Reviews in 2023 - the key indicators

Consumer reviews is a fast-moving marketplace - in every sense. In this article we will take a very useful post  - by US company Reviewtrackers - and examine (and comment upon) every point.  If you only read one article about reviews this year we recommend it be this one.

HelpHound comment: Given that Yelp is mostly used to find eateries (and overwhelmingly in the US at that - having withdrawn from the UK and EU) and Tripadvisor those plus travel, accommodation and leisure activities, then it is Google's presence in the review space that we are concerned with on behalf of our own marketplace of the professions and service-oriented businesses. 

If that's taken as a given then we can safely assume that Google's dominance rises to at least 90%. It's also worth bearing in mind that Google's share of the search market now extends to 85% of searches worldwide and a full 96% in the UK. So it's not just where reviews are written that is of concern for businesses; it's where they are most likely to be read. The answer to both, thankfully, is Google.

HelpHound comment: the same as for 'Google is the review site of choice' above. Businesses should clearly concentrate on Google reviews above all others (in fact, except in special circumstances: to the exclusion of all others) - simply because that's what their potential customers are doing - both reading and writing. On top of that, Google reviews are free and are far more credible than reviews from other sources.

HelpHound comment: it's early days but we think the answer is twofold: first, the dramatic rise in working from home. Consumers are using some of their reclaimed 'commuting time' to better research purchasing decisions. Secondly, the steep rise in inflation and mortgage interest rates has made consumers much more careful in their choices - especially where critical (health, legal, financial) and big-ticket (purchases in the £000s, such as property) items are concerned.

HelpHound comment: this is certainly the case where businesses either a) don't invite reviews at all or b) don't request reviews in the correct manner (by text is a prime example - text requests for reviews tend to elicit text-type reviews). If reviews are asked for in the correct manner they will actually be longer than average - and therefore much more helpful (and convincing) for potential customers and the business under review.

HelpHound comment: We always recommend that all reviews should be treated in the same way as any communication from a valued customer. What business would ignore such a  communication via email or a phone call for days? Or not respond at all? Aside from the etiquette aspect, the ability to respond to a review, on the business's own website or on Google, brings an excellent opportunity to highlight positives and explain negatives that should never be missed. 

There is one very important statistic here '94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.' Well-written negative reviews are very dangerous indeed, so dangerous that we christened them 'killer reviews' years ago. They can literally stop the phones ringing - here are two examples, one for a small business in Cornwall, a case that made the national media, where we were able to successfully appeal the review to Google and have it removed and another for a business - not a client of ours - that made the fundamental error of suing a reviewer in open court; the collateral damage caused by a single review (interestingly the court agreed and awarded damages to the business) was vastly outweighed by the attendant publicity generated by the media coverage of the case, which caused far more damage in the longer term.

HelpHound comment: it's self-evident - industry leaders look like industry leaders online. This rarely happens by accident, it involves developing a concerted and continuing strategy that runs from top to bottom through senior management to every single member of staff in any way involved with the business's CRM. What rarely occurs is a regulatory audit*: this involves ensuring that such a strategy does not contravene the CMA regulations - such contravention provides competitors with an easy answer to a business's glowing Google score. 

*HelpHound provides this service.

HelpHound comment: this is a very broad-range finding. Our experience - of managing reviews for the professional and service sector for over ten years - definitely shows that the closer a business can get to the 'Perfect 5.0' the more calls and clicks it will achieve through Google. We have never - ever - had a call from a client business suggesting that their review score has become so good that they are losing credibility in the marketplace. On the contrary, we take on many businesses that already score over 4 out of 5 but understand the need to minimise factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews in order to improve their scores.

HelpHound comment: as we only work on behalf of pure service or service-oriented businesses (such as the professions, medical, legal, financial services or estate agency, for instance) we have always known that reviewers focus heavily on the customer service aspect of any transaction.

HelpHound comment: show us a business with over 50 Google reviews* that scores 5.0 and we'll show you a business that's in breach of the CMA regulations. Put plainly: that business will be breaking the law. Our very best clients - and all of our clients are dedicated to the highest levels of customer service, that's why they employ Helphound - score 4.9. There's always going to be one!

*that is not a client of ours!

HelpHound comment: There's absolutely no doubt about this one: consumer scepticism about Google reviews evaporates at about the fifty mark. Comments such as 'I bet they just asked staff and friends to post reviews' fall away at that point. All our client businesses are able to assess the success of our involvement by tracking the number of calls and clicks they receive every month. 

It's very simple: get more reviews with a higher average score and your business will win more leads and customers. To do this a business needs to stop taking three paces forward - getting ten 5* reviews - and one step back - a factually inaccurate or plain 'unfair' 1* review. Only a moderated review system can achieve this with any degree of certainty - see point 2. below.

Three further key comments

Great - possibly - for online retail; disastrous for professions and service-oriented businesses

1.  Review sites other than Google should be avoided at all costs ('cost' being the operative word: not just the monthly cost of the review site in question - Google reviews are free - but the cost of the lost opportunity to shine in Google reviews). Below is a paragraph taken directly from a review site's annual report to its shareholders. Our loose translation is that they are saying that as they have lots of business customers in the UK already they are making hay by exploiting the natural instinct of businesses to emulate their competitors. Fair enough, but every business that follows on is missing one of the very best marketing opportunities there is: moderated Google reviews (again, see point 2.). 

 

This article deals expressly with the considerable - and invariable - damage done by directing reviews anywhere but to Google (unless the business concerned is only involved in online retail and any ones stars, on the website and associated marketing, will do, in which case carry on with [XYZ review site] and their blue/green/yellow/red stars).

2.  Reviewtrackers don't mention review moderation, simply because the only moderated review management system currently available is in the UK. And you’re on its blog currently!

Moderation protects businesses and consumers alike from factually inaccurate and potentially misleading reviews, not to mention just plain 'unfair' ones. The No.1 reason given by businesses that haven’t yet engaged with reviews is fear of such reviews. Moderation can’t provide a 100% guarantee against such reviews but to date we reckon our system resolves well over 95% of them before they’re published.

This article explains how moderation enables good businesses to shine - legitimately and in compliance with the law - in Google reviews.

Which of the businesses above benefits from moderation? Which leads consistently in Google local searches? Which receives more clicks and calls? Which saves most on Google Ads? Which is a HelpHound client?

3.  Proof. It's the first, last and - as the song goes - everything. But it is strangely lacking in most review sites' marketing to their business audience. Rareley, if ever, do they quote actual numbers for lead and business uplift.

A snapshot of a client's Google report - from the first full month after joining HelpHound. Yes - results can be that fast!

Not so here at HelpHound. Clicks up? We - and Google - will tell you by exactly how many. Calls through your Google listing - stats available month on month. Impact on the quality of your customers similarly improved? For this, and some independent numbers on the quality of business generated by Professional Review Management, read this article.

Review moderation - the essential ingredient in professional review management

We refer to moderation in most articles, because it is central to what we do for our clients. In this article we will walk you through the process, to make completely clear the difference between using a moderated review management system and inviting customers to post unmoderated reviews direct to any review platform.

Before we go on to discuss moderation and its [positive] impact on our clients' online reputations let us first make one thing absolutely crystal clear: a single well-crafted review - fair or not - can literally stop the phones ringing. Saying 'We hardly ever get a negative review, so we might as well ask our clients/patients/customers to post direct to Google' may work out fine for months, even years, but the panic calls we receive from great businesses saying 'We have just had a single grossly unfair/inaccurate/misleading Google review and it's severely impacting the number of calls and clicks we achieve.' says precisely the reverse. And please bear in mind that HelpHound's monthly fee for what you hope you will agree after reading this article is an essential service (often described by clients as 'insurance for our hard-won reputation) is roughly the hourly rate charged by most businesses in our marketplace (actually, often considerably less).

If you have any doubts whatsoever please look at this....

We estimate that for every reader that clicks on the thumbs-up button at least another ten to fifteen have read the review and acted on it. That's 200-300 fewer enquiries and the number could be a quantum higher. No one will ever know, but we do know that this review will have had a negative impact on new business flows for the business concerned

...and read this shocking tale of how a single review impacted a law firm from the south of England so badly that they felt compelled to take the reviewer to court.

What is moderation?

The word itself has many meanings. Here's what the Oxford Dictionary says...

But, while the OED currently ignores the common web usage of the word, Wikipedia comes closer...

And here's the first mention of moderation on our blog, from over ten years ago.

So, here's our definition...

• Moderation is the act of reading a review before publication to ensure that it contains...

• no factual inaccuracies - reviews containing errors of fact help no one
• nothing that may potentially mislead a reader - for the same reason 
• understandable written English

So what happens in practical terms?

If our moderator - a human, not a computer programme or an algorithm - identifies any of the above (which requires a measure of understanding of our client's business) the following happens...

1. the review is sent to both the reviewer and the business under review, simultaneously, with an accompanying note from our moderator, highlighting the issue that has been identified
2. the reviewer and the business are then invited to respond to our moderator
3. Our moderator will then share those responses with both parties
4. The reviewer is then given three options...
1. To have their original review published
2. To modify their review and then have it published
3. To decide not to have a review published
5. If either options 4.1 or 4.2 are chosen by the reviewer then they will automatically be asked to copy their review to the business's chosen review site (invariably Google)

N.B. Unlike one prominent review site, HelpHound does not publish reviews contingent upon proof of purchase by the reviewer. The CMA regulations clearly state that barriers such as this must not be placed in the way of a reviewer attempting to publish their genuinely held opinion. In practice - and we have well over ten years of experience to back this up - we find that well over ninety per cent of reviews subject to moderation are modified by the reviewer, in favour of the business. After all, in spite of what the most cynical may think, reviewers seldom want to have erroneous opinions published.

The process you see above is the only legally compliant way for a business to minimise harmful factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews.  

 

Here are examples of strategies currently used by UK businesses to minimise negative reviews, accurate or not - all of these are illegal:

• hand-picking satisfied customers to invite to write reviews
• pre-qualifying customer opinions to identify those satisfied customers - often by using customer surveys and questionnaires
• having friends and families of staff write reviews
• incentivising customers to write 5* reviews - we have seen examples of Amazon and M&S vouchers and plain old-fashioned cash used as incentives

We would go so far as to say that about 75% of businesses with over 100 reviews, on whatever platform, have employed one or more of the strategies outlined above.

The CMA regulations - see them, accompanied by our analysis here - apply to all UK businesses. They expressly forbid all the strategies above. So what makes HelpHound's moderators' interventions compliant with the CMA regulations? First: the express invitation at the end of the moderation process to have whatever review the reviewer wishes published. Second: the automated invitation to copy the review to Google. And third?

The red ellipse, above, highlights two buttons, each leading to a crucial aspect of the moderation process...

1. The '[505] reviews' button, which enables anyone to read all of the business's reviews (and choose to read them by latest, best, or worst) and then ...

2. The 'Write a review' button, which allows anyone to write a review of and to the business at a time of their own choosing...

Neither of these prevents the business from proactively inviting reviews (by email or at POS, for instance), from all its customers or, critically, from selected customers, because the business is in compliance with the law - the CMA regulations - by having this standing invitation on its website.

A Case History

We have one client who to date has had over 70 cases through Resolution (across multiple branches). Only four of these have resulted in a final published review, either on their website or on Google. They currently score between 4.7 and 4.9 on their own branch websites (with over 800 reviews there) and between 4.7 and 5.0 on Google (with over 600 reviews there). It goes without saying that this is a well-managed and thoroughly consumer-focused business - as HelpHound clients tend to be, by definition.

In Conclusion

Here's what that client looks like in Google search...

Important Note

What follows is the key to HelpHound's service, so we feel it bears repetition: while the CMA regulations make it abundantly clear that 'cherry-picking' customers (their words) - and/or gating (the practice of pre-qualifying customers before inviting them to write a review) is illegal, this does not mean that a business must reach out to every customer or stakeholder to proactively invite them to write a review - to their website, to Google or to any other location.

What the regulations do require is that any business that is going to selectively invite reviews has a mechanism to allow any customer to write a review at a time of their own choosing.

Here is that mechanism - and it appears in a very similar format on every HelpHound client's website

There you have it: everything you could want from reviews - your own, on your own website (that's where the 4.9 rating and the five gold stars from 505 reviews come from under their organic listing - they're from their own reviews hosted on their own website, not from their Google reviews), then copied to Google, all in compliance with UK (and EU) law, and without putting your hard-won reputation at risk by exposing your business to factually inaccurate, potentially misleading or just plain unfair reviews. 

If you have any more questions about moderation, and how it can benefit your business, please don't hesitate to contact us, if you would like to see examples of concrete results - increased calls and clicks - call us or read this article.

The psychology of reviews

We spend a lot of time telling you the facts about reviews and review management, but what about the psychology underlying consumers' interaction with reviews? With well over a decade's experience moderating thousands of reviews every month, here is the distillation of those imponderables that results in HelpHound's review solution standing head-and-shoulders above the rest.

1.  Scores matter

This is a screenshot of a business's Google My Business (GMB) monthly report, one month after full implementation of HelpHound's review management system. It shows just how many potential customers clicked through to the business's website or called the business having found its listing on Google. It also shows the dramatic uplift in those clicks and calls at a traditionally very quiet time of year for their sector.

When we meet businesses for the first time they will do all they can to justify or excuse their [Google] score. We hear all of the following...

• 'No one ever says they wouldn't use us because of our low score or the negative reviews underlying it.'
• 'Scoring 5.0 - or even near to 5.0 - means a business is manipulating the system, we're sure consumers aren't attracted to such businesses.'
• 'We get all our business by word-of-mouth, so our Google score doesn't really matter.'
• 'We welcome negative reviews.'

The psychology:

Believe it or not, consumers overwhelmingly do want to deal with perfect businesses - or as near perfect as they can find. A business scoring 5.0 will get more clicks and calls than a business scoring 4.9. A business scoring 4.9 will get many more than a business scoring 4.6. Guaranteed*. No one calls a business to tell it that they've been put off contacting it by their negative reviews, but any business that thinks negative reviews don't deflect calls and clicks is deluding itself. Even word-of-mouth customers, however highly recommended by friends or colleagues who have used the business, will be put off by low Google scores and the attendant negative reviews.  And, by the way, the second response - 'manipulating...' is often correct. Read on to hear more about that.

* 'Guaranteed'? Yes. And we - and you - can proove it. Try HelpHound for six months and if you GMB monthly report is not showing an uplift in calls and clicks then we'll refund your joining fee.

2.  Responses matter

So many businesses either don't bother to respond at all or only respond to negative reviews. 

The psychology:

Consumers read responses. Those responses, if worded carefully, can turn a browser into a potential customer, even if it's a response to a negative review. Perhaps most important of all, when a disgruntled customer is looking to post a negative review, seeing that the business will inevitably respond will keep that customer's review genuine. Many people are initailly tempted to exaggerate when posting a negative review, just to support their 1* rating - that's only human nature - but seeing that their review will definitely elicit a response will inevitably temper that exaggeration (and often it will mean they decide not to post at all).

3.  Review sites are a waste of a business's time and money

So often we hear 'We score 4.9 on [Trustpilot/Feefo/Yelp/Reviews.io]'. And that's unsurprising given just how many advertisements reference them: 'We're rated excellent on [review site].'

Trustpilot? Oh yes - it makes it onto this chart...

So: it's Google reviews all the way - visibility plus credibility.

The psychology:

The - very basic - psychology of reviews, from a business's point-of-view, is as follows: 'We have few/negative reviews: reviews are rubbish and no one pays a blind bit of attention to them.' or the exact opposite: 'We have many positive reviews: reviews are the life blood of our business.' But then there's the subset: the business that has accepted that reviews are a 'good thing' but has been sold an alternative to Google reviews. We think the chart above answers that question, but it has not prevented tens of thousands of businesses subscribing to the likes of Trustpilot - at a minumum of £200 a month. The logic? Part copying near competitors, part just being 'sold' by the review site.

Consumers love reviews, and rely on them, especially when making vital choices - medical, financial, legal and big-ticket (property purchase, for instance). But they can only be influenced by two kinds of review...

• reviews they see - and Google reviews show in every search on every business, review sites' reviews rarely feature in search
• reviews they trust - and Google reviews are trusted more than any other (and with good reason - their reviewers are traceable to an individual Google user). 

4. Negative reviews hurt businesses

We've already touched on this: consumers - a significant proportion - trust Google reviews. Fact. Just look at how many people write Google reviews, would they do so if they thought their review would not be seen and trusted? A single well-written negative review can literally strangle a business. It has the power to stop the phones ringing and the clicks coming. If you have any doubts whatsoever please read this and this.

The psychology:

We meet so many business people who minimise the impact of negative reviews. Of course they do - who wants to believe that a negative review of their business is going to cause significant financial harm? But they do. Sometimes at the margin, sometimes in ways that stop a business dead in its tracks. Because consumers do trust them. 

Business people owe it to themselves, their colleagues and their potential customers to do everything in their power to ensure that the absolute minimum of factually incorrect or potentially misleading reviews ever make it as far as Google.

But here we come to another crucial point: show us a business scoring 4.8 or better with 100+ reviews and we'll show you a business that is flouting  - intentionally or unwittingly - one of more of the CMA's regulations. Why? Because they know they need a great score but they are worried that by complying with the law - by allowing all of their customers to write a review - they will attract factually inaccurate, potentially misleading or just plain unfair negative reviews.

 

Another point: the higher the Google score the more a business's negative reviews will be read. Why? Because consumers will filter out all the low(er) scoring businesses by just looking at their score, only when they have a 'shortlist' of high-scoring businesse will they begin to read the reviews - and always 'Lowest' first.

So, for the solution, on to point 5.

 

5.  Moderation is vital

Allowing reviewers to post reviews directly to your website is the only way to benefit from moderation. We cannot stress this enough. If a business invites customers to post reviews direct to Google they risk severe harm (of the kind linked to at the end of the first paragraph of point 4. A business may be perfect, but all of its customers most certainly won't be. 

Most mechanisms businesses use to mitigate against this kind of review are illegal, at least in the UK (it is against the law to only invite reviews from known 'happy' customers and it is equally illegal to pre-qualify customers before inviting them to write reviews - by sending them a questionnaire, for instance).

The psychology:

If you accept points 1 to 4, then you know you owe it to your business to adopt moderated review management. Even if that only prevents one really harmful review a year from appearing in a Google search it will have been more than worth the effort - and expense; emotionally and psychologically business people, especially business owners - who are, by their very nature, totally invested in their business's reputation - are inclined to minimise the impact of negative reviews. But that is to run contrary to all the available evidence. Moderation is variously described by our clients as...

• 'the best insurance against unfair reviews a business can buy'
• 'the only way we can ensure we sleep at night, free from the fear of waking to an unfair Google review'
• 'dry cleaning for our reviews'

And, maybe even more importantly, it is valued by your customers. It often surprises businesses, when they see moderation in action, that it is universally actively welcomed by their customers, especially when they realise that it is designed to help them write an accurate review - rather than prevent them haveng their honestly held opinion published.

And one footnote...

Flouting the law is unnecessary  

Your business is unlikely, on the CMA's performance to date, to be prosecuted by the CMA for breaking its core rules...

• by not allowing all your customers to post a review 
• by controlling the timing of those reviews

And businesses often, quite understandably, say to us 'But [our competitor] has been flouting the CMA regulations for years and has received no sanction, why shouldn't we?' Our answer to that is - and always has been - if you can tell your competitor is up to no good - cherry-picking and/or gating - in order to maintain their ranking in search and their Google score, then you need to bear in mind that they - and other competitors - will be equally able to tell if you do so, and that's a very dangerous weapon to hand a competitor. 

That little button ringed in red on the business's website ensures complete compliance with the CMA regulations for our clients; it is also one of the most powerful sales tools they have.

Being able to say to potential customers that 'we enable all of our customers to write a review at a time of their own choosing' is, on the other hand, a very powerful sales tool indeed.

Conclusion

The psychology of reviews is simple: enough of your potential customers trust - indeed rely heavily on - Google reviews to make it vital that your business finds the very best mechanism for maximising your score and minimising the number of unfair negative reviews you receive.

HelpHound is that mechanism. The fact that we can also help you boost your SEO and add huge value to your existing customer relationship management is a welcome bonus, but our core offering will always remain the same: HelpHound will allow you to present your business to the world in the best possible light. Compliantly. 

Further reading...

• Results - backing up our promise of success

Deflection - it's hurting so many businesses

We first coined the term 'Deflection' back in 2017 to describe what happens when a business actively invites its customers to write reviews to a review site, as opposed to (or even as well as) Google. So often the business's happy customers will do just what they are asked to do, whether face-to-face or by email: write a review to that review site. So far so good? Well, no actually.

Let's take an example: ScS Sofas. We've all seen their advertising and there's a fairly good chance that you're reading this article sitting on one of their products! Why have we chosen ScS? Because the proof that deflection is hurting their brand very badly in local search - and who searches for a sofa supplier outside their locality? -  is so concrete that it's as near to irrefutable as it could be.

First: look at their chosen review site - Trustpilot...

...how much better could you possibly want your business to look? A score of 4.8 out of 5 from nearly half a million reviews.

So what is the problem? You guessed it: deflection. By inviting happy customers to write reviews to Trustpilot - in-store mainly, immediately post-purchase - they are getting almost all of their positive reviews posted to Trustpilot. So what's wrong with that? 

The purpose of reviews, as far as the business is concerned - is to do two things...

1. Bring customers conducting an initial web search to the business's website and to their physical stores
2. Reinforce the sale - 'Half a million customers can't be wrong'

But what actually happens when a consumer performs the two most overwhelmingly common searches? This...

For 'Sofa'...

For 'ScS'...

But surely the Trustpilot reviews show up in searches? Well, no, not really (actually they do, but halfway down page 3 of a Google search - which is akin to not showing in search at all).

But back to deflection. Why the disjoint between Trustpilot and Google scores. The answer is simple: unhappy customers are posting their reviews to Google. We have just shown one location, but we can assure you that the experience is replicated across just about every one of ScS's 97 other locations.

And the answer? Focus on Google. Apart from anything else the business's score on Trustpilot is just about bulletproof with that many reviews, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be on Google too. Add moderation from an independent review manager such as HelpHound and the business will benefit from this positive triple-whammy...

1. HelpHound moderation will reduce to a bare minimum the number of factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews that are posted to Google or anywhere else
2. The business will own its own reviews - they contain extremely valuable data
3. The business will benefit from the SEO kicker that comes from hosting its own reviews - as well as the stars in search you see below...

Those 501 reviews are the business's own, every one moderated by HelpHound and hosted on the business's website, and it is they, not the business's Google reviews, that generate those stars in local search

In summary

HelpHound's moderation gives business's the confidence to invite reviews direct to their own website and then straight on to Google. If your business is looking for a safe and secure solution to reviews, with immediate and measurable short-term benefits (more calls, clicks and visits) and long-term positive results then look no further.

Further reading

No matter what your line of business, if there is an element of customer service involved, HelpHound is the proven review management service you need. Here is an article that goes into depth about the kind of results that we will - notice we say 'will', not 'can' - produce for your business.

Purplebricks - and what its experience with reviews can teach us

If 

If ever there was any doubt as to the credibility of review sites, especially when compared with Google reviews, the sorry Purplebricks saga has put an end to it. Here is a link to this article.

From their inception, review sites have been a major plank of Purplebricks' marketing, as they are for many businesses. The crucial question is 'Should they - review sites, as opposed to Google - be?' or is there a better alternative? Let's see...

Here they are, today, on their own website...

Here on Feefo...

And on Trustpilot...

Why would Purplebricks - or any other business - use a review site?

The answer, we are afraid, is simple: it allows the business a degree of control over the following...

• who is allowed to/invited to write a review: in order to write a review on Feefo you must receive a unique invitation from the business to be reviewed with an embedded link, for Trustpilot just the invitation (it is possible to visit Trustpilot to leave a review, and some people do, but most that don't receive that invitation and want their voices heard head straight to Google)
• the date of that invitation

So: your business cares - quite rightly - about its online reputation. You look at the 'advantages' listed above and your first reaction? 'Great, we can control who writes reviews.' Unfortunately, that has two far-reaching consequences...

1. It is illegal - it is in direct contravention of the UK's CMA's regulations which specifically state that 'a business that actively invites reviews must allow all of its customers to write a review' and that 'the business must not control the timing of the writing of that review.'
2. It results in what - back in 2018 - we christened 'deflection'. It drives uninvited dissatisfied customers to write their reviews direct to Google.

So what does Purplebricks look like on Google?

It is also an unfortunate truth for businesses that employ review sites that Google reviews, in over 98 percent of cases, feature far more prominently in searches. They are shown front and centre for just about every business search.

Just look at this - or search for your own business...

What does the searcher see? Trustpilot reviews? No. Feefo reviews? No. Google reviews? You bet!

'But...' - we hear you say (and it is a big 'But') 'We have no control over who writes a Google review, and no recourse once a Google review, however unfair it may be, is written.' 

Funnily enough, this is where HelpHound comes in. Our core offering is moderation. 

What, exactly is moderation? It means first inviting the review to the business - via its website; this enables the independent moderator - Helphound, in this instance, - to check the review for factual errors or statements likely to mislead future readers. Far less than five percent of the reviews we see require moderation, but when they do it is often crucial: misunderstandings over billing, blaming the business when a third party was actually at fault, and so on. Reviews that, if published - either on the business's website or on Google (and we ask reviewers to do both - and about 50% do) can do untold harm, both to the business and to the consumer that may be put off using a business that is ideally suited to their needs.        

How do we enable businesses to comply with the CMA regulations and look good at the same time? The simplest answer is that we only work for great businesses, but even great businesses need moderation - because customer/client/patient misunderstandings will always arise. If you look at this example you will see what we mean: here's the business - a client of ours...

...and we know them well. They are a very experienced and dedicated team. But just once in a while, even they get a review that our moderators have cause to query - and in every case since they joined five years ago the review has either been re-written by the client before it was published or withdrawn. 

Once reviews are published on their website (498 there to date) the reviewer is automatically asked - by HelpHound - to copy their review to Google. As you can see 284 have done so. The combination of the business's professionalism and our moderation has them listed as the top business in their sector in local search (also helped, no doubt, by the SEO kicker provided by hosting their own reviews on their website). 

Most important of all, our moderation gives them the added confidence to invite reviews in the first place, in the certain knowledge that factually incorrect or potentially misleading (and, ultimately, potentially damaging) reviews will be challenged and - for the most part - corrected. 

And, by having the standing invitation on their website - see above - they comply with the law. They don't have to proactively ask 'Mr Angry' to write a review, but he can click and post one if he wants. That way at least they - and he - will benefit from moderation (you might be surprised to see just how many messages we see coming back from the reviewer - in private - saying things like 'Thanks for putting me straight' and 'I'm glad I had the opportunity to understand [X] before my review was published').

Conclusion

We are not suggesting that Purplebricks would have thrived as a business if it had focussed on Google reviews, just that it would at least have had reviews from those with a positive experience there for consumers to see. Moderation cannot magically make reviews from consumers who have had a negative experience go away, and nor should it, but, as we have said above, it does give the business the confidence to invite its customers to post reviews to Google.

The core message is that if reviews are important to your business, and if you are in the service sector: financial, legal, medical, marketing, recruitment and so on, they will be, we provide the most up-to-date, proven (see 'Results' below) and effective review management platform available today. And it won't cost your business the earth - almost certainly less than an equivalent business would be paying Feefo or Trustpilot.

Further reading...

• Moderation - a full description

• Results - in hard numbers

• Back to Basics - the ABC of review management

• Compliance - the CMA rules

Google reviews - back to basics

We have not published a 'back to basics' article for quite a while, but judging by our day-to-day experience, plenty of businesses will still welcome it. Please persevere, even if you think the first one or two topics are pretty basic - getting the basics right, as we all know, is just as important as understanding the finer points. So here goes.

What are Google reviews - and why are they so important?

At a glance - a great score from a credible number of reviews and excellent Google rich snippets

1.  Google reviews are the first opinions a potential customer will see of your business. Always. They will appear in every single web search on your business name - even if the customer is simply looking for your telephone number or address. It is a mistake to think that reviews are only read by those actively looking for them. 

2.  Like it or not, they are read by anyone and everyone who interacts with your business. Ask any customer/patient/client (we'll simply call them 'customers' from here on in) and they will confirm this, from the patient in the dentist's chair to the divorcee in the lawyer's office. And they are read more the more high-value the service you provide. Selling toasters? A high review score will shift products but the individual reviews themselves will convince someone to at least make first contact with a doctor, financial adviser, solicitor or estate agency.

3.  They are believed. Not all of them, but consumers nowadays have learned to take a business's headline score as a shorthand way of whittling down their options. Your competitors score 4.8 and your business scores 4.6? Your competitor will get more enquiries than you do. Verifiable fact (verifiable by reference to your monthly Google My Business statistics).  The difference between having a great Google score with great reviews - not always one and the same thing - will make the difference in getting serious volumes of customer enquiries through Google to very few, or even none at all.

What are the most common mistakes that businesses make with Google reviews?

1.  They don't take them seriously. We call this 'review denial'. Expressions such as 'What kind of [blank] writes a Google review?' or 'Who would believe a Google review?' and 'Who chooses a business on the basis of their reviews?' are still heard around boardroom tables in 2023.

2.  They don't take the quality of their reviews seriously. They are happy with one-liners or simple ratings (reviews with scores but no content). Consumers search out and value detailed well-written reviews. 

3.  Businesses don't respond to their Google reviews and if they do they often only respond to critical reviews. Besides being plain good manners, responding to every one of a business's reviews is proven to reduce the incidence of negative reviews.

What alarms businesses about engaging with Google reviews?

1.  The very points made above: that Google reviews are highly visible and credible and, as a result, they can dramatically impact lead flow through search - add to this the fact that it is extremely difficult to get a Google review removed (unless it is demonstrably and provably factually incorrect - and even then it's a struggle) then we begin to understand why some businesses will either game the system - often going so far as to break the law - or retreat into the above mentioned denial and not engage with Google reviews at all.

2.  Conforming with the law. In the UK the law states that a business that invites any customers at all to write a review must allow all of its customers to do so. It also states that the business cannot control the timing of the review. It takes a brave business to allow all of its customers to write a review.

How does HelpHound enable businesses to reconcile all of these factors - both positive and negative?

In a word? Moderation. Given that a business cannot opt out of Google reviews it has to find the best practicable solution that takes all of the above into account...

• one that allows all of a business's customers to write a review
• at a time of their own choosing

That's step one. After all, adopting a system outside the law...

• by cherry-picking (selecting known happy customers to write a review)
• and/or by gating (sending out a customer survey to establish which customers are happy before only inviting those to write a review)

...not only invites legal sanction by the CMA but plays right into the hands of competitors (after all, there's probably no more powerful disincentive to doing business than the knowledge that the business in question has illegally massaged its image).

So: back to moderation. What - exactly - is it? It is the act of reading a review pre-publication to ensure, as far as is legally possible, that the review contains no errors of fact or wording that may be likely to mislead a reader. Here's the process...

From the 'Write a review' button on the right all the benefits of professional - moderated - review management flow

1.  The business emails their customer inviting them to write a review to be published on their website - or the customer sees the invitation to write a review on the business's website (see example above - even look up Shepherds' website - and see what they look like in search).

2.  The customer writes their review and submits it.

3.  The review is read by a moderator. By definition that moderator must be independent of the business (yes, this is where HelpHound comes in).

4.  If the review contains no factual inaccuracies or misleading statements it is published to the business's own website and an automated email is sent to the reviewer inviting them to copy the review to Google. This applies to over 95% of all reviews.

5. If there are issues with the content of the review the moderator will inform the reviewer and the business, simultaneously. This happens in the case of less than 5% of all reviews and in 97% of those cases the review is either withdrawn by the reviewer or revised and then published. In less than 3% of cases is no resolution arrived at and in those cases the original review is published (with the business having a right-of-reply).

This is the aspect of our service that provides all the reassurance businesses need to fully engage with reviews. From the numbers above you can see that the chances of an 'unfair' review being published about a business are vanishingly small compared with inviting reviews in a legally compliant manner to Google direct - 3 percent of 5 percent: roughly 1.5 in a thousand.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

For more about HelpHound and our services to professional high-value service businesses please don't hesitate to call us on 020 700 2233.

Further reading...

• Results and some hard numbers