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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


Conclusion?

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


Further reading:

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