1-2-3 Star Reviews - Are you Gating or Filtering them... STOP!

Here is a quick Public Service Anouncement... BEEEEEEEPPPPPP......

If you are currently using a service that "gates or filters" reviews I ask you to please STOP. You are not only putting your Google My Business Page in danger but don't give your States Regulation and Licensing Board and excuse to play with your license due to poor marketing practices when it comes to how you deal with your patients.

Google has updated their guidelines and announced Gating Google Reviews is against their TOS since April 12th 2018.

So, what is review-gating? 

Review-gating is the process of filtering patients/clients before asking them to leave you a review. Most of these software and services will call this initial step - getting their "feedback." Next steps are if they leave a positive review they are then asked to take the next step and leave the same "review" on another directory such as Google or Facebook or Yelp. IF they leave a negative "review" they are sent to a private page and NOT offered the ability to leave that review online.

Most practices and other businesses have loved this feature because they are overly concerned that negative reviews affect their practice and love to FILL the feeds with 5-Star Review.

Well, that process is against the TOS of Google. Now sit back and watch as ALL other directories beging to follow suit.

At Five Star Practices, we have been implementing and preaching NO GATING and NO FILTERING of reviews. Our company was ahead of the curve by getting ready for the coming ISO 20488.

Google update is not a surprise since they are following the ISO guidelines and the FTC rules.

Here is an extract of the updated Guidelines:

• "In addition to Prohibited Content guidelines, Text Reviews are subject to the following additional requirements:
• Don’t use reviews for advertising purposes. This includes, but is not limited to, posting email addresses, phone numbers, social media links, or links to other websites in your reviews.
• Don’t discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.
• Don’t include promotional or commercial content.
• Don’t offer or accept money in exchange for reviews.
• Don’t solicit reviews from customers in bulk."

Here is a direct link to the changes on Google: https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7411351?hl=en&ref_topic=7422769