Google has rolled out a new feature for Google My Business reviews. When a user clicks “Write a Review”, Google is presenting the user with an option to answer the following question, “Did you use this business?”
If you select Yes, you are presented with a series of service attributes to select from. Google also offers the option to select “service not listed”. The feature is category-dependent and currently, we’re seeing it for plumbers, water damage, locksmiths, roofers, and other service businesses that typically see their customers at the service location. This was rolled out across the globe as I was able to trigger it in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S. This feature is not available for typical brick and mortar businesses that consumers visit like, dentists, lawyers, grocery stores, doctors.
It remains to be seen how Google will use this data to moving forward. Google has received a lot of complaints about star-only ratings since they implemented that feature. Many business owners have wanted Google to remove star-only ratings and require users to post text with the review. Hopefully, this will trigger users to write an actual review with text – and could complement the review attributes some categories have started to see. I attempted to post a review to see what the email notification would look like. While the review has posted, it has yet to appear in the business’ GMB dashboard. This could be indicative of a separate, larger issue at play, as we have started to see an increase in users mentioning that they are not receiving reviews from the customers.
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