Buying Google reviews will hurt your business more than it will help

We get it; earning reviews for your company is hard. Earning good reviews is even harder, especially when it’s more common for a customer to leave a bad review than a good one. 

As tempting as buying Google reviews might sound, don’t do it. Here’s why it’s not a good idea:

Getting reviews from clients and businesses might seem simple enough, but it’s more challenging than you think. You might assume any review is good for business, but one negative review has the potential to harm your company and its future forever. 

It’s important to think and plan rationally about what you are presenting to your audience and what you hope your audience will take from it. Customer reviews are there to establish and increase authenticity of your business. You need to allow the client to find their voice within your company and share it with others to attract traffic on your website. 

You don’t need formal research to show that more people are shopping online every day due to COVID-19. 

Right now, more than 25% of consumers are buying products online, and 43% of consumers say they plan on transitioning to online shopping if the coronavirus continues. With this recent transition, people are more reliant on reviews from others to help make their purchasing decisions.

When it comes to leaving reviews, “it’s not me; it’s you” is only half true. In their own ways, both parties are at fault when it comes to the downfall of the feedback loop. Reviews are important to the customer so they can express themselves and to the business so they can improve themselves. So why aren’t reviews provided more often? What causes these invisible barriers? 

Encouraging, collecting, and sometimes requesting reviews from your patrons is a regular part of the business, but is it actually hurting your business? According to Yelp, it could be.