Actively engaging your customers in the review process and management of that process has its own sets of concerns. This is particularly true if you are too focused on certain areas of the process rather than others.

Take this simple quiz to see what your Review Management Stress levels are and to measure where you are on the Review Management Stress Scale (RMSS):

Did your reviews get reduced by more than 20% of the total by the new Google review filters?

Are you asking questions like: Why is this happening to me? Doesn’t Google care?

Did (or does) your listing have 100% or more reviews than your nearest competitor on Google?

Does your “More Reviews” section on Google show less than four review sites?

Do your clients often complain that their reviews are not showing at Google?

Have you thought: I should focus my review efforts on Yelp instead?

Are you handing users an iPad or directing them to an onsite workstation?

Are you sending out more than 20 emails a week requesting reviews at Google?

Are your following up only with happy customers and not every customer to ask them to leave reviews?

Scoring. Add 1 point for each yes answer.

What your score means…

If you scored between 1-3: You seem to be on the right track. You have a caring relationship with your customers, a thoughtful approach to the review sites and an awareness of how reviews across the whole internet improve your standing on all fronts.

If you scored between 4-6: There is room for improvement here. You seem to be trying a bit too hard and focusing too closely on a single review source. Either the review sites or your clients are not responding in the best possible way for your long term success. But you are doing some things right.

If you scored between 7-9: – Dude! Take a chill pill. You are driving your customers AND the review sites crazy. And worse you are driving yourself and your staff crazy. You are putting way to much emphasis on a single review site and expecting way too much from the process. This path is doomed to failure with your employees, the review sites, the search engines and most importantly your customers.

Ok. I admit it. The RMSS is a mere fabrication of a mind with too much time on its hands. It has no statistical validity. And the survey is somewhat tongue in cheek. It was inspired by the drivel that passes for content at Cosmopolitan magazine. But even on those surveys, there is often a grain of truth. Likewise with my survey.

Each question reflects a possible negative outcome of a review program if you answered yes. Each offers you an opportunity to refine your review process to help your organization project itself positively into the local ecosystem both online and off. More importantly the questions should lead to reflection that can improve your mental health. And if you can get into the spirit of it, less stress. Remember “Stressed” is “Desserts” spelled backwards.

Let’s go over the questions one by one.

Did your reviews get reduced by more than 20% of the total by the new Google review filters?
Google wants solid review content from trustworthy reviewers. If more than 20% of your reviews were taken down in the past 6 months either your methodology is too aggressive or you are asking the wrong people to leave reviews.

Are you asking questions like: Why is this happening to me? Doesn’t Google care?
There is absolutely nothing personal about the review take downs. Google perceives their long terms interests as being most achievable by removing the cruft and if they remove some good reviews in the process so be it. This is their call. And if you are asking these sorts of questions 1)you are driving yourself crazy and 2)you are focusing on the wrong things.

Did (or does) your listing have 100% or more reviews than your nearest competitor on Google?
If you are focusing all of your efforts on Google your review count was (and probably is no longer) way ahead of most in your industry. Google isn’t stupid. If you have a ton of reviews at Google and no place else you, are clearly soliciting reviews and Google’s spam review algo will catch more rather than less of these. If I can see it, you can see it and Google can see it, do you think that clients can’t see it? They too know you are cooking the books.

Does your “More Reviews” section on Google show less than four review sites?
You want to max out the display of review sites that Google shows about your business on their front page. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly it indicates that you are giving your customers a lot of choices as to where to leave reviews. Secondly it increases the likelihood of gaining clients from the other sources. Last but not least, it would seem that Google (at least in their patent language) favors more 3rd part reviews rather than less as a ranking factor.

Do your clients often complain that their reviews are not showing at Google?
This is a failure on your part in two ways. You shouldn’t be sending all of your customers to one review site and when you do send them someplace, you should send them informed.

Customers should have a choice as to where to leave reviews. They will choose based on their comfort level. If you advise them upfront that Google and Yelp might bury their reviews if they are not active users of those services then they can make an informed choice and not blame you for either’s policies. And remember a single review at CitySearch is infinitely more valuable than 10 reviews that don’t show at Google and/or Yelp.

Have you thought: I should focus my review efforts on Yelp instead?
Right, this thought proves your mental state to be less than stable. You will get a fraction of the exposure and twice the grief with Yelp. Yelp should be in your review management plan but remember: Yelp is for Yelpers. Sending anyone else there is an act of pure futility. And selecting Yelp as an alternative to Google is going from the mental frying pan into the fire.

Are you handing users an iPad or directing them to an onsite workstation?
More & faster is not better with reviews. In fact very slow and very steady is best. With an onsite review station you run the risk of violating your client’s trust and having Google take your reviews down. There are a few limited situations where this might make sense but certainly not in most businesses and not in most offices. You are trying too hard and it will lead to both your and your client’s frustration.

Are you sending out more than 20 emails a week requesting reviews at Google?
Google doesn’t seem to take reviews down strictly because they were solicited by email. The algo is likely more sophisticated than that. However your foot print will be way too obvious if you are asking for reviews in bulk. 1)you will be getting too many reviews in too short of a time and 2)the reviewers are not likely to be ones that Google already trusts. The simple change of giving the users 4 or 5 places to leave reviews with reasons why they might pick one over the other would quickly solve the problem.

Another alternative would be to just hand a piece of paper with the same instructions. Remember you don’t need a million reviews to stand out, you need as many as is typical of your industry and they need to reflect positively on you.

Email review solicitation can work but it is important that you give clients lots of choices, that the process engenders reviews elsewhere and that the emails are spread out over time and not bunched heavily.

Are your following up only with happy customers and not every customer to ask them to leave reviews?
At the end of the day the purpose of reviews is to inform other potential customers about your services. The process of asking for reviews can and should be used to improve your services. If you are running your business well then giving voice to every customers that is willing to speak out is the best way to build a predominantly positive review corpus, gain an understanding of what needs to be improved and finding future customers that are right for you.

My conclusion?

If any process deserves a zen like approach it is the review management process. Slow is better than fast, fewer might be better than more, reviews on lesser sites might be better than reviews on more prominent sites. The review process shouldn’t drive you crazy, frustrate your clients and trigger spam filters. If your process is doing that rather than musing on how Google is out to get you, change what you are doing.

Sometimes “going with the flow” rather than fighting it will improve the outcomes and that it particularly true with customer reviews.