Help! We've received an unfair Google review

The first thing we have to say is, 'Are you a HelpHound client?' If the answer is 'Yes,' then by far your best course of action is to call your HelpHound adviser. They'll discuss all of your options and advise on the best course of action (there will be one, we assure you).

For everyone else: please read on.

Google reviews

The first action a business should take, if and when it receives a negative Google review - accurate or not - is to respond. There is an article covering responses here. Google mods will look to see a) if the business has responded and we reckon they look positively upon businesses that have taken the trouble. Aside from this, it's just plain good business practice, readers are definitely impressed by businesses that take reviews - positive and negative - seriously enough to respond.

All it takes: a tap to choose a star rating and then write away

Anyone can write a Google review - absolutely anyone. The days of 'having to sign up/in' are in the past; Google loves the content reviews give its platform and is fully aware of just how often reviews are read by its users (great for businesses when the review is positive and accurate, not so great when it is not).

That said, there are two advantages to Google reviews*:

• Google has an appeals procedure
• Google know a lot about the person who posted the review 

*in this context. Of course, there are many more from a marketing perspective, and these are covered elsewhere on this blog in minute detail.

Appealing against a Google review

Here is the relevant page to begin the process. But this is not going to be as easy as Google's headline above might imply. Just because you are 100% sure that the reviewer has never been a customer of your business or that they are completely wrong in whatever assertions they are making, does not mean that the staffer at Google who reviews your appeal will allow it. We are dealing with a California-based business with deeply held US levels of attachment to personal freedom of speech (a.k.a. 1st  Amendment rights). 

Above is one of the 21 categories of 'Prohibited and restricted content', and it is the one that we most often find ourselves basing our clients' appeals on. Many of the others - violent, dangerous, illegal, child-safety, terrorist, adult-themed - rarely, if ever, apply to reviews of our kind of client (service and professional businesses, in the main). We should also say, right now, that in our well over ten years of experience in wording and conducting appeals on behalf of client businesses, Google mods' definition of 'Offensive' and ours - and yours - may differ quite considerably. Free speech, again.

All that said, it is always worth appealing against a factually incorrect, potentially misleading and commercially injurious** review. Always*. We have seen reviews succeed where our experienced staffers gave them seriously bad odds. 

*Why 'always'? Unfairly critical reviews can do untold harm in the long term. Consumers know to select 'Lowest' when they are reading Google reviews

**For anyone wondering about the kind of harm a single wrong-headed negative review can do, we strongly suggest reading these two articles:

• Case History 1: The firm of solicitors materially injured by a negative review (when we say 'materially injured' you will see that a judge agreed, and awarded the firm substantial damages)

• Case History 2: the hotel where bookings plummeted after a malicious negative Google review (which was successfully appealed following advice from HelpHound - see above)

Apply a simple test: if you didn't enjoy reading the review, it is bound to be unhelpful, in the sense, at the very least, of 'not encouraging anyone to use the business', and it will impact the business's overall score. 

It is rare for Google to include an outside video creator on its own website, here is a useful 4-step 'How to...' for those more visually inclined.

How to head off such reviews in the first place

We never advise businesses to be passive and wait until a damaging Google review comes their way. There are actions a business can take to ensure that the absolute minimum of factually inaccurate reviews are posted. Here they are...

This response tells the reader so much that is positive about the business: that they take every complaint seriously and that they understand the complainant's frustration; and it leaves the door open for a continued dialogue. Importantly it also warns others tempted to post a Google review as a first reaction to a perceived lack of service or some other grievance that they will receive a reasoned and reasonable response (and might reasonably expect a positive response should they email or phone the business in the first instance).

1.  Respond - to every review it receives: besides addressing the points made in the review, this sends a message, loud and clear, to anyone tempted to over-egg any issue they may have: they will receive a response

A great deal of hugely helpful information for the potential customer 

 

2.   Employ a moderated review management system: this ensures that your business complies with the CMA regulations (the law) and, importantly, allows you to address factually inaccurate, potentially misleading and, yes, plain unfair review before they are posted anywhere. We estimate that the - great - business in the example above would now be scoring between 4.6 and 4.7 on Google had it not adopted HelpHound (it had 6 Google reviews when it joined, it now has fast approaching 500, with a Google score of 4.9). 

In Summary

We'd rather you become a client before you receive an unfair or inaccurate Google review, but this article is intended to reassure you that there are mechanisms in place, both at Google and in the marketplace, to ensure the likelihood of a recurrence is minimised going forward.

Please don't hesitate to speak to us, we will happily ask all your questions (and give you specific advice on any review that may be causing you concern currently.

Further reading

• Results - the good news

• Compliance - a guide

10 things HelpHound membership will do for your business - a one-minute read

 Here we go...

1.   It will ensure you get more leads through all kinds of web searches (commonly between 15-25% more) - guaranteed

2.   It will ensure that more visitors to your own website make that crucial first contact - guaranteed

3.   It will ensure you get more calls through Google searches of all kinds - guaranteed

4.   It will reduce - dramatically - reviews that are factually incorrect

5.   It will reduce - dramatically - reviews that are potentially misleading

6.   It will reduce - dramatically - reviews that are plain unfair (or contain spelling errors and/or bad grammar)

7.   It will eliminate fake reviews - to all intents and purposes

8.   It will provide your business with great marketing and closing material

9.   It will ensure your business's compliance with the CMA regulations - from day one

10. It will ensure that you and all your management and staff can rest assured that your business is doing all it possibly can to maximise the benefits of professional review management while minimising all the possible negative effects of online reviews

Here's a checklist...

We have made it as low-tech as we possibly can - just click on the image and print it out, and you're ready to go. Attribute a value to each of these ten points (from £ 0 if you think your business won't benefit at all to a realistic monthly figure), then total them. Then call us and put that number to the test.

Click. Print. Add the relevant numbers - even if that may be £0 (many people will put a big fat 0 next to 'Compliance with the law' until they realise that non-compliance will not only leave them liable to a fine by the CMA, but expose them to unhelpful criticism when competitors realise what they are doing). 

Then? Call us. Test us (there's no lock-in and our fees are as transparent as can be as well as being backed by a guarantee). Results are also as close as can be to instantaneous. 

Further reading

• The extended version is contained in this recent article: Reviews - the Future

• We all like to see concrete results

Investment managers - 5 years on

Nearly 5 years ago now we published this article, so what's happened since?

The article highlighted the almost complete lack of engagement with Google reviews by wealth managers. And, it must be said, that such businesses are still struggling to find their way with Google reviews.

First, let's answer the obvious question: why should wealth managers - and independent financial advisers and those involved with any kind of financial management - engage with Google reviews in the first place?

Let us look at it from the potential client's point of view. Do you think reading a review such as this...

We normally use screenshots like this with the company name redacted, but we don't suppose Fishers will mind in this instance; the review is in the public domain after all

...would encourage or discourage first contact? In a way, Google and its users have answered that question for us, just look at the 9 thumbs up (we estimate a single thumbs up for every 100 readers - when did you last vote for a review?).

So, do we need to go any further? Reviews like this will encourage potential clients to make first contact. So, again, why don't the businesses engage? After all, businesses that are equally vulnerable to negative reviews, such as lawyers and doctors, do so, most of them anyway. Let's look at an example of each of those...

Regular readers know that we seldom pose a question without coming up with an answer - or answers. So here they are...

1. Fear. Pure and simple. And absolutely logical and understandable. Managing an individual's - or a family's or a corporation's - financial affairs is a complex business. Of course it is, that's why such professionals exist. But those same professionals know that some, at least, of their clients don't completely understand the whys and wherefores of financial markets and might, if asked, write a factually inaccurate or potentially misleading review. Harmful to the relationship with the client concerned and harmful to the business when read by a prospective client
2. Confidentiality. We don't discuss our financial affairs with close friends or even relations. Why would a client be happy to write a publicly visible review?

Our answers to these...

1. Fear: we would never advise any professional business to engage with Google reviews - without employing a professional moderator. Such a moderator will read every single review before publication and engage with the reviewer - your client - and the business to ensure that, as far as is legally possible, the review that has been written contains no errors of fact or statements with the potential to mislead anyone reading the review. This is the key to engaging with clients of complex services - read more here.
2. Confidentiality: the professions were the very last adopters of Google reviews for this reason. But just look at this review (of a Harley Street women's health clinic)...

...how much more 'confidential' could a service get? The key here is how the invitation to write the review is phrased. We ensure, in conjunction with the business, that the wording is sensitive and makes it abundantly clear to the - in the above case: patient - that there is no pressure to write any review at all. The invariable result is that the percentage of reviews for such sensitive services is lower than for less sensitive ones in percentage terms (estate agents, for instance frequently achieve 50% conversion rates), but the quality of the individual reviews is often far higher.

Conclusion

Adopt a moderated system and test it. HelpHound will guide you every step of the way and the results will be next to instantaneous - and there's no minimum period or contract.

No more '2 steps forward, one back'

How often do we see this? A business that has fully engaged with reviews only to see its score constantly eroded by factually inaccurate, misleading or just plain unfair reviews?

And, before we look at the solution, let us address two questions head-on...

1. Why does this matter?
2. How do we know the reviews are 'either factually inaccurate, misleading or unfair'?

Do reviews and scores matter?

They most certainly do. Whenever a business is searched online its headline review score is shown. If this score is worse than its competitors it will lose inbounds. 

The higher the score and the better the reviews underlying it, the more inbounds the business will receive through search. Proven (and provable by and for any individual business). a business scoring 4.9 will receive more inbounds than a similar business scoring 4.6. fact.

And - to make a critical point here: we are talking Google reviews. Not Yelp, not Feefo, not Reviews.io, not Trustpilot. None of those review sites' scores or reviews show consistently in search, Google's always do.

How do we - and you - know the (invariably negative (1*)) reviews are either factually inaccurate, misleading or unfair'?

Because we read the responses from the businesses. And those invariably begin along the lines of 'Thank you for taking the time to review us, but...

The review that prompted this response helped no one, not the reviewer, not the prospective clients of the business and certainly not the business itself, with the one-star rating negatively impacting the business's overall score

Now, there would be no issue, aside from both sides airing unresolved opinions, if it weren't for a) the unsettling comments made in the review, even though they may be inaccurate and b) the score attached to such reviews. They are invariably 1*. And Google's algorithm sees that and alters the business's overall score downwards as a result.

The impact

Over time, this results in a great business looking not so great*. With consumers now commonly using businesses' Google scores as a guide and a comparator this puts businesses such as the one in the screenshot above, scoring 4.4, at a distinct disadvantage when compared with a similar business scoring higher.

*There is also the impact of the individual incorrect review: there is a syndrome we in the business call 'the killer review' and every business owes it to itself, its staff and its customers, to do everything it can to avoid them. For an illustration of the impact such a review can have read this article.

Strategies that businesses are currently adopting 

1.  Not inviting reviews at all: a surprising number of businesses, especially those that take compliance with the law seriously (and we recommend all businesses do), have simply adopted a passive stance when it comes to reviews. They don't ask anyone to write a review - anywhere - and they simply respond as and when they recieve a review. 

2.  Asking happy customers to write a review: The business simply asks for a review when they know the customer is likely to rate them 5*.  

3.  Asking all their customers to fill in an e-questionnaire and then only asking those that respond positively to post a review.

4.  Using a moderated system to allow the business and its customers to resolve misunderstandings and errors of fact before the review is published.

Taking route 1 is simply handing a big win to the business's competitors, as well as allowing the business's reviews to paint an inaccurate picture of the business. Too many consumers these days consult reviews - almost always Google reviews - before making first contact, especially where high-value services and professions are concerned, for businesses to carry on down this road.

Routes 2 and 3, although still frequently - and mostly innocently - adopted by businesses, are illegal. The regulators have terms for these two practices: 'cherry-picking' for route 2 and 'gating' for route 3 (for more on this - including the draconian powers of the CMA to land on infringing businesses like the proverbial ton of bricks, please read this article).

And that leaves route 4. Moderation.

This is, currently, and for the foreseeable future, the only safe and compliant way for a business to have its reputation accurately reflected in its reviews (and, yes, we have met perfect businesses, and will undoubtedly continue to do so in future, but unfortunately those perfect businesses don't have 100% perfect customers/clients/patients).

HelpHound clients and regular readers need read no further. For those of you who are first-timers here is a short explanation of moderation. 

Moderation 

There is only one legal and legitimate way, in the UK at least, to ensure that the overwhelming majority of a business's reviews are genuine and factually correct, and it's called moderation. This is how moderation works...

1. The reviewer posts their review
2. The moderator, an entity independent of the business (and a 'real' human being, not AI or other software), reads the review to check that it is - as far as possible - genuine and factually correct
3. If there are doubts: the moderator refers to both the reviewer and/or the business for clarification
4. If needs be: the reviewer is offered the opportunity to edit their review (to correct errors of fact or potentially misleading wording)
5. At any time in this process, the reviewer has the right to publish their review, edited or not

For a full explanation read this article.

Adopt moderation and any well-run CRM-focussed business can expect their Google score to rise, and continue rising until it reaches a point where it begins attracting inbound enquiries in serious volumes. Simply because moderation will result in factually incorrect or potentially misleading 1* reviews being addressed and corrected pre-publication. For concrete results please read this article.

Reviews - the Future

Over a decade in, with Google reviews having been dominant for all that time - and even more dominant today - we still need to remind ourselves, and our readers, that there is still a way to go.

In a line? Businesses that adopt a moderated review management system will thrive, stand-alone and by comparison with their competitors.

First, let us remind ourselves why reviews are so important: 

• they provide an invaluable guide to the quality of service a potential customer can expect from a business*

*There remain naysayers whose opinions of online reviews are, to say the least, negative. We say 'Reviews are not perfect but, with one's radar operating effectively it is possible to winnow out the chaff and read reviews that do make sense and do reflect the overall opinions of the customers of any given business'. We have seen so many instances where well-managed reviews have aided both businesses: to increase their customer base significantly, and consumers: to be reassured enough to contact really vital, and often potentially life-changing/enhancing/saving services (we are talking medical, legal and financial services here, not apparel or electrical goods).

For those who continue to doubt the value of reviews, we ask them to read this....

...and then ask themselves if a review such as this would help someone looking for such a service, and would it help the business attract new, in this case, patients?

But, and this is a big 'but'...

...providing they are genuine opinions of the business under review posted by a genuine customer of that business. 

 

We will mine deeper into this crucial aspect below.

Google reviews - the evolution 

Attempts to monetise reviews by charging the consumer were made around the turn of the century (Angie's List, founded in 1995, was essentially a list of reviewed trades that was sold to home improvers for a fee. It is now a lead-generator renamed Angi). The 'consumer paid-for' model was soon overtaken by review-led sites sold to businesses, either as lead-generators - the likes of Checkatrade and Rated People - or as marketing reinforcement tools - Feefo and Trustpilot and Reviews.io: 'Use us, just look how pleased our customers are.'

But there was one outlier: Google. Google saw reviews as a primary driver of traffic to their search engine. So they made them free. Free for the consumer and free for the business. They also carry far more credibility with consumers than most other review sources - simply by dint of Google knowing so much about the reviewer, down to individual keystrokes.

Some readers will be ahead of the game by now, and they will be asking themselves 'If Google reviews are free, then why should anyone - consumer or business - need to pay?'

And you're absolutely right. In an ideal world no one, be they business or consumer, would need anything more than Google reviews. Need a lawyer? search and read their reviews, need a financial adviser? Ditto - and so on. 

But this is where it gets interesting, and more complicated (bear with us, this is important and can mean the difference between a business succeeding and failing with reviews).

Google reviews are not moderated

 

 

 Above: all it takes to post a Google review: select a star rating and write your opinion. If you are reading this and have never written a Google review we suggest you do so, if only to understand how simple the process is

Anyone who has ever used a Google service, no matter what, can write a Google review. And that's now well over 95% of the population. The days of 'I cannot write a review without signing up to Google' are well and truly behind us; one click, day or night, weekday or weekend, at work or on holiday, sober or not so sober (!), and a Google review can be posted.

This, in the main, explains why the other review sites continue to exist (that and the massive amounts of capital backing they raised before Google entered the market that enabled them to employ salesforces - there is no salesforce behind Google reviews). 

They all, in varying degrees, claim to offer businesses some form of safety net to protect them from harmful negative reviews (and, believe us, a well-constructed negative review, true of not, fair or not, posted to Google will harm a business).

Their offering?  All kinds of dashboards and badges - you've seen them everywhere from business's websites to their advertising and marketing; you barely hear a radio or TV advertisment without the tag-line 'Rated five stars on [insert review site]. But the clincher is often some kind of mechanism that purports to protect the business from 'fake' reviews. So far all so laudable. But a cursory search online will find forums full to overflowing with the likes of...

"My review was removed at the request of [review site's paying business customer]. I queried this and [review site] demanded I provide proof of purchase. I provided them with a copy of my till receipt; [review site] says this needs to have my name on it.  When did you last see a till receipt with the customer's name on it?"

On the face of it: an attempt by the review site to ensure that reviews are the honest and genuinely held opinions of verified consumers. All well and good? Unfortunately not. UK law specifically states that 'no barrier must be placed in the way of a reviewer who wishes to express their opinion'. 

Moderation 

There is only one legal and legitimate way, in the UK at least, to ensure that the overwhelming majority of a business's reviews are genuine and factually correct, and it's called moderation. This is how moderation works...

1. The reviewer posts their review
2. The moderator, an entity independent of the business (and a 'real' human being, not AI or other software), reads the review to check that it is - as far as possible - genuine and factually correct
3. If there are doubts: the moderator refers to both the reviewer and/or the business for clarification
4. If needs be: the reviewer is offered the opportunity to edit their review (to correct errors of fact or potentially misleading wording)
5. At any time in this process, the reviewer has the right to publish their review, edited or not

The only aspect of this process that gives the business under review pause is point 5. They quite understandably identify this as a potential red flag: what proportion of reviewers that initially post factually incorrect, potentially misleading or just plain unfair reviews insist on them being published, uncorrected? Thankfully for all concerned, the answer is a vanishingly small percentage, way under 1. Some time ago we conducted a survey of reviews and these were the results (out of a sample of 1000)...

• Reviews where a moderator needed to contact the reviewer and/or the business under review (aside from simple corrections of spelling/grammar, which are done as standard): 67 - 7%
• Reviews corrected by the reviewer: 53 - 5%
• Reviews not posted live by the reviewer: 10 - 1%
• Reviews posted unedited: 4 - less than 1/2 of one per cent

By now readers will be getting very close to the answer to the question posed at the head of this article: the future of reviews is to make them...

• visible
• credible 
• reliable  

and, above all,

• trustworthy

Our submission is that there is one solution that fulfils all these criteria (and, importantly, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future): moderated Google reviews. It just so happens that this is the solution HelpHound has been managing for our clients for well over ten years now.

Our clients have...

• independently verified and moderated reviews on their own websites...

From this flows: compliance with UK law (the 'Write a review' link beside the score and number of reviews), a great marketing and PR resource and reassurance for those potential clients and other stakeholders visiting the business's website, as well as confirmation that the reviews have been gathered and moderated by an independent entity. Moderation exists to protect the business and future clients who depend on moderated reviews to aid them in their choice and not deflect fairly held negative opinions. If a HelpHound client looks great, they are great

• a significant percentage of those reviews are channelled through to Google using our automated invitation software supported by the business's own CRM function

It is these - both headline score and the individual reviews) that drive the flow of enquiries through from search to the business's door/phone/inbox

What other reasons do we have for predicting that Google reviews will continue to be the best solution? 

• Google's dominance in the search market: currently 92% in the UK, the same in the EU and 87% in the USA. And in every search, Google shows - you guessed it - reviews

• Google's financial stability: reviews are a long-term proposition, so there's no point investing in a review platform that won't be around in ten years (remember Qype? Probably not. Bought for $50 million by Yelp to 'consolidate its presence in UK and EU markets'. Yelp itself then subsequently withdrew from the UK and the EU).

Action to take

Let us assume your business adopts a moderated system to minimise the likelihood of any inaccurate or misleading (or plain unfair) reviews seeing the light of day: it will be able to take the brakes off review gathering altogether (and become compliant with the CMA regulations as it does so). Everyone can either be invited or allowed to write a review*.

* 'Invited or allowed': in order to comply with UK law a business that invites reviews from any of its customers must allow all of its customers to write a review. This does not mean having to invite all your customers to do so; the 'Write a review' button on the business's website makes your review management compliant.

Targets should then be set to achieve critical mass. So what is 'critical mass'? It is a moving target mostly dictated by a combination of common sense and the knowledge of where the business stands, and scores, relative to its competitors. The business in the example above and below has nigh on 500 Google reviews, all but a few copied from the 700 reviews on its own website. This puts them way ahead of their local competitors, both in terms of score and number of reviews...

...and on a par with the business that has paid for the sponsored listing (a full three miles away - a significant distance in London) in terms of the number of reviews and ahead by a meaningful margin on overall score. Both of which are used as key benchmarks by Google users.

From this one can see that a business such as a single branch estate agent, a doctor's surgery or a financial adviser/accountancy practice should be aiming for reviews in the hundreds - currently. We say 'currently' because in the next five years, those numbers will certainly be elevated into four figures. 

Achieving those numbers

Our detailed advice is here; it is summary of everything we have learned in well over ten years of monitoring our client's strategies and subsequent experience. To sum this up: aim to achieve a review to your own website from half of your customers contacts, and then get 50% of those on to Google. 

So - the Future...

Those businesses that adopt a moderated review management strategy...

• will be able to relax in the knowledge that  the 'fear factor' that prevents so many businesses from engaging is being addressed in the most effective way possible: by being moderated

• will certainly see an uplift in enquiries, both through their websites and through Google

• will save significant sums compared with less effective review solutions, especially review sites

• will outperform their competitors that lack moderated review management in terms of their Google score (consumers increasingly use Google scores to winnow out good businesses, a business that scores 4.9 will receive more enquiries than one scoring 4.6)

• will be completely future-proof: the business owns the reviews, not HelpHound or a review site, so, if something unpredictable comes to pass (see Qype and Yelp above) the business still has all its reviews to dispose of as it sees fit

And finally: what will it cost? Our aim is to be seen as a profit centre, and we achieve that for all our clients who follow the advice contained in the articles above (and even for the odd one that doesn't!). The details are here along with our guarantee of success.