My wife and I are the owners of Local Locksmith in Queen Creek, Arizona. I’d like to share our experience with a 1 star review and how we were finally able to dilute it get back to a 5.0 rating.
Like many of you, I am a member of many different Facebook groups. One of the most frustrating posts that I have seen in those groups is when a business owner complains about getting a 1 star Google review from a dissatisfied customer. We too have had that happen to our locksmithing business and it appears that I have figured out the magic number of 5 star reviews that it takes to get our business review ranking to 5 stars and a 5.0 rating.
Back in 2016 we moved from Arizona to Louisiana and put our business on hiatus. Apparently, a scammer company used our business name, Local Locksmith, in a Google ad and as usual, upset a customer. Thinking that the scammer business was us, the customer posted a 1 star review against our business. In fact, the upset customer created 2 fictitious Google accounts and posted a 1 star review from one account and a 1 star rating from the other. The 1 star review explained why they were upset by the company using our name.
We contacted Google and were told that since the reviews do not violate the nature of their review system, they would not removeeither the rating or the review. Google did suggest that we respond to the negative review and encouraged us to get more 5 star reviews to dilute the 1 star review. We responded to the 1 star review and flagged the 1 star rating. Flagging the 1 star rating countless times it was finally removed about a year and a half later. However, the 1 star review remained.
We relocated back to Arizona in 2017 and restarted our locksmithing business. Over the next 3 and a half years, we encouraged customers to leave us reviews by texting them a link to our review page after we completed their service (here’s a link to the instructions for creating a review link). Over a three and a half year period we were able to get 162 5 star and 1 four star review (the 4 star was because the customer hit the wrong star rating). This got us a 5 star rating but a cumulative 4.9 rating on Google.
Today I noticed that we finally were able to get our cumulative 5.0 rating back. All it took was 162 5 star reviews and ratings. So it appears that the magic number for diluting a single 1 star review is 162 5 star reviews. I thought that I would also share a few tips when working with Google reviews.
Tips for Using and Getting Google Reviews
- Always text a review link to your satisfied customers immediately after you complete a job.
- Respond to each person that left a review making certain that you personalize the response by naming the customer and including some details of the job.
- Respond in detail to any 1 star reviews and offer to make things right in the response.
- Promote some 5 star reviews on your social media pages.
- Avoid encouraging other out of state locksmiths or friends to leave 5 star reviews as Google can track the source of the reviews and may consider it fraudulent.
- Never buy reviews as this is against Google’s policies.
- Most importantly, do a good job and give your customers the kind of service that they expect so that they will leave a 5 star review.
Well there you have it. Good luck and by following the above procedures you too should be able to dilute a 1 star reviews.
…Steve…