HelpHound - adding even more value in 2021

We are very proud indeed of what we continue to achieve for our clients, so here's our pitch to those businesses yet to join:

And broken down, phrase by phrase:

1.  'Quantifiably better off':

Professional review management pays off in so many ways; with some of these - staff morale and the like - you will simply be relying on feedback, both verbal and written, but with core business drivers such as calls and clicks through Google and your own website you will be able to see and track accurate numbers and uplifts.

You will be able to measure exactly how many more clicks and calls you receive. How? By referring to your monthly Google My Business report in the weeks and months after you join. Here's a screenshot of a typical client's report taken within weeks of joining:

To be clear: this GMB report shows an uplift in calls and clicks through Google for the month in question. The numbers are great (most businesses would probably be happy with uplifts like this over a year, let alone a month), and I'm sure your business would be happy with them; the best ever Google My Business report a client has ever shown us reported month-on-month uplifts of 169% and 950% respectively!

What value would your business place on an uplift in enquiries such as this? And if your business already looks great on Google? Read points 3, 6 and 7 that follow below with special care.

2.   'More enquiries through Google':

See above. And a great score + great reviews = more calls and more clicks = more leads = more business.

And see point 6 below: 'Looking great in all types of Google search'. It is also crucial your business looks good compared with its competitors without flouting the law (see point 7.)

3.  'More enquiries through your own website':

It's the number one objective of most business owners when they brief their web designers...

• 'generate more leads/enquiries/contacts'

It is also now a universally acknowledged truth that hosting independently verified reviews on your own website drives those enquiries (and reinforces all your other marketing). If in any doubt we suggest you speak to a HelpHound client - or, better still, try it for your own business (see the end of this article for a suggested trial). 

Just ask yourself 'How would our potential customers react to seeing independently verified reviews like those shown in this article on our website?' How could the response to that question be anything but 'positively'?

4.  'CRM enhanced':

Hosting a 'Write a review' button on your website has many CRM benefits: It allows all your stakeholders - customers, existing customers, past customers - to express their satisfaction with your service, publicly. It also gives those with an issue to resolve a non-confrontational way to contact you - in preference to simply resorting to posting a potentially damaging review direct to Google, for instance.

Built into HelpHound, unlike the major review sites (Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo etc.), is moderation: every single review that flows through our mechanism to your website and then on to Google is read and checked for factual inaccuracies and statements likely to mislead future customers. If we find either, or in some instances both, we refer back to the reviewer and the business so they can be corrected. This is hugely popular with both reviewers and businesses under review; it also makes the ultimate reviews so much more reliable for readers: your future customers.

5.  'Staff morale boosted':

This kind of review - on Google:

And this* - on the business's own website:

Who doesn't like seeing comments such as this? Besides being enormously reassuring for prospective customers (in this case patients of a Harley Street GP client of ours) comments like this tell staff that their services are valued in a way few other mechanisms can. 

And: would you rather have this comment in a private email, or on Google and your own website?

*We are sometimes asked why we allow reviewers to identify themselves by a first name or nickname. The reviews by 'Debra' above serve to illustrate this: would you post a review of a medically, legally or financially sensitive nature using your full name? No, of course not. Bear in mind that both we and Google have the reviewer's email address, and are therefore - in the case of HelpHound - able to contact them if needs be.

6.  'Great in all types of Google search':

Look at this local search:

Probably the most commercially important search of all for many businesses is local search: when a potential customer is most likely to be influenced by the business's reviews, review score and 'stars in search'. 

The three businesses in the Google 3-pack all look good, with the same scores and credible amounts of reviews. 

We generally advise clients to aim to achieve at least 50 Google reviews as quickly as possible, with 100 as the next target; just think from the reader/potential customer's point-of view: under 10 reviews: meaningless; 11-20: written by their friends and staff; 21-50: how difficult can it be to find that many happy customers? 100+ now we're talking.

The score/'rating' (4.8), reviews/'votes' (204) and five gold stars under Winkworth's organic listing are taken directly from the business's own website and from the reviews hosted there, not from their Google reviews and scores.

Now, we cannot guarantee a business will come anywhere in a given Google search, but what we can tell you is that...

• this client business had appeared as one of the three businesses (out of over twenty) in the Google three-pack for this location for over three years now

• it has led the results in natural - also known as organic - search for thirty-one of the last thirty-six months (and has come second or third for the remainder)

• it has been the only business with an attributed rating - the '4.9 - 212 votes' and accompanying stars, all derived from the reviews hosted on their own site for the overwhelming majority of that period

And this 'specific' search:

This is the kind of search performed by consumers when they need any information about a business. When they need to find the business's website or even its phone number. It is a great opportunity to impress and reinforce (and there's no coincidence that Google devotes so much of the search real estate to review and review scores; in this search alone reviews are highlighted by Google's use of gold stars no less than seven times).

Again: the 'Rating' (4.9) and the number of reviews (212) are pulled from the business's own reviews hosted on their own website - shown three times in this search, as distinct from their Google reviews (140) at the top of their Google knowledge panel on the right, most of which have also been reposted from the reviews written to their website. 

The 'Reviews from the web' link at centre right links directly through to the reviews hosted on the business's own website.

7.  'Compliant with the law':

It is illegal to selectively invite customers to write reviews. So businesses either flout the law and only invite customers who they know are most likely to write a 5* review or they shy away from inviting reviews altogether.

Those in the first category are inviting action by the CMA (and will lose business to competitors savvy enough to alert potential customers to their rule-breaking behaviour), those in the second are missing out on a fantastic marketing opportunity. HelpHound's independent moderation is the answer to both.

All a business needs to be instantly compliant is to have the 'Write a review' button you see at the top right above embedded in its website. The 'What is HelpHound' link at the bottom of this screenshot leads directly to a description of our relationship with the business under review. If you would like to see all of this in action just click here.

The next step

We urge you to spend just five minutes performing the two searches for the businesses referred to in this article...

• Winkworth estate agents in Blackheath
• The Harper Clinic in Harley Street

...so you can see the impact HelpHound has had on the impression created for those businesses on both Google and their own websites.

Then, if you are reading this and your business is yet to benefit from HelpHound's services we then suggest that you call or email to arrange to speak to one of our highly experienced staff (you won't be speaking to anyone with less than ten years experience of review management and HelpHound's services).

Further reading:

• Results - expanding on point 1
• Compliance - all you need to know about this crucial subject
• ABC of Reviews - index to all eleven chapters describing review management in detail.
• Moderation - protecting your business from all kinds of inaccurate or misleading - even fake - reviews
• Deflection - the unintended pitfalls and consequences of using a review site, as opposed to review management

Trustpilot or Google - where does the value lie?

Following on from Trustpilot v. HelpHound this article is illustrated with an example of why we focus our clients' efforts on Google. In today's Times we found the following article...

Including this...

So we searched for Latus Health, and it is those search results that make the watertight case for businesses to focus on Google reviews. Here's the basic search...

And here right below the main search...

And where are Trustpilot's reviews of Latus Health to be found? Here...at 14 (on page 2 in a desktop search and requiring a searcher to click on 'more results' on mobile):

Now, if you were Latus Health, which reviews, Google's or Trustpilot's, would be concerning you most? More importantly, suppose you were a great business wanting exposure through reviews, which would you choose?

Conclusion

Google reviews should form the core and bedrock of every business's review management strategy.

Action

If your current review strategy is focussed on a review site, be that Trustpilot or Feefo or any of the smaller sites you should be seriously considering switching to a Google-focussed strategy.

This doesn't necessarily mean walking away from your reviews on those sites, or the effort you have put in to generate them, but it will involve a complete reassessment of the way you and your staff have been approaching reviews up until now.

From now on

Your strategy will be dictated by the answer to the following questions:

1.  'Is your business vulnerable to inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews?'

If the answer is 'No' - you can simply begin inviting customers to post reviews straight to Google today.

If the answer is 'Yes' - or even 'Perhaps' - you should be speaking to us.

2.  'Is your business in a competitive market.'

If the answer is 'No': again, begin inviting your customers to write reviews to Google.

If the answer is 'Yes' and you need to have every possible advantage over your competitors, in terms of your ranking in local search, hosting reviews on your own website and boosting your SEO - you should be speaking to us.

Further reading...

• HelpHound v. Trustpilot
• A Trustpilot review is damaging your business - should you sue the reviewer?
• The Times criticises Trustpilot and three of its clients
• Trustpilot - what really makes it so attractive to businesses?

Trustpilot or HelpHound+Google - which adds the most value?

We are asked this question frequently enough to warrant this article, especially now that Trustpilot is a £1 billion quoted entity.

First - a brief outline of each business...

Trustpilot

An open reviews platform on which anyone with access to the web may write a review of any business.

What this means for consumers:

• they may write a review of any business at any time - invited or not
• they may write multiple reviews of the same business as often as you wish
• they may interrogate the site for reviews of businesses

What this means for businesses:

• anyone can write a review of your business at any time
• if there are currently no reviews of your business the act of searching for your business will initiate a Trustpilot listing
• you are entitled to respond to any reviews of your business
• you may ask Trustpilot to suspend reviews of your business pending 'proof of purchase' by the reviewer
• Trustpilot owns the reviews

HelpHound

A review manager: advising on and supplying 'best practice' solutions to businesses through a module hosted on the business's website.

What this means for consumers:

• they may write a review of the business at any time - invited or not
• each review they write will be moderated to ensure that it contains the minimum of factual inaccuracies and/or statements likely to mislead readers
• they can subsequently edit their review at any time
• they can read reviews of member businesses at any time

What this means for businesses:

• anyone can write a review of your business at any time
• each review will be moderated - read for factual inaccuracies of potentially misleading content - by one of our moderators
• the reviewer - irrespective of moderation - always has the right to have their review, no matter the content* - published
• the business may respond to each and every review
• all reviewers are automatically asked to copy their review to Google
• the business, not HelpHound, owns the reviews

*  'no matter the content: the UK CMA regulations specifically state that no barriers must be placed in the way of a reviewer's opinion, right or wrong, being posted. But they do allow for rejection of reviews on the grounds of 'foul language' and 'legally contentious content'. We always revert to the reviewer if their review falls into either of these categories and ask them to rephrase any offending content.

Key differentiators and commentary

1.  Visibility: Trustpilot reviews appear on the Trustpilot website and can be displayed on the business's website; HelpHound reviews appear on the business's website and on Google.

This means: that Helphound clients get their reviews to Google, not to a website - however large - that depends on the ever-changing Google algorithm for its visibility 

2.  Moderation: for professional and service businesses, is essential if potentially damaging inaccurate and/or misleading reviews are to be minimised.

This means: that our clients are fully compliant with UK law which states that no mechanism that prevents a genuinely held opinion from being published should be used. 

3.  Flexibility: if a business client of HelpHound needs to get reviews to another platform - including Trustpilot - at any time, now of in the future - they are able to do so.

This means: that businesses are not tieing themselves to a single inflexible solution and are therefore able to take a long-term view, and make a long-term commitment - to their review strategy.

4.  Cost: Google makes no charge for hosting reviews - the reviews themselves add so much value to Google's core offering they likely never will. So the only service a HelpHound client needs to pay for is our moderated module, and this can be discontinued at any time - any further advice is charged in the same way as any other professional adviser; HelpHound doesn't have contract periods - with the business retaining their reviews, both those on their site and on Google.  

This means: not being 'tied' to any review mechanism.

5.  Impact: Trustpilot places a massive emphasis on marketing with 'Rated excellent on Trustpilot' as a familiar strapline; this has led to considerable brand awareness for Trustpilot which may add value for product reviews, but the fact that Google reviews are so overwhelmingly predominant in both visibility and credibility makes Google our preferred solution for professional and service businesses. 

This means: we will consider Trustpilot - and Feefo and any other relevant review site for clients in [online] retail but for all others, Google wins. 

Proof of the pudding

We have a high-profile Plc client with over 100 locations in the UK. They have been pitched by just about every review solution available over the years that they have been clients of ours - including Trustpilot.

Interestingly, and partly because we had advised them to concentrate their efforts on their own website and Google, there had been a steady drip of mostly negative reviews to their Trustpilot listing. This is what they looked like at the turn of the year...

The businesss' customer relations was definitely not as bad as the impression created here, which was fine - as no-one much was looking

We canvassed their branches on behalf of their head office to see if this was having any noticeable impact. The answer was a resounding 'No'. Why? Because the Plc's Trustpilot listing - and therefore the negative image portrayed there, was not being shown for any of their critical Google searches**. But the Plc remained concerned that, although the negative reviews only represented less than one a year per location, the overall impression would not be great for anyone who did find their way to Trustpilot.

So what did we do? In conjunction with the Plc head office we conducted a month's 'blitz' to get reviews to Trustpilot (as well as to their own websites and Google as per usual, so 'in addition to' rather than 'instead of'). A month into this exercise their listing now looks like this...

But now, even if they do look - the score and rating have both improved, and the last forty or so reviews are all complimentary

And if you were wondering 'What a typical branch location for this business looks like', here's a sample...

...on Google...

...and on its own website. The above stars and score and 'votes' show under the business's listing on Google as well.

** If you would like us to walk you through these searches just drop us a line and we'll arrange to do so. For obvious reasons of client confidentiality, we cannot show specific examples here.

Further reading...

• Trustpilot v. Google - there's no contest

Get your review management up to speed before embarking on expensive advertising

 We see it more often than we should - and certainly more often than needs be. An advertisement like this...

That costs this...

Followed by this...

When we say 'followed by' what do we mean? We mean that many - most? - people who see an advertisement that catches their eye will immediately resort to Google to find out more. Even if they only need to find the company website or contact details, they will google the business, and then be served the business's Google score and the individual reviews underlying that score.

These days consumers are getting more and more review-savvy and that does not mean 'paying less attention to reviews'. Quite the opposite - surveys from the likes of Harvard Business Review and Forbes amonst many others show the numbers increasing steadily year by year. 

In 2017 eighty-four percent of consumers trusted online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from a friend. Now...

..it's 91 percent in the under thirty-four age group and a staggering 93 percent of all ages admit to 'being influenced by reviews'.

Now, we still meet sophisticated business people who say 'It doesn't matter - a Google score and reviews such as these...

...don't impact our business' and we - along with many respected marketing experts - would normally beg to differ...

But we find it so much easier to say 'Fine, but how much would you be prepared to do to see that score north of 4.5 and hundreds of glowing reviews*?'

Professional review management - it adds up, whichever way you look at it.

*Always assuming the business's current image conveyed by Google is as a result of a few disgruntled and far from representative customers.

The NHS and feedback - there is a better way

One of our staffers had occasion to pay a visit to a hospital this week. And guess what they saw? This...

Here's the form...

And this was next to the lifts...

How is this feedback collated? (Goodness knows). Is it visible to other patients? (not that we can see). Does it recieve a response? (No). Is it shown on their website? (No). Seriously? In 2021?

Let's look at another medical operation, a relatively recent client of ours:

This form can incorporate specific questions if required (and these can be varied over time)

All collated, scores recorded, incorporating a response mechanism, paperless, visible to all potential patients.

That last point is crucial: what does anyone considering medical treatment need more than almost anything else? Yes: reassurance. 

And as many as possible on Google as well:

Need we say more?

Reviews: never too late to adopt the right strategy

This article recently appeared in a trade publication...

Wow! 2,000 reviews. But where? To Google, where they would all be seen by everyone?

No - as the headline makes clear - to Trustpilot...

The core point is 'why Trustpilot?' or, even more pertinently 'why not Google?' It's the $64,000 dollar question that all Trustpilot's 20,000 paying subscribers should be asking themselves: 'what are we trying to achieve with reviews'?

Here are the questions all businesses should be asking when looking for a reviews solution...

• Will our reviews be visible to the most potential customers?
• Will our reviews be credible - and therefore trusted?
• Will our chosen reviews solution still be around in five/ten year's time?
• Will our solution incorporate a mechanism to enable us to avoid, as far as is legally possible, reputational damage?
• Will our solution, and its operation, be compliant with UK law?
• Will we own our own reviews?
• Will our solution be compliant with Google's terms of service?
• What will we be paying for, over and above Google's - free - offering?

Regular readers will know that we have, for many years now, recommeded that our clients focus on Google reviews alongside hosting their own reviews on their own website, whilst incorporating HelpHound's moderation. Simply put, that enables them to 'tick all the boxes' listed above. 

So why do websites like Trustpilot and Feefo exist? 

Again, the simple answer: they were around before Google became a major player in the reviews sphere; we sometimes use the 'railways and canals' analogy: just because railways came along didn't mean some people didn't still continue to use canals, even though they were demonstrably less efficient.

There is another reason: Google haven't monetised their reviews; they don't market a reviews solution. That leaves the way clear for the review sites' considerable salesforces. 

So let's conduct a test against the 'ideal' criteria listed above:

• Will our reviews be visible to the widest possible range of potential customers?

With Google? Yes. With any other solution - demostrably less so.

• Will our reviews be credible - and therefore trusted?

Google? Reviewers have an identity known to Google, and all their reviews are written under that identity, so the likelihood of a 'fake' review or reviewer is far lower with Google than with aany other solution.

• Will our chosen reviews solution still be around in five/ten year's time?

This question must be taken seriously. We have lost count of the review sites and aggregators that have come and gone from the UK - from the massive Yelp to tiny 'industry specific' sites such as RaterAgent. We reckon that Google reviews, being a core part of Google's current strategy, will pass the test of time.

• Will our solution incorporate a mechanism to enable us to avoid, as far as is legally possible, reputational damage?

Moderation, while 'nice to have' if your business sells products, is essential for service and professional businesses. A single inaccurate or misleading review has the power to stop the phones ringing for those in the latter category. Here is a case history.

• Will our solution, and its operation, be compliant with UK law?

Under UK law you have to demonstrate that you enable all of your customers to write a review. To be clear: 'cherry-picking' (as the regulators call the practise) happy customers to write reviews is illegal. This is the single most frequently quoted rason for not engaging with reviews.

• Will we own our own reviews?

By inviting your customers to post reviews to your own website you will own their reviews. Not so with review sites: they will own the reviews and the associated - very valuable -data.

• Will our solution be compliant with Google's terms of service?

Google specifically prohibit gating (the practice of filtering reviews via another review site or through a customer feedback mechanism). Businesses caught gating have all their reviews deleted.

• What will we be paying for, over and above Google's - free - offering?

With HelpHound? Almost certainly less than £200 a month.

 

So what should Brightstar have done?

How much more powerful if those stars were gold (Google)?

They should have focussed their strategy on Google and their own website. Just imagine if they had nearly 2,000 reviews in those two locations?

What should Brightstar - and any business in a similar postion today - do now?

Refocus towards Google; they have nothing to lose - they will retain their 2,000 reviews on Trustpilot - and can immediately begin building on their Google reviews whilst owning their own reviews on their own website into the bargain.

Trustpilot - what really makes it so attractive to businesses?

 

This infographic is the tip of a much larger - and, dare we say, more important - reviews iceberg. Spending on holidays, electronics and even male grooming may be important, but in terms of significance, we would suggest sectors such as health, finance, legal and property are far more likely to be injurious to consumers' health and wealth than most of those listed above. 

The essential truth, though, remains the same: consumers are influenced by reviews, so the CMA is dedicated to ensuring that reviews project a fair picture of the business under consideration and are not manipulated in the business's favour.

Regular readers will know that we have consistently recommended that businesses use Google as their destination of choice for customer reviews.

After all, if the businesses have reviews there they will...

• be seen by everyone
• have greater credibility 
• be visible there for the foreseeable future

And, above all, their impact will be measurable. Google reports on calls and clicks every month.

So - why would a business use any other system? We have covered this before, but since we last visited the subject evidence has been piling up.

Have a look at this screenshot...

What do we see? We see Trustpilot's much-vaunted 'quarantine' in action. The business in question has 'flagged' thirteen 1* reviews, we don't know the content of the reviews, but what we do know is that none of the thirteen reviewers couldn't be bothered to respond to Trustpilot when they were emailed requiring them to substantiate their review. 

What is unarguable is that thirteen 1* reviews have not seen the light of day.

This, on the face of it, would seem to be great for the business. Negative reviews harm businesses by reducing the number of potential customers who will click through to their website. But there is a major issue here. 

What issue?

The CMA regulations specifically state that businesses should 'Publish all reviews, including negative ones, provided they are genuine, relevant and lawful.'

The problem review sites have with this is that businesses resent paying review sites that then publish negative reviews. 

So? So they bend over backwards to allow businesses to challenge what they consider to be 'unfair' reviews. Trustpilot is not unique in this, but it does employ a unique mechanism: 'quarantine'.

Trustpilot's quarantine system

As you can see in the panel above, business members of Trustpilot have the ability to flag reviews. When a review is flagged Trustpilot will then contact the reviewer and require 'proof of purchase'. 

So far, so reasonable. But here is where the system plays in the business's favour. First of all, even genuine customers can either a) find it tiresome to hunt our proof of purchase and then send it to Trustpilot and/or b) have no 'proof of purchase' as their involvement with the business did not include such a thing (think 'customer who visited an estate agent/doctor/financial adviser/lawyer with a view to instructing/retaining them but did not do so as a result of an unsatisfactory experience at that first meeting').

In the real world, there is now overwhelming evidence that putting even this obstruction in the way of a reviewer will result in no review being posted. The CMA recognises this and directly addresses this in its open letter to businesses ...

Whilst we would be the first to accept that all of the above statements are open to interpretation we would urge businesses to ask themselves this one simple question...

"If we adopt this review solution will it enable us to deflect honestly held negative opinions of our business?"

And if the answer to that question is 'Yes' then we would respectfully suggest that the solution in question is non-compliant with the intent if not the letter of the regulations - the law.

This is not to say that no moderation whatsoever should be employed. One of the core aspects of our service to our clients here at HelpHound is moderation. But there is a key - and compliant - difference...

• with HelpHound, the reviewer always retains the right to have their review posted

This does not mean that the business has no opportunity to correct errors of fact or potentially misleading statements. HelpHound's moderation process is specifically designed to allow that to happen. What it does mean is that the reviewer can never be stopped from having their say - even if it is factually incorrect or has the potential to mislead readers.

The response function exists specifically to allow the business to correct both of those if the reviewer does not do so during the moderation process. 

It is this function that makes HelpHound watertight from a compliance point of view - and, just as importantly, credible to users of our system and our clients' customers.

To summarise

Here is Trustpilot's own entry on its own website; 1,840 reviews have been removed from the site simply because the reviewer 'didn't respond to Trustpilot's request to resolve the breach of Trustpilot's guidelines' without any further clarification from Trustpilot as to the content of the review and the issues it found contentious.

The Trustpilot system is open to abuse. For the simple reason that businesses soon understand that few flagged reviews ever return to the site.

If a review system is open to abuse it fails the core test as far as consumers are concerned: credibility. This, in turn, causes unease amongst the regulators. And anyone who doubts this contention can easily search 'Trustpilot reviews' and see that consumers - even those commenting on Trustpilot itself - have severe questions about this (currently 18% of reviews of Trustpilot on Trustpilot rate them 'poor' or 'bad').

On top of this, Google reviews are free! So, added to the advantages of credibility and visibility, Google wins hands down on price as well. All a business needs to add is an independent moderator such as HelpHound.