Our client was struggling to get local leads, and had somehow managed to pick up a single 1 star Google rating. We literally put them on the map and set up systems that turned the 1 out of 5 into a 4.5 out of 5.

A listing on Google Maps may well be the future of being found on the Google Platform. It is prioritized on mobile devices where location can be very easily determined. Google are looking to give information regarding businesses that are closest to the user.

Is it a great system- not really, but Google are in charge here so we are stuck with it.

Google love ways that they can get feed back from users on how good a business is. They can only tell so much from a website, and they don’t have access to social media information on platforms such as Facebook. So they have their own system, called Google My Business, which allows someone to have a business profile, and part of that profile is that your clients can leave reviews about your business- good or bad.

This is great if you are in control of that process, but you are not- the only person who can change or remove an unfair rating is the person who posted it.

Which is exactly what happened to our client. They did a search of their own business and found that they had a 1 star rating based on one review. So they came to us for help.

First of all, having an unclaimed automated listing is dangerous for your business. It is possible for someone to hijack your listing and claim to own your business. This will cause many problems for you in the future.

So before we could do anything to fix the bad rating we first had to get control of the listing for our client. Then we could build a professional looking listing, making it look more attractive to Google.

Like their other search platforms, Google rank the listings, not just according to proximity, but also ratings, and the quality of the information. So it is important that all the information is provided in a professional manner.

Once this was done we could address the bad rating.

There is nothing you can do to remove the rating- you can’t appeal to Google, even if it is clear the rating is bogus (unless Google deem the whole account to be malicious and false). Basically, good luck with that.

The only thing you can ever do with a bad rating is bury it in good ratings. Here’s the solid truth about people rating and reviewing a business. People who are not happy will crawl over broken glass to leave comments and reviews. People who are happy won’t. So if you leave your review system to its own devices you will get terrible reviews. This isn’t going to be a fair reflection of your business- its going to put off potential clients and its going to make you feel bad about what you are doing.

And you can’t fake this reviews, Google are very, very good at detecting this kind of thing and punish it severely. As with all things Google its best not to try and fight the system, and put in the effort rather than trying to find short cuts.

You have to be proactive about getting reviews and you have to be willing to accept the odd negative review. No business is 100%, and you should be suspicious of any business who claim they are. But, if you actively chase reviews from all clients negative reviews will look like incorrect outliers.

Its no good just asking someone to leave a review- its our experience that if you casually ask someone to do it, say as you finish a transaction they will say they will do it but there is an effort involved, and they forget.

So we developed a system and implemented it for our client. It was simple to use, so our client would be likely to use it long term, and it made leaving a review super easy for their clients. It was a simple template system that only required three pieces of information entering into it and it automatically generated an email or Whatsapp message that would be sent out asking the person to leave a review. Most importantly, it contained a link that took them directly to the review page on Google.

A simple system for our client to use so they were more likely to keep it up. A simple, quick way for their clients to leave reviews.

They immediately targeted recent clients (it wasn’t a business that generated a large number of clients per month- a few clients spending larger sums) and have kept up the effort. This has seen their 1 out of 5 become a 4.7, and they now look like a legit, professional business you want to give your money to.

We helped this business become better, what can we do for yours?