Offering Incentives for Google Reviews

[jdwright10]

Does anyone know whether it's ok for a company to offer incentives to its customers to write reviews on Google? I know that Yelp specifically forbids it, but Google's policy says "don’t offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business". So since they say "positive", is it ok to offer incentives for simply writing a "review", good or bad?

Thanks,
Jason

[blu42media]

It's my understanding that the overall spirit of the guideline is to limit or prevent influencing the reviews.  We all know it happens anyway, but we should keep it reasonable.

I think of it this way: if you were looking for a safe car seat for you child would you want other parents' perspectives on this or just reviews from the company's SEO?

Google certainly does change things from time to time - I wouldn't want to thread the needle to closely on this one.

[EvolveCreative]

It's unethical to offer an incentive regardless. Try thinking of some creative ways to get reviews on-the-spot. A mobile website, passing around an Ipad, a 'review station' with laptop.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

You know, this is such a good question and one worthy of debate, specifically due to Google's own behaviour about this.

Back in 2009, the FTC rewrote its guidelines governing endorsements:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

Read them for yourself, but my personal interpretation of the guidelines is that if any type of money, gifts, etc. change hands, that is supposed to be made clear in any type of endorsement.

In 2010, Google included this line in their review guidelines:

do not accept reviews written for money or other incentives

Now, despite this, Google has repeatedly appeared to be guilty of violating their own policy. Here is a good article on this from Matt McGee from last July:http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/google-yelp-and-why-review-counts-are-meaningless/4565/I'll excerpt from this article here:

In one sentence: Google is incentivizing reviews at almost spam-like levels. Consider a recent event that Google hosted in Portland:

On June 6th, Google and a local arcade called Ground Kontrol announced a “special party” with free “food, drink and prizes provided by Google Places.”

This is important: The event was scheduled for June 22 — just 16 days after it was announced.

So, how did you get an invitation to this special party? Here’s how the announcement explains it:

The first 100 people who have at least 50 reviews of businesses on Places by 5pm PST on June 19th will get an invitation to our Game On! party for a free night of arcade games, with food and drink on Google Places.

In other words: If you review 50 businesses within 13 days, you get an invite to the party! You basically have to spam Google Places with reviews to meet that requirement, unless you’re some kind of Herculean local business shopper/visitor/reviewer!

But wait, there’s more! If you managed to go beyond 50 reviews in less than two weeks, you got extra prizes:

* 50+ reviews will grant you unlimited game play, appetizers, and 1 drink on Google.
* 100+ reviews will grant you unlimited game play, appetizers, up to 2 drinks on Google and a t-shirt.
* 200+ reviews will grant you unlimited game play, appetizers, up to 2 drinks on Google, a t-shirt, and a $15 gift certificate to Ground Kontrol (for future use).

Did it work? Well, Google wrote about the event on its own blog afterward, and said that 10 people reached the 200-review mark and got those extra bonuses listed above.

And, here is a really excellent writeup by Nyagoslav Zhekov on this topic from this month:http://www.ngsmarketing.com/promotions-and-contests-on-google-placesgle-places/To some Local SEOs, Google's promotions seem like policy violations. But, as others have pointed out, so long as the promotion does not require POSITIVE reviews, then it is in accord with the guidelines. You have to make up your own mind about this...there is definitely some grey area.Worthy of thought about all of this, though, is whether Google's policies and promotions are within the FTC guidelines. Do the reviews that come in say, "I got to go to a party because I left this review"? Not likely. So, disclosure isn't really happening. I'm not a lawyer, and chances are, few things will ever end up in a court of law, but I do see some potential problems.It's worth discussing, and it's worth thinking hard about what you think is right for your business. I don't have an easy answer to this question. But I do hope the resources I've linked to will help you feel informed about the many sides to this issue.

[jdwright10]

All these are really good points. It's really left me somewhat confused. I worked with a lot of service companies that do work in people's homes. They have voiced their frustration to me about not being able to get people to go online to leave a review for them.

It's difficult to get offline customers, especially people who may not be as computer savvy to go online and write a review. Offering them an incentive seems like the only way they're ever going to make the effort.

@Todd - I know that Google allows a "review station", but my thought on that is, how many people are going to leave a negative review right there in front of you as you hand them an ipad? Is that not creating a situation for a biased review?

I totally understand that the reviews should be unbiased and able to be relied on by others, but at the same time, my dilemma is how do we motivate customers who otherwise would never leave a review online, to do so?

[EvolveCreative]

You wouldn't stand over them as you hand them the iPad. Just like a server wouldn't stand over you and watch you write in a tip. Bring out the check with an iPad and walk away.

It's either that - or offer an incentive. Which do you think is worse?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

Here are a few articles about this topic that you might like to read:

http://searchengineland.com/5-tips-to-get-more-online-customer-reviews-92311

http://www.reviewpro.com/encourage-online-guest-reviews-2313

The advice in these is pretty much common sense, but I do think the suggestions of follow up emails, thank you cards, etc., are good ones. The best thing is when you've got repeat customers who you form a really friendly relationship with...this makes it much easier to ask for a review. For carpet cleaning companies and the like who service a customer a couple of times a year or more, a relationship can be forged which will lead to a genuine review. Also, if you manage to really wow even a one-time customer (if you solve a really tough problem for them, for example) that is a great time to mention how much a review would help you let other know how you can help them.

To date, I've never seen anyone come up with some astounding, earth shattering method for this. It tends to be more along the lines of a common sense, communicative process with your satisfied customers.