4.9 is the new 4.5

In 2020 a Google score of 4.5 was OK, in fact it was more than just OK. That is no longer the case - for service businesses and the professions anyway. For our reasoning please read on...

The way consumers use reviews is constantly evolving. Over the last ten years the major shift has been away from Facebook (now less than 1% of online reviews) and the review sites (altogether then likes of Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo, Yell, and Reviews.io make up less than 20%) towards Google (at 79%).

In doing so, consumers have refined their shorthand to shortlist potential businesses. In the early days, any score over 4.0 would do. Then consumers began to realise that reviews broke down into two distinct categories: those for products and those for services.

Product reviews

Few of us bother to read product reviews, as long at we see four stars 

These are increasingly used by consumers to validate that the product they are about to buy 'does what it says on the tin'. Savvy consumers are more likely to read professional reviews of products and just use online reviews - Google or otherwise - to check out delivery and after-sales reliability. The fact that someone occasionally gives a camera, a washing machine or a pair of trousers a 1* review is neither here nor there.

Service and professional reviews

Reviews of services on the other hand - here a womens' health clinic - are increasingly relied on by consumers. If you read the review above, which appears on the client's website and on Google, you will see what we mean 

Now we get serious. Reviews - Google reviews - of services and professions - from medical, to financial, legal and so on, are approached with far more scrutiny by consumers than those of products. For two very good reasons: the businesses we are speaking of here offer potentially life-saving benefits on the upside and the flip side - of choosing the wrong solution - can be equally life-changing. So many consumers slow the process right down from 'Nice shoes, score 4 out of five, click and buy.' to 'Let's make a shortlist based on the business's headline Google score and then take time to mine down into the individual reviews themsleves.'

We are sure you are with us thus far. If fact we are sure most readers will recognise this behaviour because they will have conformed to it to a greater or lesser extent. So - back to our headline: if your business's competitors are scoring 4.5 - 4.8 (maybe up from 4.1 - 4.4 a few years ago) yours had better be scoring 4.9. In fact, just to be sure, best score 4.9 whatever the competition is scoring.

If ever there was any doubt as to whether or not Google reviews of professional services are read then this screenshot will dispel that, once and for all. Last week Google added the clickable ❤️ and 🙏 emojis under each review (mobile only for the time being) - and just look how many the latest review for this client has garnered already - in just two days!

So - action to take

Take a long hard look at your business's approach to reviews. Make use of our experience - after all we have been advising clients - and learning their, as well as our, secrets of success for well over a decade. The easiest way is to speak to us, we can examine exactly where your business is on the learning curve and advise accordingly. Reading one or more of the following articles will also help...

• Moderation - the golden key to protecting your business from factually inaccurate, potentially misleading or just plain unfair reviews

• Compliance - comes under the heading of 'boring but important'; the CMA is on the warpath against businesses playing fast-and-loose where reviews are concerned

• Results - once a business has review management cracked the impact on both enquiries and the quality of the individual pieces of business transacted will rise, as these comparisons conclusively demonstrate (one of our clients in this example has recently opened a new office to service demand in the same area)

...but the ultimate test is to put our advice into action, inviting reviews to your own website and then on to Google (that is the only way to benefit from the safety net of moderation, with inaccurate or misleading reviews being and get the stars in search you see here...

...so look at our fees (remembering there is no contract period) and our guarantee of success. Then call us.

 

The Index of Review management - 2026

Regular readers will know we publish this list when we feel we have enough to fill a page. This year is a little different. Finally, the world of online reviews, which is, at best, so helpful for both businesses and their prospective customers, and at its worst a minefield of disinformation, helpful to no one, is being dragged, in some cases, 'kicking and screaming' into the second quarter of the twenty-first century. If we were to distil what follows, we would say 'good for honest businesses, a serious concern for bad actors'.

A note on using this Index: it is designed to answer just about every question anyone might have about online reviews today; please feel free to cherry-pick the articles relevant to your business's particular situation.

Reviews in 2026 - why they matter, how to get them - and why the law is about to catch up with those that game them

Online reviews have changed dramatically. For businesses selling high-value services — financial advisers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, estate agents, and similar professions — they are no longer something to be managed when time permits; they have become an integral part of the business.

Consumers increasingly use Google before making contact (latest figures suggest 93% do so - and frankly we are puzzled by the other 7%, as they are offered Google reviews in every search), and the review profile they find can determine whether they pick up the phone, visit the website or move on to contact a competitor.

HelpHound's experience over much more than a decade leads to a straightforward conclusion: a well-managed review strategy will generate business, will improve the quality of enquiries and will make a good business look as good online as it really is.

But there is an important qualification. The days of simply accumulating five-star reviews by selecting the customers most likely to provide them are coming to an end. And it's an abrupt end. Read on, and we will explain.

1. Google has won the review war

There was once a bewildering choice of review platforms: Trustpilot, Feefo, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor and many others.

Google has changed all that.

For a prospective customer searching for a business, Google reviews are normally the first reviews encountered. They appear alongside the business in search, in Maps and in the business's Google profile. And, increasingly, consumers are content with Google reviews. Their attitude has become 'Why mine any other seam? When Google reviews give me all I need.'

That makes the basic HelpHound strategy very simple: get reviews onto the business's own website, where they can be properly moderated, and then encourage those reviewers to copy them to Google.

The rationale, and the evidence behind it, is explored in “Glad we bullied you into focusing on Google reviews?”, and in the more recent “Online reviews? They don't matter, do they?”. The latter contention is also addressed in another article: '4.9 is the new 4.5', which shows how consumers have adjusted their expectations where review scores are concerned.

2. The objective isn't simply more reviews

Some businesses make the mistake of regarding review management as a numbers game.

It is far more than that.

A business needs reviews that are:

• genuine
• detailed enough to be useful
• representative of the actual customer experience
• visible where prospective customers will see them
• sufficiently numerous to establish credibility
• and, crucially, obtained in a legally compliant way

A one-line review saying “Great service!” tells a prospective customer very little. A review explaining what problem or requirements the customer had, why they then chose the business, what happened then and what the outcome was is much more persuasive.

This is why we recommend businesses use email rather than SMS, and stress the importance of 'warning' customers in advance that they will be invited to write a review, and making the request about helping future customers rather than simply “doing us a favour”.

The practical mechanics are covered in “Getting the reviews flowing”.

3. The really important change: regulation

This is arguably the biggest development of the past year. The Competition and Markets Authority now has considerably more power to tackle businesses that manipulate reviews, following the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

The practices that should set alarm bells ringing include:

• Cherry-picking: inviting only customers believed likely to leave positive reviews.

• Gating: asking customers how satisfied they are and then inviting only the happy ones to review.

• Fake or paid reviews: including reviews written by employees, friends, family or people who have not genuinely used the service.

• Controlling the review process: making it unnecessarily difficult for customers to leave an independent opinion.

HelpHound's August 2025 warning that the CMA was introducing AI specifically to identify businesses whose review patterns look suspicious: “A seismic shift in the reviews landscape — CMA to use AI to examine online reviews” is mandatory reading for any business currently inviting any of its customers to post reviews anywhere.

The message became even stronger in April 2026 with “The CMA's new powers — fail one question and your business is vulnerable”. The article reduces the issue to five questions. If a business cannot answer “No” to all of them, its review management will be vulnerable to CMA sanction.

The important point is that compliance is no longer simply a matter of corporate virtue. It is now a business risk issue.

4. Moderation is the missing ingredient

This creates an apparent dilemma. If a business invites everybody to review it, what happens when somebody writes something factually wrong, misleading or unfair?

The answer is moderation.

HelpHound's model is deliberately different from simply asking customers to post directly to Google. The customer writes the review to the business's website. A human moderator reads it before it is published there. Where there is a factual error or potentially misleading statement, the reviewer is invited to correct it. 

The reviewer retains the final say. That distinction matters. The objective isn't to prevent negative reviews. It is to prevent inaccurate or misleading reviews.

On average, around 7 reviews in every hundred require some intervention (even if it is just to correct spelling or grammar), with the overwhelming majority of those - well over 95 per cent - subsequently resolved cooperatively. Sometimes a reviewer will modify their review; sometimes they will decide not to post it at all. It's entirely up to them. In the case of the tiny minority that decide to have their original review posted, bear in mind that the business can - and should - always respond. We are on hand should a client require advice on such responses, a service that is extremely popular with those that avail themselves of it.

A detailed explanation of our moderation process can be found here.

The result should be a steady flow of reviews that are both credible and useful, for all parties.

5. The surprising benefit: reviews change the business itself

Perhaps the most interesting theme to emerge during the past few years is that review management isn't merely about marketing or CRM. It changes behaviour.

If everyone in a business knows that every customer may subsequently write a detailed review, customer service becomes everybody's responsibility. Salespeople, administrators, managers and directors all become conscious that the quality of all their interactions with customers may subsequently be visible to the world.

A business that had 5 Google reviews (and a score of 4.0) when it joined HelpHound was concerned that misunderstandings between landlord and tenant, purchaser, surveyor, solicitor, vendor - the potential, as we are sure we can all agree, is immense - would only be amplified by allowing all its stakeholders to write a review, took our reassurances regarding moderation at face value, thankfully for us (they became clients) and thankfully for them (they have become the pre-eminient agents in their area and gone on to open another branch).

This article, “The 'secret' impact of professional review management”, tells the story of this business's journey. All in compliance with the CMA regulations. If you read their individual reviews, it very soon becomes apparent that every single member of staff has bought into the concept of reviews as a key new business driver. They know that providing great service and then having that reflected in their reviews will bring in more business. Benefiting them all, both financially as well as from a job satisfaction point of view.

The lesson is important:

Reviews aren't merely a reflection of customer service. They can become a mechanism for improving customer service.

6. Trustpilot illustrates the problem

Much of our recent writing has examined Trustpilot — not simply because it operates in the same sphere as HelpHound, but because it illustrates some of the problems that arise when review platforms become businesses themselves.

The following articles question how Trustpilot calculates and presents scores, the weighting given to reviews and the distinction between different business listings.

See “HelpHound or Trustpilot? Your questions answered” and “Report highlights flaws in Trustpilot's business model”.

The reasoning is essentially this:

Why pay for a review platform that has less visibility than Google, when the ultimate objective is to influence what a prospective customer sees in any given Google search?

That question became more pointed in April 2026 when the Italian competition authority fined Trustpilot €4m* over concerns about aspects of the way it calculates and displays business ratings. We covered this in “Trustpilot in the regulatory crosshairs”.

Note: We should stress at this point that HelpHound has no special loyalty to Google or any financial link with them whatsoever; our loyalty is to our clients' best interests. If we meet an online retailer, we are just as likely to consider Trustpilot as Google, simply because companies selling products are not nearly as vulnerable to single well-constructed but factually inaccurate reviews as those in the services and the professions.

 

*This was far more than simply a 'slap on the wrist'. It will have alerted regulatory bodies all over Europe and the UK, and maybe even in the US, a notoriously lax regime when it comes to reviews, thanks to Section 230 of the Consumer Decency Act of 1996.

7. AI is changing both sides of the equation

There is an interesting irony here. AI is making reviews more important, while simultaneously making manipulation easier to detect.

HelpHound has tested Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot in relation to review management and reputation. The February article “What does Google's AI — Gemini — say about review management?” illustrates how AI can now analyse a business's online reputation almost instantaneously.

At the same time, the CMA is now employing AI to identify suspicious review patterns across potentially thousands of businesses. So businesses should know that their review history is increasingly machine-readable. 

A point to note here: the cardinal sins of reviews management, cherry-picking and gating, leave a very simple 'paper trail' of emails and other data points. Our opinion - and it is simply our opinion (we do speak to the regulators, but it would be unfair of us to pose such a question) is that their first targets will be 'current defaulters'. The message has to be 'get your house in order going forwards'.

8. And then there is “platform decay”

The June 2026 article introduces another useful idea: platform decay.

The pattern is familiar:

1. A business wins customers through excellent - human - service
2. It becomes successful
3. It replaces increasingly larger amounts of human interaction with technology
4. The customer experience deteriorates

The irony is that a business can still market itself as highly personal while the customer is struggling to get through to a human being. HelpHound's answer is that reviews provide evidence of whether the promised service is actually being delivered. Don't misunderstand us, not all tech employed in CRM is 'bad', just that which works against the best interests of the customer.

Read “Platform decay — how to prove your business isn't just yet another cash generator for its shareholders”.

9. The newest threat: fake reviews and fake review marketing

By July, the argument had widened beyond conventional review manipulation.

HelpHound investigated products advertised online - social media such as Instagram and TikTok, as well as YouTube - with apparently impressive review scores which, on investigation, appeared to have little connection with genuine customer experience.

The July article, “This abuse has to stop”, argues that fraudulent review claims are becoming sufficiently widespread to threaten confidence in the entire review ecosystem.

That is the ultimate danger. If consumers cease believing reviews, good businesses lose one of the most powerful and democratic ways of demonstrating their quality.

10. So what should a business do?

The accumulated message from the last year can be reduced to seven rules:

1. Make Google reviews your focus.

They are now central to how prospective customers assess a business.

2. Invite everyone, not just the happy customers*.

Anything else risks both regulatory and reputational problems.

 

* A cental plank of HelpHound's reviews solution is the 'invitation to review' icorporated in our review display on every client's website. This enables our clients to comply with the CMA regulations whilst at the same time enabling them to choose who to proactively email to invite to post a review. The CMA regulations recognise that no business should be forced to 'invite everybody' to write a review (defining 'everybody' would be a task in itself - how about the underbidder on a property sale? Or the prospective tenant who fails the financial suitabilty test?), but it does require every business that does invite customers to write reviews, anywhere, to provide a mechanism such as the one you see above.

3. Don't gate.

Never ask “How did we do?” and then invite only the people who say “Excellent” to write a review. Not by text, not in an email, and definitely not by handing them an iPad!

4. Incorporate independent moderation pre-publication into your review management.

Not to suppress criticism, but to give customers the opportunity to correct factual errors or misleading statements.

5. Aim for quality as well as quantity.

Fewer detailed, authentic reviews are far more powerful than hundreds of meaningless one-liners.

6. Make reviews everyone's responsibility.

The best review strategy is ultimately a customer-service strategy.

7. Treat compliance as an opportunity, not a burden.

The businesses that get this right will simultaneously improve their service, reputation, Google visibility and enquiry flow.

HelpHound's current proposition is summed up in “Joining HelpHound — what happens next?”, while this article sets out our guarantee (no win/no fee!) and our fee scales.

The bottom line

The last twelve months have seen the review industry move from “How can I get more five-star reviews?” to a much more sophisticated question:

“How can we build a review profile that accurately demonstrates the quality of our business, generates new business and stands up to scrutiny?”

That is a much healthier question.

And the answer is surprisingly simple: good businesses should invite genuine reviews from everybody, ensure those reviews are accurate, make them highly visible, and let the quality of the business do the selling.

The regulatory environment is making manipulation increasingly dangerous. AI is making illegal behaviour increasingly easy to detect. Consumers are becoming more sophisticated.

The businesses that prosper will be those that recognise that reviews aren't advertising. They are evidence. And increasingly, they are some of the most valuable evidence a business possesses.

HelpHound - AI and reviews - an important update

There have been two seismic shifts in the world of reviews this year...

• Google's Introduction of AI search (Gemini) 

and...

• The CMA's warning that it is introducing AI to establish which businesses are contravening its core regulations relating to reviews (see below)

Regulation 

We asked Google's AI a simple question: 'Is there anything suspicious about [XYZ]'s reviews?' This is what it returned:

This was the very first business we asked Google's Gemini AI to interrogate - it was the first law firm 'near me' in search, so no cherry-picking for our example. You can be sure that if we can do this using proprietary AI, then the CMA's bespoke system will work even more effectively - and in numbers; this, again from a Google AI search...

What does the CMA mean by 'suspicious activity'? It is simple, really: any activity that tilts the review gathering and posting process in favour of the business (and, therefore, by definition, against the interests of the consumer). At the risk of repeating ourselves, here are the most obvious examples...

1. Cherry-picking. Every business that invites reviews is either tempted down this road or actively does it. Why is it illegal? Because the CMA has said so! Seriously though. Take a minute to think about it; hand-picking 'happy' customers to invite to write a review must work in the business's favour.
2. Gating. The act of pre-qualifying the above-mentioned customers. There are many mechanisms - the obvious one being an e-questionnaire. Not only against UK and EU law but expressly against Google's terms of service (risking deletion of the entirety of a business's Google reviews and red-flagging).

This issue with both of the above, post-AI, is that the regulators have gone, overnight, from relying on whistleblowers and exhaustive, time-consuming and expensive follow-up investigations to a click of a mouse and bingo! - a comprehensive list of those flouting the law, along with comprehensive proof*.

We frequently hear businesses dismiss regulation (and at least half the businesses we meet for the first time are in breach of one or more of the CMA's core regulations). It will either be a case of 'Why would they - in this case, the CMA - bother?' or 'If they bothered, what is the likelihood of [our business] being sanctioned?'*

But now the CMA are introducing sophisticated AI, it is time to stop 'parking on the double yellow lines.' It's not as if parking legally, in the context of reviews, is going to cost businesses either - professional review management has proved itself to be a profit centre time and again (in fact, so comprehensively that we now guarantee results or your money back).

*Again, there are those who doubt us. The key here is that a) a sanction by the CMA will not be viewed as a victimless crime by consumers, the press and social media - you can probably write the headines yourself - and b) every business in breach will have a positive treasure trove of evidence for the CMA's AI to pick up - from the reviews themselves (and the posting pattern), to the emails/texts inviting them (or not inviting them, as the case may be).

4.9 is the new 4.5

We all remember the days, not long past, when we would use a business provided it scored over 4.0. No longer. To feature in a competitive search, and to attract custom wherever it may appear in search, a business now needs three things more than ever before...

• Great SEO

• A Google score of 4.8 or better

• A feed of its reviews on its own website - that, in turn, feeds through to Google searches

In the case of the latter, the feed can be of Google reviews or its own reviews. The advantages of the latter being...

• that the individual reviews themselves can be moderated, with factually inaccurate or potentially misleading (and damaging) reviews being resolved pre-publication anywhere (on the business's own website and/or on Google). We estimate, based on over a decade's experience and the statistics behind it, that our moderation adds between 0.2 and 0.5 to a business's overall Google score. Of course, it is not only the score that is important;  almost, sometimes more than the score, is the elimination or correction of a potentially* damaging review at the top of the business's Google feed (now almost certainly referenced by any AI search as well).

• that the business owns its own reviews, rather than donating the data they contain exclusively to Google

*We struck out 'potentially' as all negative reviews are damaging. The business may know that the reviewer is being unreasonable or even factually inaccurate, but the reader does not, and almost everyone searching for a high-value business will take the trouble to read any 1* reviews a business may have. Moderation is a vital safety net for any service or professional business.

SEO

You will have spotted the HelpHound client. But do you know where that '4.9 from 129 reviews' and its accompanying 5 gold stars come from? Most consumers will bet their last penny that they are from Google, but they are not. They are taken directly from the client's own reviews, moderated by HelpHound, and hosted on their website for all to see...

Why host your own reviews on your own website? There are many reasons, not least of which is the marketing boost they provide. Ammunition for advertising and PR, your website, your social media and print materials. But it's not entirely accidental that HelpHound clients tend to a) score higher - by definition, a moderated system must outscore the equivalent unmoderated system, even if it only enables the business to avoid having a single inaccurrate or misleading review a year (we have clients who recieve one a month - and they are invariably resolved before publication), and b) feature more prominently in all the vital searches - local/map etc.

Artificial Intelligence

Our article from the day of Google's launch of Gemini AI for search

Two here: first, the boon that AI provides for the basic day-to-day management of reviews, helping draft responses is a major one for our clients. Second: the warning from the CMA that it is going to be using sophisticated AI to identify businesses that flout its core regulations (see above). 

Getting great reviews

Convincing? You bet. We have purposely chosen a client in one of the most sensitive areas to show that a) people using extremely 'private' services will write reviews. If patients of a women's health clinic will write a review, albeit in less volume, so will clients of a lawyer or a financial adviser. 

More and more evidence points to three factors that override all others;

1. Warn the individual - face to face if at all possible - that it is now standard practice for your business to invite all its customers to write a review, and stress how helpful that is a) to other people in their position and b) for you personally
2. Invite the review by email, not SMS. This has been shown to produce better quality reviews, consistently. Fewer 'They were great' and more of the kind you see above.
3. Follow up with a one-minute phone call. Businesses that do so - and we have plenty of evidence of this - often convert over fifty per cent of the invitations they send out.

Results

These bear repetition, in the context of our fees and all of the above. Detailed numbers lifted from an industry forum (in this case estate agency) and collated by someone totally unconnected with HelpHound. Again, we repeat: these are guaranteed, and have been for over 18 months now. 

To summarise

• Don't wait any longer to become compliant with the CMA regulations; the CMA will not warn anyone before they act. The benefits of compliance (see 'Results' above) so far outweigh the cost, from the point of view of both time and £. And sanction by the CMA will hurt - both the fine and the attendant publicity

• Get a compliant reviews feed embedded into your website

• Aim to achieve a score of 4.9 for your business as soon as possible

• Get the SEO kicker of reviews working for your business, again, as soon as possible

Moderation - every professional business's key to reviews

With apologies to regular readers, but this subject is so vital - it is at the core of everything we do for our client businesses and their customers. We're going to keep this article brief - but we will include links to more detailed information and analysis for those who want to mine further down into this vital aspect of managing a business's online reputation.

Here goes...

1.  What is moderation?

This is one of the most important questions we are ever asked - and one of the most important services we ever provide, to both our business clients and their customers. So let's look at a real example; here is a review, posted through the business's website and picked up - pre-publication - by our moderator...

We have purposely chosen this review as it is an excellent example of the kind of review that, if posted straight to Google, would remain on the business's Google page for the foreseeable future; there is nothing in the review that would give us cause to think there was any chance of an appeal to Google succeeding as it does not remotely infringe any of Google's terms and conditions.

 

Indeed, on the face of it, the review is an entirely genuine opinion and record of a consumer's - in this case a patient's - interaction with the business - in this case a medical practice. Also, on reading, it is a pretty convincing argument not to use the business. And therefore potentially hugely damaging.

So: what happened during the moderation process? 

Our moderator acknowledged the review by messaging the reviewer to tell them that we would be consulting the business before publishing the review. Simultaneously the review was sent to the business for comment. We make it completely clear to businesses that their response must be with our moderator by close of business the same day (if a business wants to be sure of provoking a review direct to Google, then any delay at this point is a good way of ensuring that happens). 

In this instance the clinic reverted to our moderator the same morning, addressing each point in the review in turn.  This response was forwarded, immediately, to the reviewer who was then invited to do one of three things:

• Amend their original review
• Have their original review posted
• Message the business via our moderator and leave the review unposted

In this case, as happens in so many*, the latter course was chosen by the reviewer...

Not only the right outcome but the fair outcome. The clinic's reputation was protected and the relationship with their patient was restored. Both parties benefitted.

*The overwhelming majority of consumers - especially where there is a professional ongoing relationship or service at stake - are entirely receptive to a full and truthful explanation of the facts of the matter under review. Indeed, they are often grateful in the extreme for our moderator's intercession.

Moderation is the act of 'having a review read and analysed for factual accuracy and/or misleading statements' by a person independent of the business under review. It is the only legal way for businesses in the UK (and the EU) to ensure that, as far as possible, their reviews are an accurate reflection of their business and its services.

2.  If our moderator finds either of those - factual inaccuracies and/or statements with the potential to mislead someone who may rely on the review (a potential client/patient, for instance) what exactly do they do?

They message the reviewer - in private (example above) - and suggest modifications to the review before it is published. They will also correct obvious mistakes in spelling and grammar.

3.  Will our moderator ever involve the business?

Sometimes. Our moderators are experienced and understand our clients' businesses, but if there is something in the review that needs clarification - the 'he said/she said' kind of thing - they will refer to our point-of-contact at the business as well as back to the reviewer (again, see the example above).

4.  Do reviewers ever object to our moderation process?

Very rarely. We always make it clear that the reviewer always has the right - excluding profanities or allegations of illegal behaviour - to have whatever review they wish published (this keeps every party in compliance with the CMA regulations, which specifically prohibit businesses from using any mechanism that prevents the consumer having their say).  On the contrary, we often receive messages from reviewers thanking us for our intervention. Vanishingly few consumers want to have inaccurate reviews published for the world to see (the actual figure, from our own data, is far less than 1% of the 3% of reviews that enter the moderation process).

5.  What should we expect our business to score with moderation?

This is the question we get most of all: before we answer it - and we will give you actual numbers at the end of this section - we should explain that there are two elements in the customer relationship chain that we, at HelpHound, cannot (and should not) control: the first is the behaviour of your staff, which is entirely your responsibility and the second is the behaviour of your customers. We often meet 'perfect' businesses with far-from-perfect Google scores; what we know for sure is that our moderation process will address a great proportion of those mistaken negative reviews. So...

A (near) perfect business with (near) perfect clients? Or a business that has felt the need to selectively invite 'happy' clients to post reviews to Google? Bearing in mind that 186 reviews divided by the six years since their first Google review = 31 reviews a year = just over one fortnight, the available evidence points to the latter. 

If your business currently scores between 4.8 and 5.0 - it will have the very best chance of maintaining that score with HelpHound's moderation (and it will be fully compliant with the CMA regulations - as will all the solutions below)

This business has worked hard to get 300 Google reviews, possibly in order to dilute the 26 one-star and 3 two-star reviews it has received, almost of which would have been effectively managed by our moderation process (a quick scan of their negative reviews shows a mix of misunderstandings - language issues in the main and plain wrong-headed comments). Going forwards they should be looking to raise their percentage of 5* reviews from its current level of 91% to far closer to 99%. This will see their score rise to 4.8/4.9 alongside their most successful competitors.

• If your business currently scores between 4.5 and 4.7 - it will have a great chance of achieving a score of at least 4.8 with HelpHound's moderation

This firm had a clean sheet - scoring the full 5.0 - until a matter of weeks ago. Its experience illustrates just how vital a moderated review management system is for professional businesses. We cannot guarantee that the 3 one-star reviews posted recently would not have been posted, but the firm would have had vastly more than 14 five-star reviews to counterbalance them. This should be its aim going forward: to invite clients to post to Google as a standard practice.

• If your business currently scores between 4.0 and 4.4 - it will have a great chance of achieving a score of at least 4.8 with HelpHound's moderation

We're going to take an educated guess here: someone within the firm began asking their satisfied clients to post reviews four years ago, then a colleague pointed out the CMA anti-cherry-picking regulations and they stopped doing so. Then some unhappy people - not necessarily clients - posted a handful of critical reviews. So their Google score has gradually declined from 4.9 to its current 3.9. Being the lowest-ranked solicitor in its area will not be helping to drive new clients through the door. But all is not lost: a low score from a few reviews is easily rectified, whilst a low score form hundreds - or thousands - takes time (but will still be achieved)

• If your business currently scores less than 4.0 - the only way, as they say, is up! That is, unless our initial audit pinpoints a flaw in your CRM, in which case we will advise accordingly and delay implementation until the flaw is rectified

To reinforce these four assertions we recommend you read these two articles:

1.  Results: two case histories that demonstrate the uplift in Google score, the subsequent increase in new business enquiries and the resultant critical quantum shift in the quality of customers acquired through Google search.

2. Our guarantee of success: see exactly what we absolutely guarantee will happen when you join HelpHound.

Does all of the above mean that HelpHound can make any business look great in search?

We understand, at first glance, this might appear to be the case, but it ignores two significant factors in HelpHound's own business model...

1. We only work with the professions and service businesses, and most, if not all, service businesses can improve their CRM to the stage where HelpHound's review management will work effectively for them. This is not the case with product-based businesses: a substandard product will always be a substandard product, and we leave those businesses to the review sites.
2. We recognise that the reviewer always retains the option to write their review directly to Google or one of the review sites, so we always advise our clients to facilitate the maximum number of reviews through their own CRM and website. If a business ignores that advice they run the very real risk of negative reviews, often factually incorrect or just plain unfair, being written to Google.       

A vital - and hugely valuable - unintended consequence of moderation

Very soon after we introduced moderation we began being asked, by virtually every business we spoke to (especially those that had taken the trouble to understand the CMA regulations - the law)...

'Do we have to ask all our customers to post a review?'

Our initial response was...

'No, you don't, you are compliant with the CMA regulations by dint of the fact that you offer all visitors to your website the ability to post a review.'

Sighs of relief all round! But then we took a long hard look at the individual negative reviews being posted. And we had an epiphany: we realised that clients of relationship-based businesses didn't often 'warn' those businesses that they were dissatisfied with whatever long-term service they were being provided with - they just resigned/left. And, as any such business will tell you, once a client or patient is gone they're almost always 'gone gone'. The chances of clawing them back are as close to nil as makes no difference. 

But our moderators also noticed a distinct pattern emerging: businesses that had invited all - or just about all - their stakeholders to write a review were receiving warnings of the 'about to go' kind. The review of the clinic at the top of this article is a good example. And, as all businesses know, a customer saved is worth a great deal of marketing £s. 

So we revised our advice: proactively invite as many people as possible to write a review; the 5* reviews are gold-dust, but the 1* or 2* review that is resolved in moderation is platinum.

Lastly...

If you interrogate this blog and its 900+ articles you will find plenty that reference moderation.  The first was written on 26 April 2013, eleven years ago now, but here are two more recent ones that will explain everything that this article has left out in the interests of brevity.

• Moderation: the essential ingredient in every professional business's review management strategy
• Review moderation and why it is a 'must have' for businesses that intend to grow

Review Management - a Guide for PR, Advertising and Marketing agencies

You know that an outstanding presence in Google reviews is a must-have for all of your clients; you also know that achieving that - a score of 4.8+ and 200+ reviews - is easier said than done, especially while maintaining compliance with the CMA regulations. What follows is a step-by-step guide to achieving this for them without running any risks - of attracting adverse reviews or of breaking the law.

This article is intended as a reference point for agencies to decide how best to advise all of their clients, whatever their current situation.

And if you haven't time to read the whole article, just scroll down to the final paragraph: 'So - after all of the above - are there any other benefits for our agency?' and you will see a precis. But we strongly recommend you follow the 'Bezos principle' (see video above) and read what follows - we promise it will reward the effort.

Note for readers

It is so easy to promote a 'one size fits all solution' to reviews, after all, that's what the review sites do. But businesses differ, not only in the way they market their products and services - see what we did? There are two distinct categories of business already! - but in the way they have historically approached (or avoided approaching) reviews.

In this article we are going to address review management from two distinct perspectives: the type of business and the current situation each business finds itself in. All of your clients - and, indeed, your own business - will be in one of the following 4 categories. For the purposes of this exercise we are going to ignore those in 1, 2b, 3 and 4 (you will understand why as you read on). For those in category 2a we will further break them down by their current status with regard to reviews and follow that with specific relevant advice.

Then it is over to you. Speak to us and we'll arrange a mutually beneficial approach to those of your clients you feel we can help. That will usually mean starting out with an individual review audit* and then progress to providing definitive tailored advice. And it will end with your client scoring 4.8+ with three figures of reviews, a great SEO kicker and in full compliance with UK law. 

As you read this article you will see continuous references to both compliance and moderation, each one hyperlinked to a full explanation. They are the two underlying planks of effective review management, so we make no apolgy for repetition.You can read them now or as you read on, the choice is yours. 

* A review audit - as the name implies, begins with examining every aspect of a business's experience with reviews to date and ending with a summary of advice and recommendations. Covering the likes of existing presence on review sites - Google/Trustpilot/Feefo/Yelp/Reviews.io and so on - and compliance with the UK government (CMA) regulations, as well as providing a roadmap to effective and compliant review management for the future.

First: the 'type of business'...

Almost every one of the UK's 5.5 million businesses falls into one of four categories...

1.  Product-based - retail in the main. Broad-brush we know, but most people will buy a pair of shoes or a dishwasher irrespective of the service element involved in their purchase. Otherwise, such businesses are served by the commercial review sites (oddly, rarely by Google reviews) - just see any online retailer's website or advertising.

2a.  Service-based - the professions and high-value transactional businesses: medical, legal, financial, educational and the like (estate agency is a good example - a service business that is infrequently used but where the consumer is aware that the wrong choice may potentially cost them many thousands of pounds) as well as 2b. Trades - plumbers, electricians, and so on.

3.  A hybrid of the above two categories - car dealerships for example - they 'sell' cars and 'service' them (We know, but we want to make quite sure there are no misunderstandings given what is to come later). 

4.  'Impervious' businesses - utilities and transport companies are two obvious examples: where the consumer either has no choice at all (South West Water or a train from Paddington to Bristol anyone?) or the business is so massive that, often despite protestations to the contrary, it really doesn't care what people are saying online (it's easy to tell: they don't repond to customers' Google reviews, when it's free and easy to do so). 

Now something about HelpHound. In an ideal world, we would welcome clients from any of these four categories, but years of experience have taught us to concentrate all our efforts on Category 2a: the professions and service-based businesses. And there is absolutely no doubt that it is in that sector that HelpHound can add the most value - in pure £££s as well as in many other ways.

Why would HelpHound effectively ignore the other three categories?

We can add value for any business, whatever its nature, but...

Category 1: After all they love reviews, don't they? Yes, they do, and the review sites - Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo, Reviews.io, etc. - have targeted them very effectively. They would do better with professional review management, but we can add more value for other kinds of business.

As long as they score 4.0 they're generally pretty happy.

Category 2b: Trades and  'man+van' businesses, which often don't have dedicated business premises - needed for a Google profile - are covered by the likes of Which? and lead-generator businesses such as Checkatrade and TrustedPeople.

Category 3: Businesses, where the major earner is sales, and service is sometimes even a loss-leader, tend to focus on in-house reporting rather than reviews. They shouldn't, but they do. We'll be here for them when they come around.

Category 4: 'Impervious'. Well, they must be - why otherwise do they make next to no attempt to address - or even respond to - reviews from their customers (we'll repeat it - it's free!)?

So, we are left, happily, with 2a. The professions - medical, legal, educational, and financial as well as the likes of recruitment, estate agency, and so on. Most of these businesses really care about their images online...

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We make no apology for using a HelpHound client to illustrate this category. When this business adopted HelpHound they had just 2 Google reviews!

• it knew that scoring 4.9 on Google would drive business through its doors

• it knew that a Google score of less than 4.5 would hinder their new business efforts

• it knew that everything else being equal, numbers of reviews matter

• it knew that its work is complex and often misunderstood

• it knew exactly how harmful a well-written but factually inaccurate review can be

• it knew that hosting their own client/patient/customer reviews gives them valuable feedback and data

And - once they understand the CMA regulations...

• it is very pleased that it is in full compliance with UK law

Now to the sub-categories of 2a

You may be surprised to read that there are very few businesses in 2a that have adopted the correct solution. Here we go (you should be able to allocate one of the following descriptions - A to G - to each of your clients)...

A - No reviews

Still regularly encountered. Reason: almost always fear, with a capital 'F'. And that fear is fully justified: if a business provides complex and difficult to comprehend services there will be a proportion of people who will grab the wrong end of the stick with both hands and then be tempted to beat the business with it. And these days that stick - which used to be a relatively harmless 'green ink' letter or an angry phone call - is invariably a 1* Google review. 

The fatal flaw in the 'Don't engage with reviews' strategy is that it put's the business's image way beyond the its control. We used to encounter hotels that had 'no review' contracts for airline staff staying - that didn't last when the same staff realised that all they had to do was create a new Google account and fire away! One day one such unhappy customer will find their way to writing a Google review.  Best have 100 5* reviews there when they do. Even better still, have their review directed to your business where it will benefit from HelpHound's moderation.

It's the very reason we invented moderation. Moderation gives businesses of all kinds the confidence they need to compliantly invite reviews from all their customers. The alternative - crossing fingers and toes in the hope that unhappy consumers don't write reviews - may have worked ten years ago, but it's far too high risk a strategy in 2023.

B - Few reviews - less than 50 - and a high score (4.6 and up)

Often the result of at first engaging and then stalling: the engagement is often prompted by receiving a one-star review - 'let's squash that one!' - or a member of staff driving engagement short-term (we know of one keen young person who stayed late at work once a week for a month and got their business 40 Google reviews, then he left and the business got three reviews for the rest of the year). 

The key here is to embed professional review management into the business in the same way as every other essential discipline. Many businesses do this and then fall at the compliance hurdle: they cherry-pick (invite selected customers to write reviews) or gate (use mechanisms like surveys to pre-qualify 5* reviewers), all understandable until you realise they are both against the law. Our question to prospective clients is 'Why break the law when a) it so quickly becomes obvious to your competitors and b) it is so easy not to?' Needless to say, no agency professional wants to find themselves in a position of advising a client to adopt a non-compliant solution.

C - Few reviews - and an average score (4.0 - 4.5)

Believe it: a score of under 4.6 will result in two things: the business comparing less favourably with its competitors as well as a handful of damaging 1* reviews underlying the score (a score of 4.0 from twenty reviews means at least four harmful 1* reviews). Neither need happen if the business adopts a moderated solution.

D - Few reviews - and a low score (lower than 4.0)

This is a tricky one: we need to establish why the business has attracted negative reviews: it's either a flaw in their CRM - put bluntly: they're not that great at what they do.  Our advice in these circumstances is simple: sort your CRM and we'll speak when you have done so.

Or they have left the field clear for a tiny minority of unhappy customers. More common than one might think: once a business has experienced the power of a negative review to harm enquiry rates - clicks and calls - it is not uncommon for business owners and managers to retreat into 'denial mode'. We hear comments such as 'reviews don't matter' (they do), 'our score doesn't influence the flow of enquiries' (it does) or 'people pay no attention to negative reviews' (they do, in spades). 

Once such businesses have been introduced to our moderation process they quickly shed such denial, which is exposed for what it is - an understandable but mistaken reaction to the fear of attracting more negative reviews.

E - Many reviews - over 50 in most cases - and a high score (4.6+)

Now we must tread carefully.  There are many businesses that have high Google scores by simply being great businesses, but once a business has more than 50 Google reviews and a high score the very numbers generally - not always, but generally - indicate a proactive stance towards reviews. Put plainly: the business is inviting reviews. 

Fine, as long as the business has some mechanism that allows all of its customers to write a review at a time of their own choosing. The CMA's definition of 'all' and 'at a time of their own choosing' is, as one might expect from a government agency, very precise. We have businesses constantly trying to convince us that they comply by various means - 'we include a link in the signature block of every email' or 'we email customers inviting reviews on a regular basis' but the only sure-fire solution is to include the link you will see on every HelpHound client's website. Before you say 'But that is asking for trouble' (we would agree, if it weren't for what follows) bear in mind that the link will invite a review to your own website that will then be moderated. So a 'win/win': compliance and moderation (and credibility) all in one.

F - Many reviews - and an average score (4.0 - 4.5)

There are some businesses that continue to believe that scoring 4.4, or even 4.0, is fine. Good even. But if you are to win business against competitors that have adopted professional review management your business needs to be scoring 4.6+ (in some cases even that score will leave a business languishing by comparison with its competitors). If your business is scoring between 4.0 and 4.5 and is leading the field in search then our advice has to be: take that lead and extend it before one or more of your competitors does. Nothing gives us more satisfaction here at HelpHound than seeing a client's Google score overtake its competitors.

G - Many reviews - and a low score - (less than 4.0)

Very few businesses find themselves in the arguably luxurious position of being able to ignore reviews

Now we are in the territory of 'don't care', which is at the extreme end of the denial syndrome we discussed earlier, or what we term 'review immunity'. Some businesses, often those that have a very high public profile such as fast food multiples: when did you last see a McDonald's franchisee bother to respond to a review? an airline? or a utility (South West Water - see above)? But these businesses are in the minority; most businesses are vulnerable to Google reviews, be that their headline score or the negative reviews underlying it. 

 

 

Note on scores and numbers of reviews: these are, of necessity, subjective but they are based on over ten years of experience and are backed up by hard statistics. In some marketplaces - financial services is an obvious example - it is currently unusual to find a business with double figures of Google reviews, whereas in estate agency any business worth the name probably has north of a hundred Google reviews. Why? HelpHound has to take part of the blame here; when we took on our first high-profile Plc client in estate agency enough of their branch network - of over 100 - took the bull by the horns and trusted us that they wouldn't be swamped with unfair reviews (thanks to our moderation process) and went on to prove us right. That set a fire under the whole sector: if your competitor scores 4.9 with 200 reviews you had better do something to compare with them or you will be losing significant business.

This Harley Street medical clinic client also answers the question we are sometimes asked about confidentiality: 'Do we see resistance from those using sensitive services?' The Harper Clinic specialises in treating menopause symptoms, how much more sensitive could a business be?

The red arrow is pointing at the key to all of our clients' compliance with the CMA regulations, as well as the route to moderation. By clicking on 'Write a review' anyone can write a review whenever they wish, and that review will be moderated to ensure, as far as is compliantly possible, that it contains no errors of fact or statements likely to mislead a reader

This also, by coincidence, provided proof of another kind. When faced with a business that is concerned with allowing all of its stakeholders to post a review whenever they choose - in other words: in compliance with UK law - we don't hesitate to point out that estate agency is hardly the least criticised business sector of all time, so, if we can show it working, for the professional agencies at least, how great a risk would a medical practice or a firm of financial advisers be taking?

So - after all of the above - are there any other benefits for your agency?

There are two answers to this - both of which provide tangible benefits for your business:

1. Your clients will be grateful that you introduced them to HelpHound. There is no downside for them. They will be compliant with the CMA regulations from the day they join and just one look at our 'Results' will show them the potential uplift in enquiries through both Google and their own websites. HelpHound membership will earn them extra revenue over and above our fees, from the outset*. It also has the potential to make them significant savings on the likes of Google Ads, as well as the boost to their SEO.
2. By becoming a HelpHound introducer you will be adding a growing quarterly income stream for your own business

*If you have a client that already has a score of 4.9 and 200+ Google reviews they will be just as glad they joined: aside from a continued compliant flow of reviews to Google, they will be hosting their own reviews - valuable data - on their own website and benefitting from our moderation going forwards. No more cherry-picking or gating and a great SEO kicker too.