charged £6 for a pint of beer' and gave the pub one star. The pub responded to the review with the correct price, but the score stood - negatively impacting the pub's overall score.

Again: the point we are making is that Dialogue is fair to all concerned. It cannot make a business look better than it is. The reviewer is always invited to post a review - to Dialogue and to Google, whatever the outcome of Resolution. What Dialogue does do is prevent false or misleading reviews from making it into the public domain.