Customers Without a Google+ Profile to Review From

The review that never appears

A customer thanks you after a job and promises a Google review that evening. A week later your listing shows nothing new.

She did try. She followed your link, pressed the button to write a review, and was asked to create a Google+ profile first.

Google publishes every review under the reviewer's Google+ profile, so nobody can skip that step. Plenty of people glad to praise a plumber or a driver will not join a social network to do it.

Few of them explain. They feel they have let you down, so the hurdle looks like indifference.

What the customer sees after the link

Someone with no Google account is first asked to create one, with a password and personal details.

Someone with a Gmail address but no Google+ profile is asked to join Google+. The review then appears under that profile's name, and readers of your listing can click through to it.

Owners rarely see any of this. Already signed in to Google+, they test their own link and the review box opens straight away.

On a phone each step is another screen, and a customer who started in the parking lot often gives up before the box appears.

Why many people stop there

Very few refuse the review itself. They refuse what comes attached to it:

• Another account to create, remember and secure, for one review.
• A public profile under their name, which colleagues and strangers can find.
• A social network they have decided not to join, often for good reasons.
• A visible record of the businesses they use, collected on that profile.
• Privacy about the purchase, which matters more for some services than others.
• Too many screens on a phone, with no sign of how many remain.

The fifth is the one owners overlook. A client who hired a car for an anniversary, or a contractor for a damp basement, may not want either fact beside their name.

Pushing them backfires

A second reminder reads like a debt being collected. Customers who meant well start avoiding your emails, because each one recalls a promise they could not keep.

Some give in and create a profile just for you. A brand new profile with one review and no photograph resembles the accounts spammers create, and Google's filters may hold or remove its review.

Helping them through it on your shop's tablet adds another problem: reviews posted over the business's own connection look as if the business wrote them.

And never type the review for them or post it from an account you control. That is a fake review, however true the words.

A worked example

A chauffeur service in the suburbs runs five cars for weddings, airport runs and corporate clients. The owner handed every happy client a card asking for a Google review.

Many promised and few reviews appeared. A regular airport client explained that the link wanted a Google+ profile, and she had stopped there.

Corporate clients said the same, more bluntly. Discretion is part of what they pay a chauffeur for, and a public review under their own name would undo it.

The card now offers two routes: a Google review for clients who already use Google+, or a sentence or two in reply to the thank-you email.

Replies appear on the website's testimonials page with each client's permission, under a first name and the occasion, or the occasion alone for clients who prefer it.

The reminders stopped. Clients choose the route that suits them, and their words reach the people deciding whether to book.

Their words on your own website

A short quote on your website does much of what a review does: a visitor deciding whether to call reads what someone in their position experienced.

Keep each quote as written, trimmed only for length, with a first name, the kind of job and the month. Dates show the praise is current.

Record each permission: what was approved, where it may appear and when. People change their minds, and a record makes that request simple to honour.

A question people answer

A request for a review asks for a task. Asking what they would tell a friend thinking of hiring you asks for an opinion, which most people give freely.

Send that question in a plain thank-you email a day or two after the job, from a person, not a no-reply address. The answer arrives ready to quote once you have permission.

A comment card left with the invoice does the same for customers who prefer paper. And customers who use Facebook every day have an easier route still: they can rate your Page without creating anything new.

Google reviews from those who can

None of this means giving up on Google reviews. They show beside your listing in search results and on the map, where many customers first see you.

Ask the customers who already use Google+, and ask once, with a link straight to your listing. A single request leaves the choice with them.

Reviews from established profiles, arriving one at a time over months, look like what they are: ordinary customers with something to say.

The counter-case

For some businesses the hurdle is small. A cafe near a campus may find most customers already have Google+ profiles and review without trouble.

In some trades Google reviews weigh more with new customers than anything else, and there a clear request with a direct link is worth making.

But a customer who will not create a profile still wanted to help. A second way to say so keeps their goodwill and their words.

Two routes for every customer

1. Try your review link signed out, on a phone.
2. Count the screens before the review box appears.
3. Ask for Google reviews only where Google+ is already in use.
4. Ask once, and send no reminders.
5. Offer a reply to the thank-you email instead.
6. Quote replies on your website with permission.
7. Record each permission with its date and scope.

Step one puts you in the customer's place. Signed in to your own accounts, you never meet the profile screen, so the problem stays invisible until someone tries the link fresh.

Taking a quote down everywhere, should a customer later withdraw permission, is covered in a customer who asks to have their testimonial removed.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.