If positive Google Reviews are indirectly linked to better ranking of your Google Business Profile in the Google Maps results, how do you go about asking for reviews that tend more to the positive without falling afoul of Google’s policies?
Following the “rules” that follow, I’ve got a video showing how to automate your Google Review requests, and slant them to being more positive than negative.
Table of Contents
Google’s rules on “Review Gating”
If you’ve heard of “Review Gating” (the practice of filtering customers so only those likely to leave a positive review are asked), that is still not allowed. There was a temporary removal of “Discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively soliciting positive reviews from customers” from Google’s policies, but it is back in there now.
Having a “feedback for continued improvement” mentality in your business will lead to more positive Google Reviews
So if you’re wondering about how to make sure you’re getting more positive Google Reviews (without worrying about getting too many negative ones at the same time), I guess the bigger picture question is, “What are you doing to make sure you’re more likely to get positive Google Reviews?”
The answer is to always be asking customers about their experience and using that feedback to continually improve the way you do business.
It is the feedback part of it, and how it is implemented that lets you get around that Google policy in a compliant way to get more positive Google Reviews, i.e. ask for feedback but still make sure even the customers that had a negative experience know they can leave a Google Review.
After that, it’s a numbers game:
- Those that have a positive user experience are more likely to leave a positive Google Review if asked.
- Those that had a negative experience may give you a chance to fix a negative experience before leaving a negative Google Review, if you are proactive in seeking feedback.
- Some people expect too much, can’t be satisfied even when you go above and beyond, and will leave a negative review regardless (and this is why you need to be asking for reviews so they are not slanted to this minority).
And if your receive negative reviews, make sure that you address them – either in attempting to resolve the issue behind it, if unreasonable highlighting how you attempted to keep the customer happy, or if not a legitimate review calling them out as not being a previous customer (before requesting Google to remove it).
Automating The Google Review Process
Good internal processes can ensure customers are asked to leave feedback/reviews, but the reality is most businesses do not follow through on this.
The good news is that it can be easily automated. The following video shows two ways to do an automation – one that gives a direct link to leave a Google Review, and another that incorporates a feedback step first.
Add Google Review Request Automation in Your Business
FocalContact is a complete CRM, marketing and automation platform hat will let you auomate your Google review requests and a whole lot more – find out more here, or get it as part of our R4 Marketing bundles.